News

Off-rolling adding to pressure on local children’s services

Pastoral issues Safeguarding Pupil wellbeing
Cuts to school budgets, the practice of “off-rolling” problem students, along with a decade of huge policy change within education, are among the reasons why local authority children’s services are struggling to cope with demand.

An estimated 2.4 million initial contacts were made to children’s social care in 2017/18 – a 78 per cent increase from 2007/8.

And the number of children who are subject to child protection plans has increased by 87 per cent in the last decade – with rises in cases of neglect and emotional abuse.

The latest report from the on-going Safeguarding Pressures research includes information from 140 local authorities across England, covering 11.3 million children – or 95 per cent of the under-18 population.

It also reveals that referrals to children’s services are up by 22 per cent across the same 10-year period, with schools making 18.2 per cent of referrals in 2017/18.

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