Children’s Crime Survey Goes Online as Young Person’s Safety Survey

The Office for National Statistics has replaced its face-to-face Children’s Crime Survey for England and Wales with an online Young Person’s Safety Survey for 10 to 15-year-olds, with data collection under way since December 2025 and first results due in September 2026.

The traditional Children’s Crime Survey for England and Wales was discontinued from April 2025 after response rates dropped sharply following the COVID-19 pandemic — during which face-to-face interviewing with children was suspended entirely from March 2020 to April 2022. Its replacement, the Young Person’s Safety Survey (YPSS), began collecting data in December 2025 and can be completed on tablets, laptops or smartphones at a time and place that suits the child.

The figures show how modest the previous sample was: in the 2024 to 2025 period, just 1,437 children aged 10 to 15 took part in the face-to-face children’s survey, compared with 31,532 adults interviewed for the main Crime Survey for England and Wales in the same year. The ONS now uses the NHS Personal Demographic Service to draw its sample of children, having previously piloted a draw from the Department for Education’s National Pupil Database in February 2024.

Children aged 12 and under require online parental consent to take part, in line with GDPR. Those aged 10 and above can complete the survey independently once consent is in place.

For Kent families, the practical change is straightforward: children aged 10 to 15 across the county — from Maidstone and Canterbury to Dover and Medway — fall within the England and Wales coverage and can be sampled through national NHS and education records. Because the survey is now online, geography is less of a barrier than it was under the face-to-face model, which could matter in more rural parts of Kent where interviewer availability was limited. Bodies including Kent Police, Kent County Council and the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board may draw on the resulting data to shape safeguarding policies, anti-bullying programmes and community safety strategies.

The ONS plans to publish first findings — covering online activity, security, perceptions of safety and wellbeing — in September 2026. A further module adding measures on crime victimisation and bullying is scheduled to go live from autumn 2026. Some methodological experts have raised questions about whether an online-only format could under-represent children without reliable internet access or devices, and whether the absence of an interviewer reduces opportunities to clarify questions or offer support where disclosures suggest risk. The ONS has not yet published response-rate figures for the new survey.

Key information

• Children aged 10 to 15 living in England and Wales, including Kent, may receive an invitation to take part in the Young Person’s Safety Survey
• Parents or guardians of children aged 12 and under must give online consent before their child completes the survey, in line with GDPR
• First results from the new online survey are scheduled for publication in September 2026
• A victimisation and bullying module is planned to be added from autumn 2026