Children in Need in England: Referrals, Assessments, and Characteristics

England's Department for Education publishes official statistics on children referred and assessed by social services. The data includes figures on children in need and those subject to child protection plans for the year ending March. It is sourced from the Children in Need census and designated as Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in child referrals to social services based on annual figures mentioned in the description
• Study the characteristics of children in need based on the described census data
• Monitor the number of children under child protection plans based on the described statistics
• Benchmark local authority performance in child welfare based on the described national statistics

Strengths

• Official statistics from the UK Department for Education
• Includes data on children in need and child protection plans for a specific year
• Published under the OGL-UK-3.0 license for reuse

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to uk_data

Provenance

Source

Department for Education

Collection Method

Likely collected via the Children in Need census from local authorities.

Time Range

Year ending March (specific year not stated)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:33:07.223879; freshness should be verified

Geography

England