Recommendation SP21: School monitoring and filtering systems guidance
From The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1, published 13 April 2026.
Recommendation
The Department for Education should review and strengthen its guidance to schools on monitoring and filtering systems, including ensuring that the systems used are appropriate and adequate from a technical perspective. The department should ensure schools understand these requirements and consider whether inspections by Ofsted should play a greater role in monitoring compliance.
In brief (written by this site)
In July 2026, HM Government reported that the Department for Education expects to complete implementation of the recommendation in mid-2027 (Home Office response, Jul 2026). It outlined next steps including proposed updates to Keeping Children Safe in Education for the 2026 to 2027 academic year, a 2026 consultation on a product certification scheme, and incorporating confirmation of annual checks into inspections from September 2027 (Home Office response, Jul 2026). The record holds no update since the government's response of July 2026 (Home Office response, Jul 2026).
Sources
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
The Department for Education (DfE) is the lead department and expects to complete implementation of this recommendation in mid-2027. Progress and next steps:
- DfE has proposed an update to Keeping Children Safe in Education for the academic year 2026–27 to strengthen the expectation that education settings review and check filtering systems at least annually.
- From September 2027, confirmation that schools have completed an annual check will form part of inspections.
- A consultation on a certification scheme - to provide assurance to schools on filtering and monitoring products that align with the filtering and monitoring standards that DfE published in 2023 and references in Keeping Children Safe in Education - will take place this year (2026).
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
The government's response to Phase 1 (CP 1623, 2 July 2026) agreed with all 67 recommendations in one sentence, and names only 39 of them individually. Where a recommendation is not named, the response shown is the passage the response gives for the group it belongs to (the recommendations for organisations outside central government, or the recommendations to policing bodies), which is not a response to that recommendation alone; the response does not list the members of any group. The 10 recommendations for Phase 2 of the Inquiry to consider show no response: the response introduces them (paragraph 20) but answers none of them. The government accepts the recommendations that are for central government to deliver. Where a recommendation is for an organisation outside central government, the government's agreement is not that organisation's acceptance.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from Department for Education has been found in the sources searched (last checked 2 July 2026). This is separate from the response above.
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department for Education
Response