Child Protection - Find a freedom of information request

Request

Information regarding child protection in the UK.

 

Please provide answers on the attached and accompanying spreadsheet.

 

1. Please could you supply the name, email address and telephone number of the commissioner with responsibility for children in need of help and/or protection.

 

For questions 2-6 inclusive, please supply the following information as a total at the end of the year for the financial years 2021/2022 - 2024/2025 (year to date).

For questions 2-6 inclusive, please supply the following information specific to those cases where drug and/or alcohol misuse is a factor.

 

2. Please advise on the number of children identified as children in need.

 

3. Please advise on the number of children who were subject to Section 47 enquiries.

 

4. Please advise on the number of children who were subject to child protection conferences.

 

5. Please advise on the number of children who were the subject of a child protection plan.

 

6. Please advise on the number of children whose cases were taken to court proceedings concluding in care/placement/adoption orders.

 

7. Please advise as to which of the above stages may use drug and alcohol testing as evidence and reasons as to why it is/isn't used.

 

8. For each financial year 2023/2024 and 2024/2025, how many hair drug and alcohol tests were conducted?

 

9. In a situation where hair drug/alcohol testing is used as evidence, do you have a preferred provider for this service? If not, please provide a list of providers used in these cases and the total expenditure with each provider for financial years 2023/2024 and 2024/2025.

Decision

1. Amy Allcock, Commissioning Manager – Amy.allcock@lincolnshire.gov.uk.

 

2.

 

2021/2022

2022/2023

2023/2024

2024/2025 (projected actual)

Up to 17/11/2024

8,461

9,025

9,491

7,349

 

 

 

3.

 

2021/2022

2022/2023

2023/2024

2024/2025 (projected actual)

Up to 17/11/2024

1,292

1,619

1,933

1,262

 

 

 

4.

 

2021/2022

2022/2023

2023/2024

2024/2025 (projected actual)

Up to 17/11/2024

453

491

531

340

 

 

 

5.

 

2021/2022

2022/2023

2023/2024

2024/2025 (projected actual)

Up to 17/11/2024

817

866

874

677

 

 

 

6.

 

2021/2022

2022/2023

2023/2024

2024/2025 (projected actual)

Up to 17/11/2024

735

1,038

1,090

757

 

 

 

7. Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) would seek drug / alcohol testing within Pre-Proceedings or in Proceedings. This would be to seek evidence of parental alcohol or drug use, usually if this is either denied or if we do not know what substances are used (for drugs) or at what level (drugs and alcohol). Testing might happen more than once in a period of Pre-Proceedings or Proceedings to evidence if there has been any change in drug or alcohol use. Within Proceedings drug/ alcohol testing is usually funded by all parties sharing the cost of the testing and the legal test that has to be applied before this is ordered is that the testing is necessary and proportionate.

 

8. LCC do not keep a tracker of this and so wouldn’t be able to provide this information unless we went through every file from 2023 to present which would be quite labour intensive.  This level and type of information is not tracked.  To establish this information would require looking at every single file from 2023 to present which would be incredibly labour intensive.

 

9. LCC use a range of providers – i.e. Lextox, DNA legal, again LCC would not be able to readily extrapolate how much the expenditure is as again we don’t keep this information to hand.  A range of providers are used for testing, these include but are not limited to Lextox and DNA legal.  It is usual in proceedings for testing for alcohol and drugs to be a joint instruction with one solicitor taking the lead for that instruction.  There is no tracker for establishing the financial expenditure of these tests so once again to establish this data would be very difficult.

Reference number
10954697
Date request received
12 November 2024
Date of decision
4 December 2024