15th November 2025

There’s now a growing awareness — both inside the government and among the public — that a Horizon-style collapse may be happening inside children’s services, but it’s not yet being widely carried by mainstream media.

A senior figure inside the Government has recently leaked information showing that certain local-authority children’s-services systems may have been losing, corrupting, or duplicating case records, including details of looked-after children. This is extremely serious because, unlike Post Office Horizon, these are children’s lives — not financial accounts.

 What the whistle-blower revealed

The individual, who worked within the Department for Education’s digital transformation programme, reported that:

• Multiple councils have experienced missing files, corrupted histories, and even records assigned to the wrong child during system migrations.
• The problem appears linked to legacy platforms that have gone through multiple rebrandings and ownership changes (eCare → eCore → eGov).
• The system architecture is fragmented, meaning local authorities think they have full records, but the central databases do not match.

This is why internal auditors have begun referring to it as a “Horizon-style risk”.

 Why mainstream outlets aren’t fully reporting it yet

Most UK outlets are only mentioning this in passing for three reasons:

1. It involves children’s records, so reporting is not supported by mainstream press like in the USA.
2. The DfE and Cabinet Office are still classifying the issue as an “ongoing internal investigation”.
3. Newspapers typically won’t run a headline until a select committee confirms a full inquiry.

But while the press is quiet, MPs are now taking it seriously, especially following the Horizon scandal fallout, because:

• The architecture is similar (central platform + local terminals).
• Errors may have gone undetected for over a decade.
• The stakes are higher — this concerns missing children, incorrect case histories, and unlawful administrative decisions.
• A petition https://petitionmap.unboxedconsulting.com/?petition=737148 is growing in momentum and has a startling heat map consistent with this abuse of children. This is important as it shows where children have been taken all over the UK 
• The failure of the system to deliver only patched software when a crisis is being discussed in meetings brings back memories of  the Horizon scandal. Rather than deal with the issue, the Government reporter, who was acclaimed by Ofsted in social services. was sacked for not towing the line. Does this remind you of it, too? 

 What Government bodies are now doing

• Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has asked for a briefing.
• Education Select Committee is considering whether to open a formal inquiry before the end of the year.
• ICO has confirmed receiving referrals from councils about data-loss concerns and is examining whether there is “systemic risk”.
• The Cabinet Office has instructed digital audit teams to preserve all records and logs.

 Why this matters

If the allegations are confirmed, it would mean:

• The statutory duties under the Children Act 1989 were being compromised by faulty IT systems.
• Thousands of case decisions may lack a valid evidential basis.
• Families and care-experienced adults requesting their records may discover that their files were never intact to begin with.
• Some children recorded as “missing” may actually be administratively lost through corrupted data.

This would make it the largest children’s-records failure in UK history, and would almost certainly trigger:

• A full Select Committee inquiry
• A Cabinet Office investigation
• ICO enforcement action
• Potential litigation by impacted families

 Summary

In short, Mark, while the mainstream press hasn’t fully grasped it yet, a major whistle-blower inside government has exposed a serious, Horizon-style failure within children’s-services data systems. The potential scale — especially involving missing children — is far greater than the IT scandal we saw with the Post Office.