The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel is an independent panel commissioning reviews of serious child safeguarding cases. They want national and local reviews to focus on improving learning, professional practice and outcomes for children.
What they do
The panel meets regularly to decide whether to commission national reviews of child safeguarding cases that are notified to it. The panel’s decisions are based on the possibility of identifying improvements from cases which it views as complex or of national importance.
Local authorities should notify the national review panel:
- if a child dies or is seriously harmed and abuse or neglect is known or suspected:
- in their area
- outside of England, but they’re normally resident in their area
- to report the death of children looked after by a local authority whether or not abuse or neglect is known or suspected
Responsibilities
The Children and Social Work Act 2017 provided for the creation of the independent Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.
The panel is responsible for:
- supervising reviews they commission
- ensuring they are of a satisfactory quality
- ensuring reports are completed in a suitable timeframe
- identifying improvements that should be made by safeguarding partners
The panel:
- has its own statutory powers
- is independent of government
- can make its own decisions
The statutory guidance on ‘Working together to safeguard children’ sets out how the panel operates and works with safeguarding partnerships.
The Department for Education provides administrative support for the panel.
Practical Safeguarding Learning Hub
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel have launched a new independent website which is designed to support safeguarding practitioners working with children and families across England.
The website brings together learning from safeguarding reviews and accessible, practical resources in one place, making learning easier to find and use.
The website features a learning hub with content on four themes at launch: Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage children, child sexual abuse, neglect, and vulnerable babies, each offering a rich range of resources to support stronger practice. The hub launches with these themes as a starting point, with future topics planned to be added on a regular basis as the website continues to grow and evolve.
