Vulnerable children in Cheshire West and Chester were given hundreds of laptops from the government during the coronavirus lockdown, new figures reveal.

The Department for Education provided 200,000 devices to local authorities and school trusts between May and July to help children access remote learning while schools were closed.

Figures obtained show Cheshire West and Chester Council ordered 765 laptops and tablets, the maximum number they were allowed to.

A CWAC spokesperson said: “The devices were allocated to the Council to be distributed to children and young people with social workers, and care leavers. We ordered the total allocation as the number of eligible children and young people matched the number of devices allocated.”

The authority added that the devices were distributed in two batches over June and July to “vulnerable children and young people open to Children’s Services, including care leavers”.

However, the office of the Children's Commissioner for England said the £100 million scheme, aimed at care leavers and pupils with social workers, failed to help hundreds of thousands more children.

Simone Vibert, senior policy analyst at the CCO, said nine percent of families in the UK do not have a laptop, desktop or tablet at home – a "digital divide" that became more apparent during the Covid-19 crisis.

She said: “During this pandemic, proper access to the internet is not a luxury for children having to learn at home, it is a necessity.

"The Government needs to ensure that all children are able to access education in the coming weeks and months, hopefully in school, but also remotely if that becomes their only option.”

Though the devices were "very welcome", the Children's Commissioner Office estimated there are 540,000 children in groups eligible for the scheme, meaning many more missed out.

In addition, 20,000 were set aside for disadvantaged Year 10 pupils who were singled out because of concerns they would fall behind in preparing for their GCSEs in the coming school year – with 212 allocated in Cheshire West and Chester.

This overlooked the needs of disadvantaged children in every other year group, Children's Commissioner Office, and added that the Government's planned extension of the scheme to years 3-11 may be "insufficient".

Cheshire West and Chester was also allocated 72 4G hotspot devices, and 74 for Year 10 students.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “For disadvantaged children whose education is disrupted in autumn term, we are initially providing an additional 150,000 laptops and tablets to schools, who will be best placed to pass these on to children who need them.

“Children will be returning to school full time in September and we have invested £1 billion in a Covid Catch Up Fund which will also provide one-on-one and small group tutoring for disadvantaged pupils.”