Child protection register (FOI)

Request

How many children were on the child protection register in each year 2015 to 2020

Out of the total number of children each year how many lived  in the following:

• Andium Homes

• Trust

• Private

• Foster / Care Home

Response

The number of children on a Child Protection Plan has reduced in recent years, as historic practice which was described as risk averse meant that sometimes children were placed on the child protection register prematurely. Since 2019, the Department has carried out multi-agency training on a quarterly basis in terms of thresholds and responsibilities for the initial child protection conference and registration that spans across all agencies. Jersey’s Children First training was rolled out across the service, raising awareness of child protection procedures and the continuum of need. The Department has also provided restorative practice training to all staff, which promotes a strength and relationship-based approach when working with children, young people and their families.

The number of children on a Child Protection Plan is now more aligned with Jersey’s statistical neighbours and other local authorities in the UK. Further information about Child Protection Plans can be found at the following link:

Safeguarding at-risk children

The type of housing accommodation for each child is not currently recorded in categorised form. To provide this information, we would need to search each individual address record and then categorise the type of accommodation. This would take more than the prescribed 12.5 hours to complete and therefore Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

Article applied

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.