Mapping where children's social care falls short – and where to act first

Every year in England, thousands of children are referred to social care services only after risks have already escalated – into crisis, into legal proceedings, into harm that earlier support might have prevented. The system is expensive and reactive. National policy increasingly calls for prevention, but councils have lacked the fine-grained evidence to know where need is greatest, which families face the steepest risks, and where early help could make the most difference.

Oxfordshire is no exception. Despite strong commitment to a preventative approach, the county had no systematic picture of how referrals to children's social care varied across its communities, or what drove those differences. Without that evidence, targeting resources effectively was guesswork.

Our approach and partners

Researchers at the University of Oxford worked directly with Oxfordshire County Council to turn four years of child-level data from the county's Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub into actionable evidence. Rather than commissioning new data collection, the team repurposed existing administrative records – referral data that councils already hold but rarely analyse at this depth.

The analysis moved through three stages. First, the team redefined how need was measured and mapped the flow of referrals through the system using decision-tree modelling. Second, spatial analysis revealed where clusters of vulnerability sat geographically across the county. Third, statistical modelling identified which child and household characteristics – poverty, special educational needs, ethnicity, parental mental health – most strongly predicted whether a referral would escalate to statutory intervention.

Crucially, Oxfordshire County Council co-designed the work from the outset, ensuring the research addressed questions that front-line planners and decision-makers actually needed answered.

What we found – and why it matters

1. Geographic inequalities are stark and specific. This was the first systematic analysis of referral patterns and escalation risks in Oxfordshire, revealing that need is concentrated in identifiable areas – not evenly spread.
2. Poverty, special educational needs, and parental mental health are the strongest escalation drivers. These factors predict which referrals are most likely to move from early concern to statutory intervention, offering clear targets for preventative support.
3. The evidence is already shaping strategy. Findings directly informed Oxfordshire County Council's Family Hub Positioning Strategy – a plan for locating new Family Hubs in the areas of greatest need. The council's children's social care board presented this strategy to the national cabinet.
4. The approach is designed to travel. Because it uses administrative data that every local authority holds, the method can be replicated without expensive new data infrastructure.

What this means

For families, this work means services can be directed to the communities where they are needed most, rather than spread thinly or allocated by assumption. Children in areas of concentrated disadvantage stand a better chance of receiving early help before problems escalate into statutory care. For the health and care system, it offers a model for making prevention practical rather than aspirational – using evidence councils already collect to guide where and how resources are deployed.

What needs to happen next

Sustaining this work requires funding.

The collaboration between the University of Oxford and Oxfordshire County Council has demonstrated proof of concept, and the team has submitted a £1 million NIHR bid to scale the approach and evaluate the effectiveness of Family Hubs. But national adoption depends on more than one project.

Local authorities need investment in data infrastructure and the analytical capacity to use these methods routinely. Real-time monitoring – rather than retrospective analysis – should be the goal. Without dedicated resources to build this capability across councils, the evidence will remain local and the opportunity for a genuinely preventative national system will stall.