About the Department
The Children and Families Department of the Velocity Interoperability Network is responsible for the safety and welfare of children in the Velocity Interoperability Network. Its duties extend to every child under the age of eighteen who is resident in the Network, whether that child is the child of a member of staff of a member organisation, the child of a citizen of the Network, or a child in the care of the Department itself.
The Department was established on 6 September 2026. Before that date each member organisation made its own arrangements for the children of its staff. There was no common standard for early years care, no single place to which a concern about a child could be taken, and no shared record of the children living at the sites of the Network. During the transition period from 10 August to 5 September 2026 those arrangements, and the records that supported them, were transferred to the Department.
- 11,240
- Children under eighteen registered as resident in the Network
- 46
- Early years providers on the register at establishment
- 96
- Approved foster carers
- 214
- Staff of the Department
Responsibilities. The Department's work falls into five areas.
- Safeguarding
- Receiving concerns about the safety or welfare of a child, assessing what is needed, making and reviewing protection plans, and setting the safeguarding duties that fall on member organisations.
- Early years
- Maintaining the register of early years providers, setting and enforcing the six registration standards, inspecting registered providers and publishing the inspection reports.
- Adoption and fostering
- Recruiting, assessing, approving and supporting adopters and foster carers; placing children in the care of the Department; and keeping the record of every placement.
- Family support
- Practical help for families under pressure: family workers, parenting programmes, short breaks for carers of disabled children and support for young carers.
- Statistics and reporting
- Quarterly statistical releases on safeguarding concerns, early years places, care and placement, and family support, together with the Department's own performance against its response standards.
How the Department is organised. The Department employs 214 staff. Its safeguarding officers are stationed at each of the six principal sites of the Network and answer to a single duty desk, so that a concern raised at one site is seen against the whole of what the Department knows about a child. Its early years inspectors work to a single register and a single set of standards. Its adoption and fostering panel sits monthly from 28 September 2026 and takes the decision to approve, or to decline to approve, every prospective adopter and foster carer.
What the Department does not do. The Department does not run schools, and it does not conduct criminal investigations. Where a concern raised with the Department is a matter for another body of the Network, the Department refers it and tells the person who raised it that it has done so. The Department does not allocate early years places; it registers the providers and records the places they offer.
For the Department's origins and the milestones since its establishment, see History; for what it has recorded so far, see Statistics. General enquiries may be sent to contact@children.gov.vin, and answers to common questions are set out in the frequently asked questions.