EnactedChildren’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026

LA as co-parent in family meetings

I oppose giving local authorities a co-decision-making role — they don't understand home education, they're biased into thinking learning only happens in school, and no stranger can judge what's best for my child. I'd only accept this if the meetings are genuinely an offer, not made mandatory.

Proposed changeMake family-group meetings strictly an offer, never compulsory; require the LA officers to have at least three years' firsthand home-education experience; and otherwise just check in by formal letter — with names, dates and address — asking whether we need any help.

Voice of the child and best interests

Children's voices, especially teenagers', have to be central in care meetings and decisions about their health and education, with any best-interest assessment justified and explained, in line with the UNCRC and human rights. I can see real pressure to take these decisions away from young people, and that has to be resisted.

Proposed changeMake the care and decision-making provisions require a documented best-interest assessment and real weight given to the child's own views, with accessibility for children who have communication needs.

Family group decision-making unsafe in domestic abuse

Mandating family group decision-making meetings under clause 1, including where domestic abuse is present, is unsafe for both adult and child victims, and we recommend a domestic-abuse exemption mirroring the MIAM rule in private family law. The model doesn't understand domestic-abuse dynamics, typologies or risk levels, and LA discretion adds risk rather than mitigating it. The 'voluntary' framing ignores coercive control — victims may feel pressured to take part for fear of losing their child — and it's deeply inappropriate to include children where there is domestic abuse, risking retrauma…

Proposed changeExempt cases where domestic abuse has been identified from the mandatory family group decision-making offer, mirroring the MIAM domestic-abuse exemption in private family law proceedings.

Pioneer lived-experience testimony on FGDM risks

One of our Pioneers shares lived experience of why family group decision-making is risky where domestic abuse is present. She recognises the potential positives — empowerment and voice for the victim-survivor, extended-family support, a child-centred and culturally appropriate approach, stronger collective commitment to plans — but personally concludes the cons outweigh the pros. The power imbalance undermines a child's honesty (children are far more honest one-to-one with a professional), an abuser learning of plans escalates danger, families downplay abuse, confidentiality leaks, and there'…

Proposed changeRequire an independent, DASH-style risk assessment before a family is considered for family group decision-making, with survivor-centred planning, professional facilitation, and the victim choosing whether and how to take part.

Extend FGDM duty to reunification

We welcome a consistent, England-wide family group decision-making offer at pre-proceedings and the reference to 'other stages', but we want those stages written into the Bill — specifically, a requirement to offer FGDM within one month of a care order being discharged for reunification. Reunification is the most common route out of care, yet re-entry is high, there's no national strategy, most local authorities say pre-reunification support is inadequate, and a third offer no FGDM at all. A duty here would bring consistency, strengthen practice, and likely save the Government a great deal of…

Proposed changeWe'd amend Clause 1 to require local authorities in England to offer some form of FGDM within one month of a care order being discharged for family reunification.

Strengthen family group decision-making

I back the Family Rights Group's amendments to Clause 1 to make family group decision-making meetings actually work, and once the Bill is enacted I want guidance based on the FRG's quality standards.

Proposed changeTake the FRG's specific drafting amendments to Clause 1 — page 1 line 9 to let 16-year-olds and over accept; page 2 line 21 for a presumption to invite the child; page 1 line 14 to tighten the discretion; a new subsection defining the trained coordinator and private family time — and publish guidance based on the FRG quality standards.

Children's wishes, feelings and participation

We welcome the duty to offer a family group decision-making meeting before applying for a section 31 order, but we're very concerned the clause doesn't require the child's wishes and feelings to be given due consideration and only weakly allows them to attend. We want children given a clear entitlement to take part, and a duty to seek out and properly consider their wishes and feelings.

Proposed changeWe'd amend Clause 1 to give every child a clear entitlement to take part, with an independent advocate, and amend Clause 1(9) to put a duty on local authorities to seek out and give due consideration to the child's wishes and feelings.

Exempt domestic abuse from FGDM

We have serious safety concerns about making family group decision-making compulsory where the local authority is considering a care or supervision order in a domestic abuse context, and we recommend an amendment that exempts any case where domestic abuse is a factor.

Proposed changeWe'd amend the Bill to exempt any case where domestic abuse is a factor from family group decision-making.

Ambiguous and watered-down FGDM offer

We're worried 'family group decision making' is so loosely defined that it'll be read any number of ways — opening the door to professional-led meetings with barely any family involvement, and to practices that have no evidence behind them.

Proposed changeWe want the key family group conference principles defined in the legislation — in particular the independence of the coordinator and the provision of private family time (Amendment 3c).

Child participation in FGDM

The offer should reach children aged 16 and over, who can agree their own care plan, and there should be a presumption that the child is invited to the meeting. At the moment the offer goes to parents but not to an older child, and the local authority is left with discretion over whether to invite the child at all.

Proposed changeWe want Amendment 1a to extend the offer to the child where they're 16 or over (Clause 1, page 1, line 9), and Amendment 1b to create a presumption that the child is invited to their meeting where that's consistent with their welfare (Clause 1, page 2, line 21).

Tighten discretion not to offer FGDM

We want the discretion not to offer or hold a meeting tightened so it's only used in exceptional circumstances, with a presumption in favour of offering one unless that would be inconsistent with the child's welfare. Otherwise, under time and budget pressure, that discretion becomes the easy default.

Proposed changeWe want Amendment 2 so the local authority shall offer or hold a meeting unless there's evidence that doing so is not consistent with the child's welfare (Clause 1, page 1, line 14).

FGDM as a process and family-led

Family group decision-making should be a properly prepared process, not a one-off meeting. The authority should have to support families to put safe, reasonable proposals into action, and it should be the family — not just the people the social worker happens to know — who decide who counts as the family network.

Proposed changeWe want Amendment 3ai to insert 'following preparation' (page 2, line 3); Amendment 3aii to require the authority to work with the child and family network to implement the proposal where it addresses the welfare concerns (page 2, line 7); and Amendments 3bi/3bii so the family network's membership is agreed by those listed at section (1), subject to (3).

Timing of the FGDM offer too late

Offering family group decision-making only at the pre-proceedings letter is too late for many families and leaves some at-risk children out altogether. The offer should be available earlier, whenever it would help meet a child's needs.

Proposed changeWe want Amendment 4 to require an offer wherever the Director of Children's Services is satisfied it would help formulate a plan to meet the child's needs, extended to the child where they're 16 or over (Clause 1, page 2, line 20).

Duty to seek children's wishes in FGDM

I ask that the Bill place a duty on local authorities to seek and give due weight to children's wishes and feelings, and to let them take part in family group decision-making meetings.

Proposed changePlace a duty on the local authority to seek and give due weight to children's wishes and feelings and to enable them to take part in family group decision-making meetings.

FGC best-interests let-out unacceptable

We agree family-group decision-making should empower the family network, but we won't accept that the duty falls away wherever the local authority decides it isn't in the child's best interests — that let-out is unacceptable and open to abuse. And family-group conferences can be the wrong route where there's domestic violence.

Proposed changeTake out the local-authority 'best interests' let-out so the family-group conference duty can't just be ignored, and refocus on making Section 17 support a statutory duty.

