Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many safeguarding referrals have been made from each (a) young offender institution and (b) secure training centre for people aged 18 or over in each of the last five years.

The data requested are set out in the following tables:

Young Offender Institutions

Secure Training Centres

Notes

1. The symbol * is used for suppressed values of 5 or fewer, to prevent disclosure in accordance with data protection principles. Zero figures are not suppressed.

2. Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre closed in December 2021.

3. Please note that the above is classed as internal management information.

4. Following Urgent Notification at Oakhill Secure Training Centre in October 2021, safeguarding data recording processes were reviewed and central collation of this data was ceased for the period of October - December 2021. Safeguarding processes were maintained locally for the period and following revision, central data collation recommenced in January 2022.

When a safeguarding case is opened, the detail of the case may not be known. We conduct a thorough investigation of every case to understand the details and the severity of the concern and ensure that any necessary actions are taken to protect the children in our custody. It is not the case that an increase in safeguarding cases should always be a matter of concern: this would be dependent on the nature of the case. An increased number of cases may represent increased confidence on the part of staff in reporting concerns or may indicate that children feel safe to disclose information to staff. It is by conducting a thorough investigation that we can understand the nature of each case and identify any trends that need to be addressed.