Source · Children's services
Serious incident notification counts
Annual DfE counts of serious incident notifications made to Ofsted by local authority children's services, with one figure per authority per year.
1,215 local authority records
357 notifications, England (year ending March 2026)
160 child deaths, England (year ending March 2026)
188 serious harm, England (year ending March 2026)
Records 1,215 local authority records
Each record is a count only. There is no incident record behind it: no date, no outcome and no link to any review that followed. Suppressed entries mean DfE withheld a low count, not zero.
Barnet
Barnsley
Bath and North East Somerset
Bedford
Bexley
Birmingham
Blackburn with Darwen
Blackpool
Bolton
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
Bracknell Forest
Bradford
Brent
Brighton and Hove
Bristol, City of
Bromley
Buckinghamshire
Bury
Calderdale
Cambridgeshire
Camden
Central Bedfordshire
Cheshire East
Cheshire West and Chester
City of London
Cornwall
County Durham
Coventry
Croydon
Cumberland
Darlington
Derby
Derbyshire
Devon
Doncaster
Dorset
Dudley
Ealing
East Riding of Yorkshire
East Sussex
Enfield
Essex
Gateshead
Gloucestershire
Greenwich
Hackney
Halton
Hammersmith and Fulham
Hampshire
The ten national breakdowns the publication carries (age group, ethnicity, gender, sex, disability, placement type, looked-after status, child protection plan, child in need plan, and whether the child was known to any agency) are held alongside these counts. They are published at national level only, and DfE's suppression of small counts is preserved rather than filled in.
Notifications in England by year ending March National series
DfE publishes the child death and serious harm split from 2019 onwards, and at national level only. These categories are shown alongside the total, not added to it.
Read chart figures as a table
| Year ending March | Notifications | Child deaths | Serious harm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 385 | Not published | Not published |
| 2016 | 379 | Not published | Not published |
| 2017 | 433 | Not published | Not published |
| 2018 | 384 | Not published | Not published |
| 2019 | 498 | 227 | 236 |
| 2020 | 449 | 188 | 253 |
| 2021 | 536 | 223 | 284 |
| 2022 | 442 | 191 | 227 |
| 2023 | 456 | 201 | 244 |
| 2024 | 405 | 205 | 180 |
| 2025 | 338 | 162 | 167 |
| 2026 | 357 | 160 | 188 |
By region Year ending March 2026, rounded to the nearest 10
| Region | Notifications |
|---|---|
| London | 70 |
| North West | 60 |
| South East | 40 |
| South West | 40 |
| Outer London | 40 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 40 |
| East of England | 30 |
| East Midlands | 30 |
| West Midlands | 30 |
| North East | 30 |
| Inner London | 20 |
Inner London and Outer London are the two parts of London, listed separately as DfE publishes them, so they are not extra to it. DfE rounds regional figures to the nearest 10, so they do not add up to the England total.