FGDM and deaf children's voice

We welcome the duty to offer a family group decision-making meeting before applying to take a child into care, but it should require due consideration of children's wishes and feelings and actually involve them — not just 'seek the views unless it's not appropriate'. Deaf children's access needs must be catered for so their views are represented fairly and accurately, and the Early Help assessment pathway needs strengthening for deaf and 'deaf plus' children.

Proposed changeAmend the FGDM duty to require due consideration of children's wishes and feelings, and to accommodate deaf children's access needs.

Grounds for refusing FGDM meeting

We want the accompanying guidance to spell out the grounds on which a local authority can decide it wouldn't be in a child's best interests to offer a family group decision-making meeting under clause 1(3).

Proposed changeWe want the guidance to clarify the grounds on which an LA may decide a family group decision-making meeting isn't in the child's best interests.

Kinship care and Virtual School Heads

We welcome the family-group-decision-making, kinship-definition and 'kinship local offer' provisions and the extension of Virtual School Heads to children in need and kinship care. We welcome proposals that strengthen families and increase the chances of children staying safely within their families and communities — this fits our existing family-help model and reunification work, where only a minority end up in public care, and we're already working on the barriers to achievement and on supporting people working with kinship children.

FGDM welcome but fix perverse care incentive

We welcome the new duty to deliver family group decision making for children at risk of entering care, but it has to come with reform that removes the perverse incentive whereby children have to enter local authority care just to secure well-supported kinship arrangements.

Proposed changeWe'd reform support so a child doesn't have to enter local authority care first to get a well-supported kinship arrangement, letting families move on to permanent arrangements like special guardianship.

Family group decision-making duty welcomed

We welcome Clause 1's duty to offer a family group decision-making meeting before an order is applied for, and we're glad the explanatory notes intend the statutory guidance to use the Family Group Conferencing model — it's proven to improve wellbeing and reduce the number of children entering care.

Welcome mandatory family group decision-making

We strongly welcome the requirement to hold family group decision-making meetings before any application is made to take a child into care.

Family group decision-making guidance

We support Clause 1's duty to offer family group decision-making before care or supervision proceedings, and we'd strengthen it by requiring statutory guidance that sets a minimum offer and handles sensitive cases like domestic abuse. We also support amendment 49, which extends the offer to reunification.

Proposed changeStrengthen Clause 1 to require the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance within a set time, defining a minimum offer and keeping it consistent with protection from abuse — and we'd back amendment 49.

Kinship care and family group decision-making

We support mandatory family group decision-making before care proceedings and defining kinship carers with a 'kinship local offer', but we want practice guidance that makes FGDM early and flexible, and local authorities that are properly resourced — including direct financial support for kinship families in poverty. Our members' relationship-based care and their therapeutic life-story and permanency work are central to making this work.

Proposed changeWe want practice guidance for early, flexible FGDM, and the kinship local offer properly resourced, including financial support for families.

Family group decision-making duty

We support the new duty to offer family group decision-making at pre-proceedings — our randomised control trial shows the family group conference model works, and it tells us these services need to be high quality and well invested. It won't necessarily divert children from care; kinship foster households are already 19% of active fostering households. But earlier engagement is better, and many local authorities already offer FGDM before pre-proceedings, so the duty mustn't slow things down or close off those earlier opportunities.

Proposed changeOur Amendment 1: make sure the duty doesn't take away earlier FGDM opportunities, have statutory guidance prevent delay, and extend FGDM to reunification cases, including family members abroad.

Welcome family group decision-making

We strongly welcome family group decision-making in the Bill. It's a way to safely keep children out of care by exploring what family and friends can offer before a child ever enters the system.

Family group decision-making / FGCs

We welcome mandating an FGDM offer at the pre-proceedings stage, and our RCT shows Family Group Conferences keep children safely within their family network. We want to be clear, though, that the evidence specifically supports FGCs as a quality-assured model delivered alongside ongoing support.

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to recognise FGCs as the specific, evidence-backed FGDM model at the pre-proceedings stage, and to build in quality standards and implementation support.

Family group decision-making

We agree that the family group decision-making in Clause 1 is the right approach: a holistic approach that involves everyone connected with the child strengthens the support around children in kinship care.

Need S17 support, not more professionals

Children don't need multi-agency child protection staffed by yet more professionals — they need support under Section 17. And Section 17 assessments must be done separately from Section 47 assessments, because lumping them into one assessment by unqualified social workers ends up blaming mothers for their disabled children's needs.

Proposed changeCarry out Section 17 social-work assessments separately from Section 47 child-protection assessments.

Caution on mandated multi-agency teams

We support multi-agency collaboration, but mandating multi-agency child protection teams risks undermining the social work role and safeguarding principles, and there's little evidence for the model. We're concerned they're being mandated before the pilots are even evaluated, and we want clarity on their remit, structure, governance and funding.

Proposed changeWe want you to hold off mandating multi-agency teams until the pilots are fully evaluated, clarify their remit, structure and governance, and give every local authority equivalent funding.

Funding for expanded safeguarding role

The Bill says very little about what these expanded safeguarding responsibilities will cost or how they'll be funded. Schools are already in financial crisis and public services are stretched, so this strengthened role has to come with appropriate, designated government funding.

Proposed changeWe want appropriate, designated government funding to match the education sector's strengthened safeguarding role.

Data breaches and inappropriate sharing

We're worried that the new duty to share information in section 16LA leaves our data open to breaches and inappropriate sharing.

Proposed changeBuild in safeguards against data breaches and the inappropriate sharing of home educators' data.

Registered does not mean suitable

Just because an agency is registered doesn't make it suitable for my child. Suitable education has to fit the individual child — you can't use registration to force a child to attend any given provider.

Make education a statutory safeguarding partner

We welcome Clause 2 making education a relevant agency in safeguarding partnerships as a step forward, but it lacks accountability and resourcing — providers aren't required to engage, there are no accountability lines, no duty to follow education's advice and no extra resource. Like the Independent Review of Children's Social Care, the Commission for Young Lives, the Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson reviews and the Working Together consultation, we believe education should be the fourth safeguarding partner, so we recommend giving the Secretary of State the power to make childcare and e…

Proposed changeWe'd add to Clause 2 a power for the Secretary of State to make childcare and education settings a statutory safeguarding partner if the Bill's measures don't ensure they're part of safeguarding partnership conversations.

Make education a statutory safeguarding partner

We support Clause 2 making childcare and education agencies a 'relevant partner', but it stops short of making schools a full statutory safeguarding partner under s.16 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 — which risks leaving education out of strategic decisions.

Proposed changeAmend the Bill to make education a statutory safeguarding partner under s.16 of the 2017 Act, commencing after the necessary consultation.

Education as statutory safeguarding partner; exclusion advocacy

Schools are the arm of the state that sees children every day, unlike the police, local authorities or health, so we're surprised education isn't being made a statutory safeguarding partner, as the Independent Review of Children's Social Care recommended. Schools owe a protective duty under ECHR Article 4 against exploitation, yet too often we see children at high risk of exploitation permanently excluded through a behaviour lens, with no safeguarding consideration. The Curriculum and Assessment Review is also a chance to refresh RSHE guidance from early years to post-16.

