Deaths during Children and Young People Act: FOI release

Information requested

 

I would like the information on

• Number of Deaths recorded since recording began following the introduction of the Children and Young People Act
• Reasons for deaths across Scotland
• Break down of deaths by local authority
• Ages of those who have died

 

Response

 

Notifying Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate of the death of a looked after child is a statutory duty of local authorities in accordance with the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. This requirement has been further extended by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 (sections 66 and 67) to include young people in receipt of aftercare and continuing care services.

While both Scottish Ministers and the Care Inspectorate are notified of the death of a looked after child or young person, the Care Inspectorate receives notifications and collates data on deaths of looked after children and young people. I therefore recommend that you direct your enquiry in full to the Care Inspectorate’s Information Governance Team at:

Care Inspectorate
Compass House
11 Riverside Drive
Dundee
DD1 4NY
Or by e-mail on: infogovernance@careinspectorate.com

 

As part of the data collection on looked after children undertaken by the Scottish Government, local authorities record a child's destination where they have ceased to be looked after. Where a child has ceased to be looked after because they have died, this is recorded in the data returned to us. This category is not reported routinely in the publication tables as the numbers are small and thus included under the category of ‘other destination’, as detailed in Additional Table 1.9 (Children ceasing to be looked after during 1 August 2016 to 31 July 2017 by destination on discharge and age): https://www.gov.scot/publications/childrens-social-work-statistics-2016-17/. There are no data collected by the Scottish Government on deaths which occur while a young person is in receipt of aftercare.

Please note that the above data held by the Scottish Government are not compared with Care Inspectorate information which is the definitive source of the number of child deaths in care.

 

The Scottish Government does not have the information

The Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have asked for because the Care Inspectorate collates the information you are looking for.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.  

 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.