Information and research (sections 31 to 33)
130.The Children Act 2004 places an obligation on local authorities in England and Wales to set up Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs). A number of persons and bodies, including children’s services authorities, NHS bodies and the police are represented on LSCBs.
131.Local authorities rely on many different sources of information about child deaths including professionals, the public, and the media. Local registrars of births and deaths do not have a statutory power or a duty to provide information about the death of a child to LSCBs or other persons in the absence of a specific request for information about a particular deceased child. There are also no statutory powers or duties for the Registrar General to provide child death information to the Secretary of State or to Welsh Ministers.
Section 31: Supply of information concerning the death of children to Local Safeguarding Children Boards
132.Section 31 places a new duty on registrars to provide the LSCB in their sub-district with the following information in relation to deceased children (i.e. persons who were or may have been under 18 years of age at the time of death):
the particulars of death within 7 days of registering the death;
notification of any corrections made to the registrar for that sub-district within 7 days of making such corrections; and
information about any certificate issued under section 24(2) of the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953, within 7 days of issue.
133.Subsection (9) requires LSCBs to make arrangements for the receipt of such notifications, and to publish these arrangements.
Section 32: Power of Registrar General to supply information to national authorities
134.Section 32 enables the Registrar General to provide information about a deceased person who may have been a child at the time of death to the Secretary of State and to Welsh Ministers. That information may be used by them for research purposes and may be disclosed by them for the purposes or for the purpose of assisting Local Safeguarding Children Boards to discharge their functions.
Section 33: Research etc. into matters connected with certain statutory functions
135.Section 33 amends sections 83(1) and 83(2) of the 1989 Act to include LSCBs, to provide a statutory power to the Secretary of State and to local authorities to conduct research into the functions of LSCBs.
136.Section 33 further amends section 83(3) of the 1989 Act to provide that a local authority must at such times and in such form as the Secretary of State may direct transmit to him such particulars as he may require as to the performance by the LSCB for the local authority’s area of all or any of their functions.
137.The section also amends the list of relevant enactments at section 83(9) of the 1989 Act for the purposes of sections 83(1)(a) and 83(2)(a) of this Act, which gives statutory powers to the Secretary of State and to local authorities respectively, to conduct, or assist other persons, in conducting research into specified matters including the functions, of the Secretary of State, and for the purposes of section 83(3), which requires local authorities to provide information to the Secretary of State in respect of the performance of their functions under the relevant enactments. It amends the list of relevant enactments by adding:
Part 1 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002;
the Children Act 2004; and
the Children and Young Persons Act 2008.
