Single Core Data Set
IICSA · The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · Issued 20 October 2022 · Addressed to: UK Government
Government responseUK Government: Accepted in part (May 2023)
DeliveryHome Office says in progress (Jan 2026)UK Government says in progress (Apr 2025)
Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, K.1
The Inquiry recommends that the UK government and the Welsh Government improve data collected by children's social care and criminal justice agencies concerning child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation by the introduction of one single core data set covering both England and Wales. In order to facilitate this, these agencies should produce consistent and compatible data about child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation which includes: the characteristics of victims and alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse, including age, sex and ethnicity; factors that make victims more vulnerable to child sexual abuse or exploitation; and the settings and contexts in which child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation occur. Data concerning child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation should be compiled and published on a regular basis. This should be capable of being collated nationally as well as at regional or local levels.
IICSA, The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · 20 Oct 2022 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
AI-generated evidence summary
In January 2026, Jess Phillips, Minister, answering for the Home Office, stated that work remained in progress, reporting that the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill was passing through Parliament to introduce a new information sharing duty and consistent child identifier (Jess Phillips, Jan 2026). Previously, HM Government announced in April 2025 that updated survey data on adult experiences of child sexual abuse would be published by December 2025 (Home Office, Apr 2025). In its May 2023 response, it had accepted the recommendation in principle and pledged further improvements to police performance data (Home Office response, May 2023).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.
Government response
●UK Government · Accepted in part · 22 May 2023
We accept that robust data collection on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse is critical to underpin and drive a more effective response to child sexual abuse. We have made a number of improvements in data collection and will additionally be driving further improvements to police performance data.
Extract from: Government response to the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
Delivery
●Home Office says in progress · 21 Jan 2026
The Government is taking a range of steps to improve the consistency of data collection and sharing related to child sexual abuse. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, currently passing through Parliament, will introduce a new information sharing duty and a consistent identifier for children to improve opportunities for agencies to better share their information about children at risk of child sexual abuse. The Government also continues to support the independent Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse which, through it’s Trends in Official Data report and Data Insights Hub brings together local and national data on the prevalence, identification and response to child sexual abuse.
●UK Government says in progress · 9 Apr 2025
The Government will take the following steps in response: By December 2025, the latest data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) module on adults’ experiences of sexual abuse as a child, will be published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), providing an updated estimate on how many adults had experienced CSA before the age of 18.
From: Tackling child sexual abuse: progress update (accessible version)
How this page is built
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