Proposed changeOur Amendment 2: introduce direct access to advocacy in school-exclusion cases, and recognise and formalise schools' safeguarding role in local arrangements.

Education as statutory safeguarding partner

I'm glad Clause 2 recognises education's safeguarding role, but it only secures education settings' participation, not partner status. Schools are often the first to know a child is at risk and are deeply trusted by children, yet they aren't statutory safeguarding partners — and mere participation doesn't put them on an equal footing with social care, health and the police. I recommend this clause is strengthened to make schools a fourth statutory safeguarding partner.

Proposed changeI'd strengthen Clause 2 to make schools and education settings a fourth statutory safeguarding partner.

Mandate Operation Encompass training

We'd mandate Operation Encompass 'Key Adult' training for all education staff, including non-teaching staff. Dedicated domestic-abuse training is needed — not just one component buried in wider safeguarding — and the training is free, already exists, and could be rolled out easily.

Proposed changeWe want Operation Encompass 'Key Adult' training made mandatory for all education setting staff, including non-teaching staff.

Social workers' training and 'out of education'

It troubles us morally that the social workers checking on home-educated children's welfare aren't trained to understand home education. We want the guidance changed so the concern is a child being 'out of education', not simply 'out of school' — those two are not the same thing.

Proposed changeTrain social workers in home education and change the guidance so it focuses on children 'out of education' rather than 'out of school'.

Make education the fourth safeguarding partner

Clause 2 doesn't go far enough. Education should be made the fourth statutory safeguarding partner alongside police, health and social care, not left on an unequal footing.

Proposed changeMake education the fourth statutory safeguarding partner.

Integrate community and faith-based organisations

Wellbeing and safeguarding aren't the sole responsibility of statutory organisations. Many community and faith-based organisations deliver statutory responsibilities indirectly, reach the marginalised and less-visible children that statutory services struggle to engage, and yet are overlooked in this draft — and many aren't regulated by bodies like Ofsted, which creates inconsistencies in oversight. Leaving them out risks gaps that fall hardest on already-vulnerable groups, so we recommend the Bill explicitly recognise and integrate these organisations into safeguarding frameworks.

Proposed changePut provisions in the Bill that explicitly recognise and support community and faith-based organisations, and bring them into safeguarding frameworks.

Schools as fourth safeguarding partner

We recommend strengthening Clause 2 to make schools a fourth statutory safeguarding partner, because schools are so often the first point of contact for vulnerable children.

Proposed changeAmend Clause 2 to make schools a fourth statutory safeguarding partner.

Make education a statutory safeguarding partner

We'd urge the Bill to go further and make education the fourth statutory safeguarding partner, with proper resourcing, because education plays such a critical safeguarding role.

Proposed changeWe want education made a fourth statutory safeguarding partner, with appropriate resourcing and support for education institutions and their workforce.

Schools in safeguarding arrangements

We welcome bringing education and childcare agencies into the safeguarding arrangements under clause 2, but we want the guidance to make sure all schools, including non-LA-maintained ones, are part of the planning and training, and to focus on improving relationships and practice between agencies rather than narrow monitoring and audits.

Proposed changeWe want the subsequent guidance to include all schools, including non-maintained ones, in safeguarding planning and training, and to focus on improving practice between agencies.

Include education agencies in safeguarding

We welcome Clause 2 bringing education agencies into safeguarding arrangements. At the moment schools get poor feedback on the referrals they make and are shut out of forming safeguarding policy, and we hope a duty to involve schools will finally give educators a more prominent role.

Safeguarding home-educated and Child-in-Need children

We applaud that home-educated children have the same right to be safeguarded, and that a parent wishing to home-educate a child under a safeguarding enquiry or child protection plan must seek local-authority consent. But we need clarity on safeguarding for home-educated children on Child in Need plans, because mortality among these children is rising and the focus on those at the edge of child protection has slipped.

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to spell out what safeguarding measures apply to home-educated children on Child in Need plans, and to have safeguarding health partners weigh the child's health experience in any consent decision.

Safeguarding partners; trauma training

We support clauses 2 and 3 moving education and childcare settings from 'relevant agencies' to 'safeguarding partners'. But teachers need training in how abuse, neglect and trauma play out in foster, kinship and adoptive families, and we need a framework for dealing with safeguarding issues within these families.

Proposed changeWe want safeguarding training for teachers on children with histories of abuse, neglect and trauma, and a framework for dealing with safeguarding within foster, kinship and adoptive families.

Education as statutory safeguarding partner

We strongly support a stronger safeguarding role for education, and we urge you to go further still and make education the fourth statutory safeguarding partner, with dedicated safeguarding resource in every school and new Education Domestic Abuse Advisor roles.

Proposed changeWe want education made the fourth statutory safeguarding partner, a funded pilot of dedicated safeguarding resource in schools, and new Education Domestic Abuse Advisor roles introduced.

Mandatory education involvement in safeguarding

We strongly support making it mandatory for education settings to be part of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. Education staff have the most prolonged, daily contact with children and are best placed to spot domestic abuse early — ideally, education should be a fourth safeguarding partner.

Proposed changeWe want education and childcare settings' involvement in safeguarding arrangements made mandatory rather than discretionary, by amending section 16E of the Children Act 2004.

Multi-agency safeguarding, with funding caveats

We support bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements and forming multi-agency child protection teams — it's imperative they're included. We'd go further and want multi-agency Family Help teams, because it's crucial we increase the focus on prevention and tackle issues at the earliest opportunity, drawing in mental health, domestic abuse, community safety, education and the voluntary sector. But here in Hampshire that could mean 4-8 teams, and health and police can't staff that without extra investment. We also need a balance struck between localism and the cent…

Proposed changeBuild the model towards multi-agency Family Help teams and fund it, and balance localised teams with the central consistency that keeps thresholds the same.

Education in safeguarding arrangements

We support bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements under clause 2, but we'd welcome clarity on what their safeguarding duties are and further guidance on how to engage them in our local partnerships.

Proposed changeGive us clarity on providers' safeguarding duties and guidance on engaging them in partnerships.

Education as statutory safeguarding partner

We strongly support making education a full statutory safeguarding partner and bringing in the multi-agency and information-sharing measures. Schools see children every weekday, which gives them a unique view of a child's wellbeing, and a statutory duty to share information takes away the reluctance professionals often feel about sharing.

Multi-agency safeguarding must join up and be trained

We welcome placing a duty on safeguarding partners to involve education and childcare settings (clause 2) and the establishment of MACPTs (clause 3), but the duty must go beyond information-sharing. MACPTs need clear instruction on how to cooperate with existing forums such as multi-agency risk assessment conferences (Maracs) — connecting child safeguarding with established domestic-abuse frameworks is essential to recognising and supporting child victims. We welcome working with education operationally and strategically, but it must come with adequate training so education partners can respo…

Proposed changeMake sure MACPTs are instructed to cooperate with existing domestic-abuse forums (Maracs) and that education partners get adequate training to respond to disclosures and the Operation Encompass referral pathway.

