Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support his Department is providing to local authorities to improve the (a) collection and (b) storage of children’s services data.

Local authorities record and store children’s services data in digital case management systems procured from the market. The department’s upcoming Children’s Social Care Digital Programme is working with local authorities and case management system suppliers to develop soon to be published guidance. The guidance is aiming to support local authority planning, procurement, and implementation of case management systems.

We are also working across government to observe how data and technology can be used to enable better multi-agency information sharing in safeguarding. This includes an investigation study on the feasibility of adopting a consistent child identifier.