Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what protocols are in place for schools to report suspected grooming gang activities involving students.

The department can confirm that the statutory safeguarding guidance, ‘Keeping children safe in education’ (KCSIE), provides clear and robust guidance on how schools and colleges must report all safeguarding concerns.

It covers issues such as grooming, sexual abuse, and child sexual exploitation, ensuring that schools and colleges have the tools and guidance needed to manage safeguarding effectively.

KCSIE makes clear that all concerns, discussions, decisions made, and the reasons for those decisions must be documented in writing.

Where staff have concerns about a child, they must follow their school or college’s child protection policy and report concerns to the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) without delay. Ordinarily, it is the DSL who is then responsible for referring these concerns to the relevant local authority children’s social care team and, where appropriate, the police. When such referrals are made into children's social care, and the police, data will be captured and recorded by those agencies.

KCSIE is designed to ensure that all concerns are dealt with swiftly, effectively, and in line with local safeguarding protocols. Schools and colleges must also engage with their local safeguarding partners to ensure these processes are consistently implemented.