Support including education/childcare in safeguarding

We're keen to endorse including education and childcare providers in the area safeguarding arrangements under Clause 2. Bringing together the organisations that deliver safeguarding and sharing the responsibility makes practice more integrated and consistent — and it's in line with the Home Secretary's point that protecting an organisation is no justification for lax safeguarding. Our 'Learning Together' reviews show there's currently neither equity nor comprehensiveness in who gets referred for child protection, and adding education and childcare professionals supports fairer referrals, bett…

Support child-protection and multi-agency measures

We support the child-protection measures: bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements (clause 2), setting up multi-agency child protection teams drawn from education, social work, health and police (clause 3), and creating a single unique identifier with new data-sharing duties (clause 4).

Education as statutory safeguarding partner

We support bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements and multi-agency child protection teams. Education's voice should be a statutory safeguarding partner, because teachers spend more time with young people than anyone else.

Proposed changeMandate education professionals as statutory safeguarding partners alongside the local authority, ICB and police.

Redirect resources from child protection teams

We don't think multi-agency child protection teams are backed by evidence, and we worry they'll just ramp up harmful investigations — we'd put the resources into early preventative family support instead.

Proposed changeWe'd use the resources to support vulnerable families and early preventative work rather than building multi-agency child protection teams for Section 47 duties.

Need S17 support, not more professionals

Children don't need multi-agency child protection staffed by yet more professionals — they need support under Section 17. And Section 17 assessments must be done separately from Section 47 assessments, because lumping them into one assessment by unqualified social workers ends up blaming mothers for their disabled children's needs.

Proposed changeCarry out Section 17 social-work assessments separately from Section 47 child-protection assessments.

Caution on mandated multi-agency teams

We support multi-agency collaboration, but mandating multi-agency child protection teams risks undermining the social work role and safeguarding principles, and there's little evidence for the model. We're concerned they're being mandated before the pilots are even evaluated, and we want clarity on their remit, structure, governance and funding.

Proposed changeWe want you to hold off mandating multi-agency teams until the pilots are fully evaluated, clarify their remit, structure and governance, and give every local authority equivalent funding.

Resourcing of multi-agency child protection teams

We support the aim of multi-agency child protection teams, but it's not clear to us how health professionals — including mental health — will be sourced and resourced from a workforce that NHS restructuring has reduced. We'd rather see a tiered Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub model with a broad skill mix, including education, so there's no single point of failure.

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to clarify how health will be resourced for these teams, and to consider a tiered MASH model with a broad professional skill mix, including education, and an expert advisory child protection social worker.

Referrals only, not LA self-action

Social services already deal with suspected abuse, and home-education officers are not trained social workers. Reword this so LAs have to refer concerns to the right qualified department instead of acting themselves — and only after someone has actually reported a cause.

Proposed changeReword it so LAs must refer concerns to the right department — police for crimes, social services for abuse, LA education for education problems — and let that department act as it sees fit, with a report required before anyone acts.

Cover early help and children in need, not just protection

The Bill should provide a locally based family and community service, staffed by experienced qualified social workers, covering early help, children in need and child protection — not just child protection as proposed — or it will undermine effective early intervention.

Proposed changeProvide a locally based family and community service covering early help and children in need, not just child protection.

Mandatory senior doctor on MACP teams

We support the multi-agency child protection teams in Clause 3, and they must include a senior doctor with expertise in child protection medical assessments. We also want clarity on how these teams relate to existing designated and named doctor structures, and a funded academic evaluation.

Proposed changeWe want doctors with clinical child protection expertise to be a mandatory part of the multi-agency child protection teams, with clarity on how they relate to existing structures and a funded evaluation built in.

Children as victims of domestic abuse; statutory Chidvas

This Bill should bridge the gap left since the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognised children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right but little has changed in practice. Children are exposed to domestic abuse for an average of eight years, with lasting trauma. Chidvas are trained specialists integral to children's safety planning and recovery — their impact is striking: a 92% reduction in children experiencing abuse, an 84% reduction in direct exposure and a 95% improvement in understanding personal safety — yet only 16.9% of commissioned advocates are child-specific, so children face a…

Proposed changeEmbed Chidvas in Multi-Agency Child Protection Teams for domestic-abuse cases and create a statutory, adequately funded duty to commission enough child-specific advocates, with statutory guidance defining the Chidva role.

National section 17 threshold

We welcome the multi-agency child protection teams, but we'd amend Clause 3 to create a national section 17 threshold for a 'child in need' and to extend the multi-agency approach to those children too.

Proposed changeAmend Clause 3 to create a national threshold for a section 17 'child in need' and extend the multi-agency approach to those children.

Safeguarding partners; trauma training

We support clauses 2 and 3 moving education and childcare settings from 'relevant agencies' to 'safeguarding partners'. But teachers need training in how abuse, neglect and trauma play out in foster, kinship and adoptive families, and we need a framework for dealing with safeguarding issues within these families.

Proposed changeWe want safeguarding training for teachers on children with histories of abuse, neglect and trauma, and a framework for dealing with safeguarding within foster, kinship and adoptive families.

Multi-agency teams and educational neglect

I welcome the requirement to set up multi-agency child protection teams bringing together education, social work, health and police, and I'd urge that 'educational neglect' be recognised nationally, within social care thresholds, as a possible sign of wider neglect.

Proposed changeWhen you review social care thresholds, consider 'educational neglect' at a national level as a possible safeguarding indicator.

Multi-agency safeguarding teams

We support the multi-agency safeguarding team duty, which strengthens protection against harm from outside the home or online. For it to work, cooperation is key, every partner has to be accountable, and roles must be crystal clear.

Specialist DA services in MACPT core

We support multi-agency child protection teams, and we recommend that specialist domestic abuse services be part of their minimum core membership, that every member be trained on domestic abuse, and that we learn the lessons of existing structures — alongside a whole-system review of MARAC.

Proposed changeWe want specialist domestic abuse services written into the minimum core membership of multi-agency child protection teams, and a commitment to a whole-system review of MARAC.

Multi-agency child protection teams

I support mandating multi-agency child protection teams as a step towards consistency, but the Bill should go further. Local and regional disparities create a postcode lottery in the support children get, and minimum national standards are the best foundation for innovative local implementation. I'd add a consistent national threshold for Section 17 assessment and strengthen the national guidance on child in need plans.

Proposed changeI'd introduce a consistent national threshold for Section 17 assessment and support, and strengthen the national guidance on child in need plans.

Multi-agency child protection teams

We support the multi-agency child protection teams in Clause 3, but they'll only succeed if there's a drastic change in training, understanding and expectation, so that professionals genuinely collaborate around a shared focus on protecting children.

Proposed changeWe want to see real change in training, understanding and expectation across all agencies, and learning from the local authorities where this already works made a top priority.

Multi-agency safeguarding, with funding caveats

We support bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements and forming multi-agency child protection teams — it's imperative they're included. We'd go further and want multi-agency Family Help teams, because it's crucial we increase the focus on prevention and tackle issues at the earliest opportunity, drawing in mental health, domestic abuse, community safety, education and the voluntary sector. But here in Hampshire that could mean 4-8 teams, and health and police can't staff that without extra investment. We also need a balance struck between localism and the cent…

Proposed changeBuild the model towards multi-agency Family Help teams and fund it, and balance localised teams with the central consistency that keeps thresholds the same.

