Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions assaults requiring hospital treatment have occurred at Oakhill Secure Training Centre in each year since 2010.

The safety of young people in our care is our priority.

The table below provides a breakdown of the number of the number of serious injuries (requiring hospital treatment) to young people placed at Oakhill STC, as the result of an assault from 2010 to 2017.

These figures are a further breakdown of published data.

Table 1: The number of serious injuries (requiring hospital treatment) to young people placed at Oakhill STC, as the result of an assault, 2010 to 2017(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)

(1) Data is presented by calendar year.

(2) This data includes all serious injuries to children and young people requiring hospital treatment and may therefore include the perpetrator as well as the victim.

(3) In April 2016 there were some small changes to the counting rules for proven assault incidents requiring medical treatment. The full impact of these counting rules changes is not known, but it is likely to be small. However care should be taken when comparing the number of incidents requiring medical treatment figures since 2016/17 with those from 2015/16 or before. See A Guide to Youth Justice Statistics for more information.

(4) Data for 2017 includes January to March 2017 only.

(5) This data is a count of serious injury (requiring hospital treatment) to young people only and does not include staff or to others.

Please note that this is not the distinct number of children and young people as a single child or young person may be involved in more than one incident which involved an injury. Due to the way the data are collected we are unable to identify the number of distinct children and young people who are injured as a result of an assault. If more than one injury occurs during an incident, the most serious injury will be recorded.

This data includes any 18 year olds who remain in the under 18 secure estate.

Data on assaults are collected via summary level monthly returns. The data provided in this response has been derived from bespoke returns submitted to the Youth Justice Board by establishments. Data received from the establishments through monthly returns is validated through a reconciliation process on an annual basis.

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing and can be subject to change over time.