Serious Case Reviews,
Executive Summaries
What is a Serious Case Review?
When a child dies or is seriously harmed, and abuse or neglect are known or suspected to be a factor, it is the responsibility of the Local Safeguarding Children Board to conduct a Serious Case Review into the involvement of organisations and professionals in the lives of the child and family.
Serious Case Reviews are not inquiries into how a child died or was seriously harmed, or into who is culpable. These are matters for coroners and criminal courts, respectively, to determine as appropriate.
The aim of Serious Case Reviews is to shed light on whether lessons can be learned about the way local professionals and agencies work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Where lessons can be learned, Serious Case Reviews play an invaluable role in improving inter-agency working. This includes highlighting good practice as well as pointing out areas for improvement.
Where a child's death or serious harm is the subject of court proceedings, Serious Case Reviews can only be published after a trial has ended. This is to prevent reviews from compromising this legal process.
After a trial has ended, a Serious Case Review may be amended in the light of any new evidence emerging from the court proceedings. It is then sent to Ofsted for independent evaluation and for final approval. Only then can the Executive Summary be placed in the public domain.
When publishing a Serious Case Review Executive Summary the Board is aware of its responsibility to protect any innocent siblings and other family members from media and public intrusion. To this end reviews are referred to by letter and not by name.
The Purpose of a Serious Case Review
Chapter 8 of ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ 2009 states that the purpose of a Serious Case Review is:
- To establish what lessons are to be learned from the case about the way in which local professionals and organisations work individually and together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
- To identify clearly what those lessons are both within and between agencies, how and within what timescales they will be acted on, and what is expected to change as a result.
- To improve intra- and inter-agency working and better safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
Child A, 2000 (PDF document)
Child B, 2003 (PDF document)
Child C, 2003 (PDF document)
Child D, 2005 (PDF document)
Child E, 2006 (PDF document)
Child M, 2007-2008 (PDF document)
Joint Serious Case Reviews, Executive Summary 2009 (PDF document)
