Research and analysis

Child sexual abuse and exploitation: recording practices in children’s social care and serious incident reporting

Research report about child sexual abuse and exploitation recording practices and serious incident reporting, including qualitative insights across 6 local authorities.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 24 March 2026

Applies to England

Documents

Child sexual abuse and exploitation: recording practices in children's social care and serious incident reporting – qualitative insights for policy and practice

Ref: ISBN 978-1-83870-774-3, RR1611

PDF, 811 KB, 77 pages

Details

This report presents qualitative findings from interviews with practitioners in 6 local authorities about how child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) is identified, understood and recorded in children’s social care, and how serious incident notifications are applied in CSAE cases.

It is aimed at policymakers, analysts and safeguarding professionals who use CSAE data or oversee statutory safeguarding processes.

The report:

• highlights factors that shape visibility in statutory datasets
• explains variation in recording practices
• sets out learning that may support more consistent identification, recording and reporting of CSAE across local systems

Published 24 March 2026