Multi-agency child protection teams

We welcome multi-agency child protection teams, but they can't be effective without sufficient support from police and health services, which are under significant workforce pressure. Structural changes to police and health at a sub-regional level may also make it harder to get proper representation on our place-based teams in London.

Education as statutory safeguarding partner

We strongly support making education a full statutory safeguarding partner and bringing in the multi-agency and information-sharing measures. Schools see children every weekday, which gives them a unique view of a child's wellbeing, and a statutory duty to share information takes away the reluctance professionals often feel about sharing.

Education member should be a Safeguarding Lead

We support Clause 3, but the 'person nominated by the local authority with experience in education' should be someone with current or very recent experience working as a Safeguarding Lead in an educational setting.

Proposed changeRequire current or very recent experience as a Safeguarding Lead for whoever fills the education role on multi-agency child protection teams.

Multi-agency safeguarding must join up and be trained

We welcome placing a duty on safeguarding partners to involve education and childcare settings (clause 2) and the establishment of MACPTs (clause 3), but the duty must go beyond information-sharing. MACPTs need clear instruction on how to cooperate with existing forums such as multi-agency risk assessment conferences (Maracs) — connecting child safeguarding with established domestic-abuse frameworks is essential to recognising and supporting child victims. We welcome working with education operationally and strategically, but it must come with adequate training so education partners can respo…

Proposed changeMake sure MACPTs are instructed to cooperate with existing domestic-abuse forums (Maracs) and that education partners get adequate training to respond to disclosures and the Operation Encompass referral pathway.

Support child-protection and multi-agency measures

We support the child-protection measures: bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements (clause 2), setting up multi-agency child protection teams drawn from education, social work, health and police (clause 3), and creating a single unique identifier with new data-sharing duties (clause 4).

Education as statutory safeguarding partner

We support bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements and multi-agency child protection teams. Education's voice should be a statutory safeguarding partner, because teachers spend more time with young people than anyone else.

Proposed changeMandate education professionals as statutory safeguarding partners alongside the local authority, ICB and police.

Consistent identifier and data-breach risk

I'm deeply concerned that consistent identifiers for children put family privacy at significant risk — public-sector data breaches happen so often that pulling all this data together in one place makes our children more vulnerable, however good the intentions behind it.

Proposed changePlease don't introduce consistent identifiers, and keep centralised data on our children to a minimum.

Unique child identifier like Named Person Scheme

I oppose the consistent unique child identifier. It's just like Scotland's Named Person Scheme, which was held to breach the right to private and family life. It mistakes bureaucracy for safeguarding, and it will bury the children who are genuinely at risk under a mountain of data.

Proposed changeDrop the consistent child identifier, or at the very least go back and fundamentally rethink it.

Compulsory child ID numbers without consultation

I'm concerned this Bill would introduce compulsory ID numbers for all children without any further public consultation. That's a major shift in national policy and shouldn't be undertaken lightly.

Proposed changeDon't introduce compulsory child ID numbers without further public consultation.

Oppose consistent child identifiers

I oppose consistent identifiers for children (the new s16LB). There have been so many data breaches in LAs and government, they pose particular risks to families affected by domestic violence, and previous tracking systems like Contact Point failed precisely because of the family-rights and privacy risks.

Proposed changeDon't introduce consistent identifiers for children.

Unique identifier shares religious data

I object to the unique identifier letting state agencies hold and share my children's and family's personal data — including protected characteristics like religion — without my knowledge. To me, that is monitoring of faith families.

Proposed changeI'd remove or at least restrict the unique identifier and the sharing of children's data, especially religion and other protected characteristics.

Consistent identifier and data-sharing risks

I'm concerned that the proposed consistent identifier or unique ID shared across services is open to abuse and insecure, could put families off using public services like GPs, and that the Bill's data-protection provision is simply inadequate.

Proposed changeDon't impose a cross-service consistent identifier, and strengthen data protection well beyond what the Bill currently provides.

Consistent identifier concerns

I object to giving every child an ID number — it's an authoritarian 'ID cards by the backdoor' that could be abused, used to discriminate, carried on into adulthood, and leaves children exposed to data breaches.

Proposed changeI'd not introduce a universal child ID number at all — or if you must, strictly limit and define how it's used and how long it's kept.

Oppose unique identifiers / data sharing

The unique-identifier and universal data-sharing proposals just revive the failed and dangerous ContactPoint and Named Person schemes, and they must not even be on the table — I've seen the harm inappropriate health-data sharing does to home educators.

Proposed changeI'd remove the unique-identifier and universal data-sharing provisions entirely.

Remove single unique identifier

I oppose the consistent or single identifier: these databases are unsafe, unreliable, costly and don't protect children. ContactPoint was abandoned, and it's the most vulnerable children who are most at risk.

Proposed changeRemove the consistent identifier / single ID provisions.

Single unique identifier breaches privacy

I oppose the single unique identifier — it lets my child be tracked across multiple agencies without my consent, breaching her privacy and the whole principle of informed consent. With no evidence that home-educating families cause any harm, there's no justification for it.

Proposed changeTake out the single unique identifier surveillance system altogether.

Remove compulsory child ID numbers

This Bill has to be seen against a backdrop of growing government hostility to home education. The Sara Sharif case has been weaponised, even though such cases are extremely rare and not at all representative of home educators. And the Bill sneaks in measures like compulsory ID numbers for children without any public consultation, which signals broader government overreach and an erosion of parental rights.

Proposed changePlease remove the provisions for compulsory child ID numbers and subject all the measures to full public consultation, and stop conflating isolated tragedies with the home-educating community.

Oppose the consistent identifier

We totally oppose the consistent identifier. It extends state monitoring to an unprecedented degree, as if children belong to the state, and a similar Scottish scheme was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court for breaching Article 8 of the ECHR.

Proposed changeDrop Clause 4, the consistent identifier, immediately.

SUI risks adoptee confidentiality

We're concerned that clause 4's single unique identifier — likely the NHS number — could undermine adoptees' anonymity. Adopted children are given a new NHS number on adoption precisely to protect them, so extending that number's use will widen the number of people able to search adoptees' data and increase the risk of breaching their confidentiality.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill to spell out explicitly the specific considerations that must apply when sharing data on adoptees, so there's no risk of harm.

Compulsory ID numbers without consultation

I'm concerned that compulsory ID numbers are tucked into this Bill with no public consultation at all, leaving no chance to properly discuss something this significant.

Proposed changeHold a public consultation on the compulsory ID numbers.

Privacy and data-protection risks of identifiers

I'm extremely concerned about consistent identifiers for children, given how often data is breached and how few local authorities have secure, GDPR-compliant systems — previous tracking systems failed for exactly these reasons.

Proposed changeRemove or fundamentally rethink the consistent identifiers provision to protect family privacy.

