Children: Protection

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children were (a) on an at-risk register and (b) taken into care in each local authority area in the Government Office for the North East region in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007 and (iii) 2008. (251856)

Figures on the number of children subject to a child protection plan at 31 March, by local authority, are available in table 9D of the annual statistical first release “Referrals, Assessments and Children and Young People who are the subject of a Child Protection Plan, England”. The publication can be found at the following link:

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000811/index.shtml.

The number of children that have been taken into care in each local authority area in the Government Office for the North East region in (i) 2006, (ii) 2007 and (iii) 2008 can be found in the following table.

*Children who were taken into care during the years ending 31 March, by* *local authority*¹^,2,3,4, Years ending 31 March 2006-08— Coverage: Government Office for the North East region
	2006	2007	2008
North East	480	470	430
Darlington	20	15	25
Durham	70	80	75
Gateshead	60	75	30
Hartlepool	15	15	25
Middlesbrough	30	35	35
Newcastle Upon Tyne	45	25	30
North Tyneside	35	40	40
Northumberland	45	60	50
Redcar and Cleveland	35	20	20
South Tyneside	45	45	40
Stockton-On-Tees	35	35	45
Sunderland	40	30	15
1 Only the first occasion on which a child started to be looked after in the year has been counted. ²Figures exclude children looked after under an agreed series of short term placements. ³ Children deemed to be "taken" into care are those who started to be looked after as the result of a care order (full or interim), police protection, emergency protection order or child assessment order. ⁴ To ensure that no individual can be identified from statistical tables, we use conventions for the rounding and suppression of very small numbers. Numbers at Local Authority level have been rounded to the nearest 5 and numbers at region level have been rounded to the nearest 10. ¹Source: SSDA903 return on children looked after

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 22 January 2009, Official Report, column 1701W, on children: protection, when Ministers plan to make their decision on intervention; and what steps he plans to take to publish that decision. (252602)

The nature of the Department's intervention in Birmingham was communicated in a letter to the Leader of the Council on 29 January 2009. The letter has also been copied to local MPs.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families who is responsible for writing the executive summaries to reports on serious case reviews. (252963)

It is the responsibility of the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) to make sure that an executive summary of the Serious Case Review is completed. It should be written by the independent person commissioned to write the overview report. The LSCB should make sure that the executive summary includes, as a minimum, information about the review process, key issues arising from the case and the recommendations that have been made.

Volume 487: debated on Thursday 29 January 2009