Mr. Bernard Gloster:

The point I was making in my opening statement was that the impact was much more significant and severe in the first phase of lockdown, which we associate with 12 March, when the decision on school closures was made.

That was because schools were closed and a lot of other services were not routinely seeing children. All of that combined led to the very substantial concern that I talked about and was reflected in the significant reduction in our normal referrals by almost 540 per week for a number of weeks.

By the time we had reached level 5 we had attuned our services to ways of working. We also accepted that we are an essential service provider in the sense of public and statutory services. So we could not enter level 5 countenancing that we would substantially reduce our work, particularly because schools, crèches and preschools were all open. Therefore, with all of the normal activity associated with what we do, the schools being open was a game-changer in terms of child protection.