Consistent identifier undefined and unsafeguarded

The consistent identifier for children is undefined on the face of the Bill — everything is left to regulations — so MPs don't know whether it's a new national ID or a repurposing of the NHS or UPN number, and they're being asked to sign a blank cheque. The DfE's December 2024 Policy Summary Notes hint at a regional pilot using the NHS number but give no detail, and reusing it risks 'context collapse'; the DfE's own 2016 research and a Department of Health undertaking to the ICO say the NHS number should be used for health and social care only. We ask for a risk assessment or Gateway Review s…

Proposed changeWe want the identifier named before the vote, the power to specify it subject to the affirmative procedure, and UPN-style safeguards applied — a blind number, with identifiers lapsing when the person is no longer a child or after 25 for care leavers and disabled people.

Consistent identifier data-breach risk

We are deeply concerned that the consistent identifier system puts family privacy at significant risk, given how often the public sector suffers data breaches, and we point to past track-and-trace systems that already failed.

No cause threshold for sharing

Information sharing and investigations here have no trigger, no required cause to begin them, and LAs already can't follow the communication guidelines they have. The officers need more training and proper qualifications.

Proposed changeRequire a cause — a complaint, say — before any investigation or sharing begins, and require the officers to have more education and proper qualifications.

Risk that profiling/surveillance harms marginalised children

For us, child protection is a human-rights and civil-liberties issue, and we warn that some child-protection strategies built on profiling and surveillance make inequalities worse and harm marginalised children, particularly Black and global majority children and those in deprived areas.

Unique identifiers and data access

I'm worried these consistent or unique identifiers could be used to limit children's access to opportunities, or shared with private companies for monitoring, and I want families to be able to see their own data.

Proposed changeRestrict how unique identifiers can be used so they can't block children's opportunities, and give families a right to see their own data and the list of companies processing it.

Consistent identifiers and data privacy

Consistent identifiers would significantly increase the collecting and sharing of highly personal details about my children and us as a family. Given the frequent, well-documented data breaches across so many sectors, including local authorities, that's a real privacy risk to me.

Proposed changePlease remove or scale back the expanded data collection and sharing requirements.

Advocacy confidentiality vs unique identifier

We see the value in better information sharing, but we're worried advocacy services could be swept into the consistent identifier system and lose the confidentiality that advocacy depends on. Would independent advocates actually be required to use the identifier? We need to know.

Proposed changeWe want it made clear that independent advocacy is not required to use the consistent identifier, so children's advocacy case records stay confidential.

Single unique identifier and data sharing

We're concerned that the single unique identifier — likely the NHS number — and mandatory information-sharing could be seen as excessive surveillance and deter already mistrustful Romani (Gypsy), Roma and Irish Traveller families from public services. Some child-protection systems already make inequalities worse for racialised and deprived children, and tracking children through the identifier could deepen fears of state surveillance and discourage families from engaging with health and other services. Broad data-sharing could be used to justify interventions based on stereotypes about neglec…

Proposed changeWe want safeguards built in: destroy the relevant data when a child reaches adulthood, require informed consent and transparent limits, and mitigate any discriminatory chilling effect.

Single unique identifier: cautious support

We can see the opportunities in a single unique identifier for sharing data and safeguarding, but we have real concerns about privacy, data security and misuse. We'd put resources into the existing, overburdened multi-agency practice first, before building new data systems.

Proposed changePrioritise strengthening existing multi-agency practice over a new unique identifier system, and wrap any system in robust data protection, transparency and consent, and independent ethical oversight.

Enhance LA IT for seamless data sharing

We want local-authority IT systems improved so data can be shared seamlessly between sectors. That's what underpins the connected, collaborative system we're calling for.

Proposed changeUpgrade local-authority IT systems so information flows seamlessly across sectors.

Strengthen and broaden the SUI

We welcome the Single Unique Identifier but want its scope properly scrutinised. We'd use the NHS number as the identifier, make every service use it consistently for every child, get an indicative timeframe for the regulations, and broaden its purpose beyond 'safeguarding and welfare' to 'wellbeing' and to anonymised cohort data for research and commissioning.

Proposed changeAdopt the NHS number as the identifier, require every service to use it consistently for every child, give us a timeframe for the regulations, and extend its scope to 'wellbeing' and to anonymised cohort data for research and commissioning.

Bill removes confidentiality safeguards

The Bill's mandatory duty to share information overrides the duty of confidence and removes safeguards that exist in s251A of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 — contrary to the Department's claim that the governance mirrors the NHS-number model. The DfE's Memorandum to the Delegated Powers Committee says the approach is consistent with the 2015 Consistent Identifier Regulations but leaves out two crucial differences: s251A(6) lets an individual object to inclusion of the identifier, and s251A(7) preserves the common-law duty of confidence — whereas 16LA(7) instead says disclosure 'does not…

Proposed changeWe want the objection right and the preservation of the common-law duty of confidence restored, equivalent to s251A(6) and (7).

Statutory transparency register of data use

We propose a new duty on relevant persons to maintain a transparency register — a record of processing — of every use and access of data shared under the duty to share information (16LA) and the registers (Clause 25), to keep oversight and accountability alive after the data is disclosed. Our proposed new subsection in 16LA would require recording the date, the individual, the organisation, job title, purpose, data items, sensitivity, retention date and onward recipients of each access, complying with the DPA 2018, UK GDPR and Convention 108. It's justified because 16LA(7) revokes the duty of…

Proposed changeWe want a new subsection inserted in section 16LA creating a statutory duty to maintain a public, redacted transparency register and record of processing of all use and access to the shared data, with a regulation-making power over its form, retention and disclosure.

Use unique identifier for holistic care

We welcome the single unique identifier for multi-agency collaboration, but its focus on risk avoidance and child protection misses a chance to enhance the holistic care of disabled children. We'd use it to improve multi-agency working across education, health and social care, and to streamline things so families don't have to give the same information over and over to different agencies.

Proposed changeBroaden the single unique identifier's purpose to support holistic, multi-agency care and cut down the duplicate information requests families face.

Father-child data linkage in the SUI

We welcome the SUI and the information-sharing duty, but the Bill should require NHS England to scope and pilot father-child data linkage at the same time as it builds the child SUI, because right now children's records hold no father information at all — and that hurts safeguarding, our ability to engage fathers, and research. Mother-child linkage is universal through midwifery, yet there's nothing for fathers, even though 95% of fathers attend the birth and 95% jointly register it. Without father data, dangerous fathers stay invisible — the Panel's 'Myth of Invisible Men' found records only…

Proposed changeWe want the Bill amended so NHS England doesn't just develop and test the child SUI on its own, but at the same time scopes and pilots ways to link father and child data — for example, linking birth notifications and registrations to fathers' NHS numbers.

Remove consistent child identifier

The consistent child identifier in section 16LB just duplicates identifiers we already have, like National Insurance numbers, and it creates privacy risks with no clear justification. Take it out.

Proposed changeRemove the consistent-identifier provision in section 16LB.

Narrow data sharing to safeguarding

The words 'or promoting the welfare of' open the door to data sharing well beyond safeguarding. Strike them out so sharing is limited to genuine safeguarding issues.

Proposed changeRemove the words 'or promoting the welfare of' so data sharing is limited to genuine safeguarding issues.

Protect at-risk families from data sharing

There's nothing here to protect families at risk — domestic-abuse victims, for instance — from these data-sharing requirements. Add a clause that bars sharing data where it could endanger a child or a parent.

