Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department is continuing the Vulnerable Children and Young People Survey; and whether he has made an estimate of the number of children being referred to local authority children’s social care department since July 2021.

The vulnerable children and young people survey was set up in May 2020. It has been running regularly throughout the COVID-19 outbreak and will be continued as we emerge from the COVID-19 outbreak. The survey has provided the department with crucial data on the pressures faced by local authorities, allowing the department to support them through these challenging times. The department is conscious of the burden on local authorities and will continue the survey only as long as is necessary.

From the survey, the department estimates the number of referrals in September 2021 was around the same as an average of the same week in 2017-20 nationally. The number of referrals then fell to 8% lower in October, 6% lower in November, and 9% lower in December 2021.

These are estimates based on data from around 77% of local authorities and on data for one week within each month. The figure for December should be interpreted with additional caution due to the changing timings of the Christmas holidays each year.

As there may be multiple referrals per child within a month, the department cannot estimate the number of children referred to local authority children’s social care. A summary of all the vulnerable children and young people survey responses is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vulnerable-children-and-young-people-survey.