Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of information on new infections provided to schools to aid local decision making.

On 2 July 2020, we published guidance for schools outlining the actions they need to take to prevent and respond to any confirmed case of COVID-19. It also sets out some of the measures they should have in place to plan for any potential local lockdown: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.

Schools will be supported to respond to any outbreaks within their settings by their local health protection team.

In addition, the Government has published the ‘Contain Framework’. This national framework will support local decision-makers by clarifying their responsibilities and empowering them to take preventative action and make strong decisions locally, supported by mechanisms that safeguard key national assets. The framework can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/containing-and-managing-local-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreaks/covid-19-contain-framework-a-guide-for-local-decision-makers.

Information on the number of cases broken down by region and local authority is updated on a daily basis on the COVID-19 dashboard, available here: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/.

The Department has also been working with the Joint Biosecurity Centre to produce and publish a series of Action Cards to support educational settings and provide instructions on what to do in the event of one of more confirmed cases of COVID-19. The Action Cards can be found here: https://coronavirusresources.phe.gov.uk/reporting-an-outbreak/resources/Education-Action-Cards/.