Question: How will services for children continue to be paid for?

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 response more so provides information about specific provider employees and what would happen to them if they had to be furloughed. This answer barely responds to the question of how services for children will be paid for.
This talks about directly how services will continue to be available for children.

Reviewer ratings:
Could be Improved
Excellent

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: Staffing, transport and logistics
Personal budgets and access to respite care for children and young people with EHC plans
section_content: For children and young people with an EHC plan, the duties relating to
personal budgets remain in place. These are detailed in paragraphs 9:95 to
9:124 of the SEND code of
practice.
A child’s parent, or a young person, has a right to request a personal budget
when the local authority has completed an education health and care needs
assessment and confirmed that it will prepare an EHC plan. They may also
request a personal budget during a statutory review of an existing EHC plan.
Services for disabled children provided under section 17 of the Children Act
1989 typically include short breaks for parent carers. The local authority
remains under a duty to provide these in such circumstances. We recognise that
this may prove challenging during the coronavirus outbreak, but ask local
authorities to ensure every effort is made to continue to provide this
important support for families who need it.
Where it is not possible for local authorities to arrange respite care for
families as a result of circumstances related to coronavirus, we would
encourage parents, carers and young people to discuss this with their local
authority and agree what alternative arrangements can be made. This could
include, for example, local authorities considering whether making a personal
budget available on a temporary basis may enable the family to secure
alternative respite care arrangements.
[EHC]: education, health and care
  [SEND]: special educational needs and disability

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
This is a lengthy answer that eventually gets to the point and answers the question. I think it could be more concise and easier to read though.
This talks specifically about EHC plan but not generically about services. it is too narrow.

Reviewer ratings:
Acceptable
Could be Improved

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
High needs funding
section_content: Local authorities have an important role in making sure that the high needs
funding they receive as part of their DSG is used effectively in making
educational provision for children and young people up to the age of 25 with
Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans, and other vulnerable children and
young people. Authorities will continue to receive their high needs budgets
and should continue to pay top-up and other high needs funding so that the
employment and payment of staff supporting children and young people with
special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and those requiring
alternative provision, can continue. High needs funding will therefore
continue to be paid to the following types of setting, whether from local or
central government:

local authority-maintained schools (mainstream, special and pupil referral units)
academies and free schools (mainstream, special and alternative provision)
non-maintained special schools
independent schools, including independent special schools
independent alternative provision
high needs places in further education (FE) colleges and sixth form colleges
special post-16 providers
hospital schools

Funding will be maintained and should not be reduced because some or all
children and young people are not in attendance (because of sickness or self-
isolation, or where the institution has temporarily or partially closed).
Similarly, where settings pay top-up or other funding for pupils attending
alternative provision, or pay for other SEND or alternative provision
services, these payments should continue to be made so that teachers and other
staff in all types of setting can be paid in accordance with their existing
employment contracts. If placements and services for the summer term have not
yet been agreed, settings should be willing to fund on the basis of previous
patterns of placements and commissioning. Where changes to the delivery of
special provision and alternative provision are required, the first response
should be to redeploy existing resources, if necessary between settings and
other institutions as well as within settings.
Teaching and non-teaching staff (administration, operations, maintenance and
catering) should not be furloughed where they are funded from continued high
needs funding, and where necessary and feasible, should be available for
redeployment within settings and in other settings to assist in maintaining
provision for vulnerable children and young people, and the children of
critical workers.
[DSG]: dedicated schools grant
  [EHC]: education, health and care
  [SEND]: special educational needs and disability
  [FE]: further education

Reviewer feedback on this answer:
This answer is too vague and doesn't directly answeer the question of  how will services continue to be paid for
This response gives a list of ways services for children will continue to be paid by either local or central government. It is a very thorough explanation.

Reviewer ratings:
Bad
Excellent