The Department for Education (DfE) has published data on serious incidents involving children in England for the period April to September 2020. The serious incident notification system requires councils to report all incidents of death or serious harm involving children in their area to the DfE. Figures show that: the total number of serious incident notifications during the period increased by 27% on the same period in 2019 – this follows a decrease between 2018 and 2019 and 2019-20; and incidents relating to child deaths increased from 89 to 119 and serious harm from 132 to 153.