Domestic abuse practice is not sufficiently child-focused, resulting in delayed or inadequate support and protection, inspectors have concluded.
Agencies too often rely on non-abusing adults to keep children safe and sometimes do not see children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right, despite this have been enshrined in law in 2021.
The conclusions were set out in a report summarising the findings of multi-agency inspections of six areas on their response to unborn children and those aged 0-7 who are victims of domestic abuse.
The joint targeted area inspections (JTAIs) were carried out by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission and the police and probation inspectorates, and were a follow-up to similar inspections carried out in 2017.
Lack of improvement since 2017 - Ofsted head
Commenting on the findings, Ofsted's national director for children's social care, Yvette Stanley, said: "Although we saw some positive work to support children affected by domestic abuse, it is worrying that we did not find more consistent improvements since our last JTAI."
"There must be a greater focus on recognising children as victims in their own right, and urgent improvements need to be made so that local agencies and partnerships can better support children affected by this type of abuse."
About the inspections
The inspectorates visited six areas - Hertfordshire, Hillingdon, Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Reading and Redcar and Cleveland - from October 2024 to June 2025.
They assessed, separately and collectively, the work of children's social care, health, the police, youth justice services and schools, across four areas of practice:
- responding to children who are victims of domestic abuse, at the point of identification;
- assessment, planning and decision making in response to notifications and referrals of child victims;
- protecting, supporting and caring for children who are at risk of being, or who have been, victims;
- preventing children from becoming victims.
Inspectors tracked the experiences of 100s of children, examining 36 cases in detail, and also spoke to child victims of domestic abuse and their families.
In addition, the inspectorates worked with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner's office to survey, and carry out focus groups with, survivors and parents from across the country, rather than just the inspected areas.
Domestic abuse case numbers
Domestic abuse has long been one of the biggest areas of risk handled by children's social care. In the year to 31 March 2025, concerns about a parent being a victim of domestic abuse was the second most common factor recorded in child in need assessments (source: Department for Education).
However, the number of instances in which concerns about children being victims were recorded (57,930) was one-third of the number where concerns were about the parent (162,890).
Though the figure for child victim concerns was higher than those recorded in the three previous years, it was lower than the annual figures for 2017-18 to 2020-21.
This is despite section 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 stating that children who see, hear or experience the effects of domestic abuse are victims of it, a measure that came into force in October 2021.
Children not seen as domestic abuse victims
The inspectorates said they found "too many" instances of children not being treated as domestic abuse victims, which was a "consistent finding" across most of the areas they visited.
They were sometimes seen as "passive witnesses", "indirect victims" or "caught in the crossfire", rather than directly experiencing harm. The findings were corroborated by parents responding to inspectorates' survey, 8% of whom said their children were treated as victims in their own right.
Failing to do meant there was "limited recognition of both the impact on the child and their current level of risk" and “delayed or inadequate support and protection”. For example, the report identified delays in holding strategy meetings when children may be facing significant harm.
Inspectors also found examples of assessments, planning and service delivery that were primarily focused on adults' needs. For example, probation services often focused on adult victims and perpetrators and gave “insufficient attention to the risks posed to children”, the report said.
Failure to capture voice of the child
This included rarely capturing the voice of the child in probation assessments and case records, leading to weak analysis of risk and an undermining of multi-agency planning.
Inspectors also found the child’s lived experience was often absent from police documentation. While they identified good practice from health practitioners in engaging children, particularly those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or communication difficulties, there was a “lack of consistency” in incorporating this into health records and safeguarding decisions.
Non-abusing parents expected to protect children
Another issue raised by the report was an expectation from agencies that non-abusing parents - mostly mothers - protect children from perpetrators over whom they had no control, with insufficient accountability placed on abusers.
This finding was also reflected in focus groups, which highlighted that the risks to non-abusing parents, particularly the impact of coercive control, were not always assessed or understood.
Where safety planning did support non-abusing parents, this was sometimes undermined by plans not being shared with other agencies, meaning practitioners were not aware of the actions needed to keep victims safe.
Information sharing gaps
More broadly, inspectors found information held about families by agencies was not always shared, both due to issues with IT systems and because agencies did not equip practitioners and managers with knowledge over when they could share information.
This was also reflected in findings from the focus groups, where parents said that “agencies did not communicate effectively, worked in silos, and sometimes operated in ways that conflicted with one another”, leading to “inconsistent and ineffective support”.
In one area, strategy meetings were not taking place when perpetrators posed a potential risk to multiple children across different households and in different local authorities, resulting in "missed opportunities to share information" and holistically assess risks to all children.
Another issue highlighted was the police's use of Clare's Law, under which people can ask for, and receive, information about whether a current or ex-partner has an abusive history, and officers may share information proactively to people about partners with a history of abuse.
Inspectors found that this information was not always shared with other agencies, meaning other professionals may remain unaware of “critical risks to children and adult victims”.
Legislation to strengthen information sharing
The report said these issues reflected "an inconsistent understanding nationally about when information about safeguarding children should be shared".
Though guidance, updated in 2024, states that practitioners do not need parental consent to share information about a child or family members if the child is perceived to be at risk, the government has warned that practitioners still lack confidence about doing so.
As a result, it is legislating, through the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to impose a duty on relevant agencies to disclose information that may be relevant to safeguarding or promoting the welfare of a child to other agencies, to help the recipient exercise relevant functions, unless doing so was detrimental to the child.
The inspectorates said it was important that the "opportunity created" by the provision were grasped.
'Relentless focus on child's voice and experience' urged
More generally, the report called for the government and other agencies to take "urgent action" to ensure there was sufficient focus on children's needs in domestic abuse cases and that they were seen and responded to as victims in their own right.
It said there needed to be "a relentless focus on the child’s voice and experience", to inform the commissioning of services, with good practice adopted across the country.
However, the inspectorates said their findings needed to be seen in the context of the financial and other challenges public services were facing.
"To embed improvements and sustain effective practice, long-term multi-agency investment is needed in directly delivered and commissioned services responding to local and national needs analysis," they added.
