Summary
The Annual Report 2024/25 sets out national learning from serious safeguarding incidents notified to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.
Drawing on evidence from rapid reviews and the Panel’s national programme of work, the report provides a system‑wide picture of where children are most at risk, the complex circumstances many families are facing, and what needs to improve to strengthen safeguarding practice across England.
Key statistics
View or download our Annual Report 2024 to 2025 – At a glance infographic.
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Key themes
The report highlights that harm rarely arises from a single issue. Children involved in serious incidents were often living in complex and overlapping circumstances, shaped by family, social and systemic factors.
The key themes below draw together the most consistent patterns seen across the rapid reviews.
Babies under one were the most affected age group in serious safeguarding incidents reviewed by the Panel. They accounted for 34% of rapid reviews and 60% of deaths.
Reviews consistently highlighted the heightened vulnerability of babies, particularly where wider pressures were present in families’ lives, including parental mental ill‑health, substance use, and limited access to support during pregnancy and early infancy.
Reviews showed that many children were living with multiple, interconnected challenges, with factors such as neglect, domestic abuse, parental mental health difficulties, substance use, poverty and housing insecurity present in their lives.
These challenges often overlapped and persisted over time, increasing vulnerability and making risks harder to identify, particularly where responses did not fully consider the wider family and system context.
In 84% of reviews, families were already known to children’s social care before the incident. Despite this, reviews frequently identified issues with information sharing, coordination between services, and risk assessment.
Learning from reviews highlights the importance of safeguarding partners working together to share information effectively, assess all known risks, and provide timely, tailored support so that children and families receive help earlier.