Proposed changeAdd a clause that explicitly bars data sharing where it could compromise the safety of a child or parent.

Extend information sharing to A&E and missing children

We support Clause 4 and want the government to strengthen the duty to share information to safeguard a child's welfare, and to extend Operation Encompass notifications to cover A&E reports of serious self-harm or suicide attempts and information about children missing from home or care or facing other vulnerabilities.

Proposed changeStrengthen the information-sharing duty and extend Operation Encompass notifications to cover hospital A&E departments and children missing from home or care.

Expand single unique identifier to disabled children

We support the single unique identifier for safeguarding, but it should be expanded for use in the care of disabled children to improve multi-agency working across education, health and social care.

Proposed changeWe want the remit of the Single Unique Identifier expanded for use in the care of disabled children, to improve multi-agency working across education, health and social care.

Add temporary-accommodation notification system

Our central recommendation is to add a notification system, built into Clause 4, that places a duty on local authorities — with the family's consent — to notify schools and GPs when a family is placed into temporary accommodation. That way more than just the housing officer knows the family's situation, schools and GPs get guidance on supporting homeless children and not penalising them for absences, and these services can actually support the children.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill to include, under Clause 4, a consent-based notification system requiring local authorities to notify schools and GPs when a family enters temporary accommodation.

Provider welfare-sharing duty and Ofsted role

The provider duty in 16LA(2) to share information to 'promote welfare' is far too broad — it loads excessive administrative burden and data sharing onto providers. And register information can be shared with Ofsted, but for an unclear purpose, so the duty of Ofsted in relation to home educators needs to be clarified.

Proposed changeNarrow the provider welfare-sharing duty in 16LA(2), and spell out Ofsted's role and why register information would be shared with it.

Protect privacy and data-protection compliance

We ask what steps will protect children's right to privacy under UNCRC Article 16, Article 8 of the Human Rights Act and data-protection law: does including an NHS number make a child more identifiable, will the data be destroyed when they turn 18, and does relying on a health number disproportionately interfere with their privacy?

Proposed changeWe want safeguards spelled out that protect privacy, reduce data-breach risk, set retention limits, and keep the identifier's use proportionate.

Equity for children without an NHS number

If the identifier is an NHS number, we ask what steps will prevent inequity and discrimination, so that information-sharing for child protection isn't worse or inadequate for children who don't have an NHS number.

Proposed changeWe want information-sharing for child protection to work just as well for children who don't have an NHS number.

Chilling effect and coercion via immigration links

We ask what steps will counter a discriminatory chilling effect on children or families who fear that seeking support will expose them to information-sharing for immigration enforcement, and the danger that perpetrators weaponise that fear to coerce and control children in exploitation cases.

Proposed changeWe want any link between seeking child protection and immigration enforcement broken, along with the chilling and coercion effects that flow from it.

Embed UNCRC principles in the identifier

We ask that UNCRC principles be applied in any specification of the single unique identifier, including in future statutory instruments: non-discrimination, the child's best interests as a primary consideration, the state's duty to ensure survival and development, and respect for children's own views.

Proposed changeWe want UNCRC principles applied when the identifier is specified and in any future statutory instruments under Clause 4.

Consistent identifier for children

I strongly welcome the provision enabling a consistent identifier for children — it's an important first step. It joins up information across schools, health, social care, justice, housing and welfare, building a fuller picture of each child so none falls through the gaps. But professionals must be informed and upskilled to use it, the guidance must cover promoting welfare and health (not just protection from harm), best-interests exceptions and 'unreasonable delay', and the Government should set a target for full operation and a monitoring framework.

Proposed changeI'd implement the identifier ambitiously, with clear guidance, training, a national operational target and a monitoring framework.

Single unique identifier data sharing

We welcome the new data-sharing duties and the single unique identifier in Clause 4, as long as all agencies report frequently to keep the information current — and information security shouldn't be treated as an insurmountable barrier.

Proposed changeWe'd make sure every agency reports frequently so the identifier keeps vital information up to date.

Single unique identifier

We welcome the single unique identifier — most likely the NHS number — and we expect it to make cross-agency responses more timely. We'd urge you to draw on the lessons from the Child Protection Information System in developing it, and to communicate clearly what the new platform is for and how it's used, so staff feel confident sharing information.

Proposed changeWe'd use the experience of implementing CP-IS to develop the single unique identifier, and communicate the platform's scope and use clearly to build staff confidence.

Welcome multi-agency safeguarding and unique identifier

We welcome the Bill strengthening a multi-agency approach to safeguarding and introducing a unique identifier for all children.

Information sharing and single identifier

We welcome the duty to share information for safeguarding and the single unique identifier connecting data between services. For it to work, though, shared and compatible IT systems need to be up and running effectively across the social care, health, education and local-authority boundaries.

Proposed changeMake sure shared, compatible IT systems are actually operational across all the service boundaries.

Consistent identifier welcomed

We strongly welcome the consistent identifier — it's a potentially transformational building block to stop children falling through the gaps between services and data systems.

Strengthen consistent identifiers (mandatory use)

We support Clause 4's consistent identifiers, but as drafted it doesn't require every agency to use one for every child — it leaves the designated person discretion. We back amendments 43-45, which would let the Secretary of State require every designated person to use an identifier for all children.

Proposed changeBack amendments 43, 44 and 45, which would require every designated person to use a consistent identifier for all children.

Information-sharing duty; protect asylum children

We welcome the new information-sharing duty across local authority, health, police, justice, childcare and education agencies, and we note the carve-out where sharing would be more harmful to a child than not sharing. We do ask you to make sure the duty doesn't put unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at greater risk.

Proposed changeMake sure the new information-sharing duty doesn't put unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at greater risk.

Information sharing and Single Unique Identifier

We support a clear legal basis for sharing information to safeguard children, and the Single Unique Identifier — the NHS number, or the CHI or H&C equivalents, could do the job. Other systems matter too, like a child's Police National Computer or LEDS record. But guidance has to be just as clear about when data should NOT be shared, not only when it should. We're worried about the way the SUIs of children subject to immigration control could be used or misused, given the past DfE-Home Office sharing of School Census data and the GDPR immigration exemption. And adopted children get a new NHS n…

Proposed changeOur Amendment 5: access to and use of the SUI database should only ever be in a child's best interests, the GDPR immigration exemption should operate case-by-case with rights balanced, and there should be clear guidance for adopted children.

DA-informed information sharing

We agree we need to improve data sharing to safeguard children, but we want more detail on the single unique identifier — what gets recorded against it and who can access it — and we insist that any policy and guidance behind it be fully domestic-abuse-informed.

Proposed changeWe want the single unique identifier and its information-sharing policy and guidance made fully domestic-abuse-informed, with clarity on who can access it and what's recorded against it.

Single unique identifier benefits and caveats

We support the single unique identifier and the new data-sharing duties — one number across systems makes it far easier to link data and get a firm match than matching on name, date of birth and postcode, and it eases sharing with partners where we have the right lawful basis. We'd push this further so professionals can freely share information wherever there are safeguarding concerns. We'd flag the NHS-number caveats — adoption and gender reassignment generate new numbers, and unaccompanied children and refugees may not have one — and that implementation will be the biggest burden, especiall…

Proposed changeGo further so professionals can freely share safeguarding information, sort out the NHS-number edge cases, and fund the implementation.

