FOI request (FOIR-795058515)

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information. If this full request goes over the cost limit, please answer the questions in numerical order until the cost limit is reached. Please may you provide me with:

Q1.

The total number of child relinquishment requests per year for each of the last ten years.

For the avoidance of doubt, this refers to instances where birth or adoptive  parents contacted the local authority requesting that Children’s Social Care Services assume care responsibility for a child.

Q2.

For the calendar years 2023 and 2024, and for 2025 if available:

• The number of referrals received by Children’s Social Care Services where domestic abuse was recorded as a factor; and

If 2025 figures are incomplete, please provide whatever data is currently available and specify the date range that the data covers.

Q3.

For each of the last five years, please provide either:

• The annual staff (or ideally just social worker, if these figure exist) sickness or absence rate already held by the authority (for example, percentage of working time lost), or • If no such percentage is routinely recorded, the total number of working days lost to sickness/absence and the total number of contracted working days for Children’s Social Care Services staff in each year.

Please provide whichever of the above is held in recorded form.

Q4.

The average caseload, and the average number of children (if different) held by qualified social care workers in:

• Frontline child protection assessment teams; and • Safeguarding teams for each of the last five years.