Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government has taken to identify and protect children who may be at increased risk from safeguarding issues as a result of the covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

Ensuring that vulnerable children remain protected is a top priority for the government. From the outset, we asked schools to remain open for children who are vulnerable, as well as children of critical workers. This remains the case as some year groups return to school.

The government has provided an unprecedented package of support for vulnerable children, including:

• Over £3.2 billion so far, with a further £500 million announced on 2 July, bringing the total to £3.7 billion of additional funding to support local authorities in meeting COVID-19 related pressures, including on children’s services.
• £1.6 million of funding for the NSPCC to help promote and expand their national UK helpline which provides advice and guidance and support to adults reporting safeguarding concerns. Since the start of the campaign on 4 May, the NSPCC helpline has seen the number of calls and emails grow by 66% and has made over 9,000 referrals, with one out of every 9 referrals going to emergency services such as the police and children’s social care.
• The Adoption Support Fund – £8 million to help families under pressure as a result of the outbreak.
• The Innovation Programme – more than £12 million for 14 projects tackling increased risk, for example from domestic violence and supporting teenagers at risk of exploitation.
• See, Hear, Respond – £7 million partnership of national children’s charities and local organisations to provide targeted support to vulnerable children, young people and their families who are affected by COVID-19.
• Laptops and tablets for children with social workers and care leavers to help them keep in touch with the services they need, as well as 4G internet devices for connecting to the internet. As of 30 June, over 200,000 laptops and tablets and over 47,000 4G wireless routers had been dispatched or delivered to local authorities and academy trusts.

Our Regional Education and Care Teams are working with local authorities directly to ensure the systems and processes for maintaining contact with vulnerable children are robust in every local authority in England.

We have also made temporary legislative changes to help reduce pressure on the system and enable children's services to continue to support vulnerable children during these unprecedented times.

Our latest guidance on supporting vulnerable children and young people during the COVID-19 outbreak was updated on 1 July and is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-childrens-social-care-services.

The department has issued a suite of guidance to help and support schools and colleges. This includes interim safeguarding guidance, which is clear that schools and colleges should revise their child protection policies to reflect new arrangements. The guidance sets out that it is important that all staff who interact with children, including online, continue to look out for signs a child may be at risk. The safeguarding guidance is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/safeguarding-and-remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19.

Schools and colleges should continue to have regard to statutory guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education, as per their legislative duty or funding agreement requirements, or both.