Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, to whom the National Panel on Serious Case Reviews is accountable; and what the terms of reference of that Panel are.

The members of national panel of independent experts on Serious Case Reviews (SCR) were appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and are ultimately accountable to him, though they operate independently.

The role of the panel is set out in ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children (2013)' as follows:

“The role of the panel will be to support Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCB) in ensuring that appropriate action is taken to learn from serious incidents in all cases where the statutory criteria are met and to ensure that those lessons are shared through publication of final SCR reports. The panel will also report to the Government their views of how the SCR system is working”.

The panel's remit will include advising LSCBs about:
1. application of the SCR criteria;

2. appointment of reviewers; and

3. publication of SCR reports.