Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Written Statement of 14 July 2020 on Children’s Social Care Update, Official Report, HCWS368, if he will publish his Department's analysis of the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 monitoring data.

In my Written Statement to the House of Commons, HCWS368, on 14 July 2020, I referred to the process the department is taking to monitor the use of the Adoption and Children (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020. We are gathering information from a range of organisations to understand which of the regulations are being used and why. The monitoring and analysis of the Regulations is ongoing and will continue whilst the Regulations are in place.

The department has published monitoring information as part of the consultation on ‘Changes to the adoption and children regulations: coronavirus (COVID-19)’, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-the-adoption-and-children-regulations-coronavirus-covid-19.

Our monitoring data shows that the Regulations are being used infrequently. They should only be used when absolutely necessary. We do not hold a comprehensive data set on how many times each regulation has been used, however our analysis of all the information from delivery partners to date indicates that they are being used on a case by case basis. Senior leaders in children’s social care have explained that they have robust sign-off processes in place for when a regulation has been used. Local authorities are making decisions on the use of the Regulations with the child at the heart of the case, in line with the principles in the guidance.