HC Deb 11 March 1993 vol 220 cc701-2W
Mr. Cousins

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will publish the results of the inquiry into the Aycliffe local authority secure unit, the number of visits her inspectors have made to this unit in the last two years and the conclusions they reached; and how many children from Newcastle upon Tyne have been placed in the unit.

Mr. Yeo

Durham area child protection committee inquired into a number of allegations of child abuse at Aycliffe community home in 1992 and produced a report of their findings which was published in November 1992.

Formal inspections of Aycliffe were carried out by the social services inspectorate in March and July 1989 and in March 1991. Reports on these inspections were published in 1990 and 1991. Copies are available in the Library. A further visit, not resulting in a published report, to review the findings of the earlier inspections was made in March 1992.

Others visits are made to units such as Aycliffe. They are not inspections or assessments of practice and no reports are published.

Information about placements of children by local authorities in individual secure units is in the annual statistical publication "Children Accommodated in Secure Units during the year ending 31 March", copies of which are available in the Library.