Question: What do I do about the children if the provider closes down?

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Guidance Coronavirus (COVID-19): financial support for education, early years and children’s social care
section_headers: Sector-specific guidance
Children’s social care providers
section_content: Ensuring that vulnerable children remain protected is a top priority for
government. Our aim is to ensure that children’s social care providers are
able to continue to provide care to vulnerable children and to operate
effectively during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
We are asking providers to remain open and to continue to deliver care and
support to their vulnerable children and young people. We would anticipate
local authorities continuing to fund any contracted or commissioned providers,
but where appropriate, providers may wish to consider accessing support
measures for which they may be eligible to help them remain operational during
this period, such as the business interruption loan schemes. Please refer to
the respective guidance page as linked above for more information.
As placements will continue to be needed, local authorities will continue to
pay fees to children’s social care providers. As these payments for essential
services will continue, we would expect providers not to furlough staff, and
for provision to remain available to support vulnerable children. The
government has also announced £1.6 billion of extra funding for local
authorities to help address pressures arising from coronavirus (COVID-19),
including in children’s social care.
In the rare circumstances that providers feel they have no choice but to
furlough staff, they should only seek support through the Coronavirus Job
Retention Scheme if they meet the following conditions:

the employee works in an area of business where services are temporarily not required and whose salary is not covered by public funding
the employee would otherwise be made redundant or laid off
the employee is not involved in delivering provision that has already been funded
the employee is not required to deliver provision for a vulnerable child
the grant from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme would not duplicate other public grants received and would not lead to financial reserves being created.

Residential provision
State-funded residential children’s social care provision is offered in state-
maintained schools, non-maintained special schools and independent schools.
While the educational costs are funded from the DSG, the residential costs are
met from social care budgets. Local authorities will continue to receive
funding for social care provision and should continue to pay residential costs
so that the employment and payment of staff supporting children and young
people who require residential provision can continue.
Some independent schools have joint registration as a children’s home, and are
effectively funded by local authorities that place the children in those
settings. This funding should continue.
*[DSG]: dedicated schools grant

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
This is really about the sorts of things providers should do to stay open, and not what to do about children at a provider that has closed.
This response doesn't accurately answer the question. The answer discusses how child care providers can stay open and ways the government is helping them.

Reviewer ratings:
Bad
Bad

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Guidance Supporting vulnerable children and young people during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak - actions for educational providers and other partners
section_headers: Attendance of vulnerable children and young people
Actions in case of provider closure
section_content: If an educational provider had closed during the initial period of the
coronavirus outbreak, they should have informed the local authority to discuss
alternative arrangements for vulnerable children and young people. These
providers are now asked to work towards reopening so that they are able to
cater for vulnerable children and young people, alongside children of critical
workers and those in returning year groups.

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
It directly, though in vague terms, answers the question about what providers should do for children if their facility closes.
This response specifically mentions educational providers and not other childcare providers.

Reviewer ratings:
Acceptable
Could be Improved

Answer passage (source: UK):
page_title: Guidance Actions for early years and childcare providers during the coronavirus outbreak
section_headers: Prioritising children
What should happen to vulnerable children if their provider is closed?
section_content: Where the setting which vulnerable children usually attend is closed, the
setting should notify the local authority (and social worker, where relevant)
that these vulnerable children need alternative provision. Settings should
work with the families of vulnerable children and local authorities (and
social workers, where relevant) to support this.
Where a setting has closed, and a child moves to a different early years
setting, the closed provider should do whatever it reasonably can to provide
the receiving setting with any relevant welfare and child protection
information. The receiving setting should be aware of the reason the child is
vulnerable and any arrangements in place to support them. As a minimum, the
receiving setting should, as appropriate, have access to a vulnerable child’s
EHC plan, child in need plan, child protection plan or, for looked-after
children, their personal education plan, and know who the child’s social
worker is (and, for looked-after children, who the responsible virtual school
head is).
The transfer of necessary information should ideally happen before a child
arrives at the new setting and, where that is not possible, as soon as
reasonably practicable. Any exchanges of information will ideally happen
between the designated safeguarding leads (or deputies), and/or between
special educational needs co-ordinators/named individual with oversight of
special educational needs provision for children with EHC plans.
Whilst providers must continue to have appropriate regard to data protection
and General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, they do not prevent the sharing
of information for the purposes of keeping children safe. For more information
please read the Department for Education’s guidance: Information sharing
advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children, young
people, parents and carers
guidance.
*[EHC]: education, health and care

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
The response appropriately answers the question about what should happen to a child if the provider closes down.
Though it is aimed more at the managers of the closing facilities, it provides a lot of detailed information about what should be done for children at the affected providers.

Reviewer ratings:
Excellent
Excellent