Number of Child abuse or neglect from 2018 to 2021

1) How many cases of child abuse or neglect were referred to the council in the years; a) 2018, b) 2019, c) 2020 and d) 2021?

2) For the cases referred to the council in a) 2018, b) 2019, c) 2020 and d) 2021 were any children the victim of a serious injury? If so how many?

Devon County Council does not record this data in a manner that can be easily extracted from our systems.  In order to provide an answer we would have to undertake a review of all associated records.  We estimate that to carry out this exercise per individual case record would take 10 minutes.  Therefore to conclude this exercise for at least 8,000 records would take longer than the time allowed.

Under the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 public authorities are not obliged to comply with requests which exceed the cost limit of £450 (equating to 18 hours of time).  For this reason we believe that Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act applies (cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limits).

3) For the cases referred to the council in a) 2018, b) 2019, c) 2020 and d) 2021 did any result in the death of a child? If so how many?

Please note: the answer to question 3 is the “Number of referrals in the given year where the child has died since the referral”. This does not mean by default that the death of the child is related to the reason for referral.