Supports aims of the single unique identifier

We support the stated aims of Clause 4, and of the Bill generally, to make child protection and safeguarding more effective and reduce harm, and we agree the evidence shows current policy gaps leave some children falling through the cracks.

Information sharing and GDPR clarity

We welcome the improved clarity around data sharing and how GDPR relates to safeguarding. Our Safeguarding Practice Reviews invariably raise information-sharing failures caused by practitioners' uncertainty about what they can share, so it's critical that there's enough support and training to improve information sharing.

Proposed changePut enough support and training in place for practitioners so information sharing improves.

Education as statutory safeguarding partner

We strongly support making education a full statutory safeguarding partner and bringing in the multi-agency and information-sharing measures. Schools see children every weekday, which gives them a unique view of a child's wellbeing, and a statutory duty to share information takes away the reluctance professionals often feel about sharing.

Single unique identifier and wellbeing data

We welcome the single unique identifier as a real shift towards early intervention. With the right privacy safeguards, wellbeing measurement would strengthen the data linkages so local professionals can catch concerns early and provide stronger wrap-around care, while helping us identify risk and protective factors. We just need age-appropriate communication, firm privacy guarantees, public data only at neighbourhood level, and proper research controls.

Proposed changeWe'd link wellbeing-measurement datasets to the single unique identifier, with safeguards — public data only at neighbourhood level and no school-level league tables.

Evidence of notification system success

The notification system already runs in several Greater Manchester boroughs and in Islington, London. Rochdale tell us their staff find it easy to implement and that families welcome the support they get because of it — securing prescriptions and appointments, keeping families registered with a GP even after out-of-catchment moves, improving attendance, giving flexible school hours, better transport and places at breakfast and after-school clubs.

Multi-agency safeguarding for child performers

The Bill's safeguarding provision referencing the Children Act 2004, which requires safeguarding partners to work together, is crucial in our view. Fragmented licensing across so many different authorities is, as things stand, a major safeguarding failing — one that an education register, properly administered, would help put right.

Proposed changeWe want the multi-agency safeguarding duty and the register to work together, so that safeguarding partners get a joined-up picture of young performers' engagements.

Support child-protection and multi-agency measures

We support the child-protection measures: bringing education and childcare providers into safeguarding arrangements (clause 2), setting up multi-agency child protection teams drawn from education, social work, health and police (clause 3), and creating a single unique identifier with new data-sharing duties (clause 4).

Clarify Single Unique Identifier

We welcome the Clause 4 information-sharing duty and the Single Unique Identifier as potentially transformative, but we need clarity on how it will be implemented, how far it reaches, and how it will be applied.

Proposed changeWe want clear commitments that the SUI will cover all children, a definition of welfare (we'd say wellbeing), an indicative timeframe for the regulations, scope to use it for research and commissioning, and guidance on disclosure decisions.

Word 'publish' breaches confidentiality

I strongly object to the duty to 'publish' information — it means putting private, confidential information out in public, which breaches confidentiality and our human rights, and LAs will exploit it to demand information about home educators. Replace 'publish' with restricted, lawful sharing.

Proposed changeChange 'local authorities' to named registered departments, change 'publish' to 'shared following the legal requirements on data sharing', and make it specific so it can't be twisted by interpretation.

Kinship care must be assessed case-by-case

We support a family-first approach, but we'd caution that kinship carers can't always meet a child's needs even with support, so the benefits and drawbacks of kinship versus residential or foster care need weighing carefully, case by case.

Proposed changeWe want kinship-care suitability assessed case by case, carefully weighed against residential and foster care, so we avoid traumatic removals later on.

Kinship care: statutory duties and equalisation

The Bill's kinship provisions are far too weak — they only ask local authorities to publish whatever support already exists rather than placing any statutory duty on them. I want statutory duties: a dedicated kinship team, support workers, training and financial assistance, and I want you to adopt the charity Kinship's four 'equalisation' asks.

Proposed changePut statutory duties on local authorities for kinship care — a dedicated team, support workers, training and financial assistance — adopt the charity Kinship's four equalisation areas, and give us a kinship-carer team in every local authority.

Kinship information and local offer

I back the FRG amendments to Clause 5 that add legal support and family group decision-making to the kinship information offer, and require the same standard as other offers — publishing and responding to comments from people with lived experience.

Proposed changeAmend Clause 5 to put legal support and family group decision-making into the kinship information offer, and add provisions for publishing and responding to lived-experience comments on the kinship local offer.

More support for kinship carers

The Bill does little new for kinship carers, so we support the amendments for a kinship care allowance (NC27), a right to kinship care leave (NC26), and extending the pupil premium and priority admissions to kinship children (NC28, NC29).

Proposed changeAdd a kinship care allowance (NC27) and kinship care leave (NC26), and extend the pupil premium and priority admissions to kinship children (NC28, NC29).

Strengthen Virtual School Head duty

We welcome extending the Virtual School Head scheme to some children in need and children in care, but clauses 5 and 6 must be strengthened so the duty to promote the educational achievement of children with SEN isn't weakened. Clause 6(3) only requires a local authority to 'take such steps as it considers appropriate' — there should be guidance on what factors it must take into account — and clause 6(4) removes any requirement to take steps for a particular child, leaving a gap in individual, comprehensive support. We want a stronger duty to promote the educational achievement of children wi…

Proposed changeAdd statutory guidance on the factors authorities must consider, and impose a stronger duty to promote the educational achievement of children with SEN, removing the discretion that lets authorities decline to act for a particular child.

Add legal support and FGDM to local offer

We're concerned that legal support and family group decision making have been left off the list of services the kinship local offer must include. They're in the statutory guidance but not on the face of the Bill, and they need to be.

Proposed changeWe want Amendment 5 to add 'legal support' and 'family group decision making' to the categories of services in the kinship local offer (Clause 5, page 9, line 20).

Regulatory framework for kinship local offer

We're concerned the Bill expects far too little when it comes to involving children and families in developing the kinship local offer, and on publishing it and being transparent. We want a regulatory framework that mirrors the SEND local offer.

Proposed changeWe want Amendment 6 to give the Secretary of State explicit power to set out in regulations how the offer is published and reviewed and how children and families are involved, including publishing and responding to feedback (Clause 5, page 9, line 38).

Support and local offers for kinship carers

I'd give kinship carers more support — published 'local offers', discounted community rooms to meet in, and funding for the kind of calm, supportive community groups that help.

Proposed changeRequire or encourage local authorities to publish kinship local offers and to provide community space and funding for kinship carers and home-educated children.

Recognise whole kinship families

We welcome the kinship steps in Clauses 5 and 6, but focusing only on 'children in kinship care and their carers' leaves out birth parents — and 88% of kinship children stay in contact with at least one parent. We'd use the term 'kinship families' so everyone, birth parents included, is considered and supported.

Proposed changeWe want the term 'kinship families' used instead of 'children in kinship care and their carers', so birth parents and every member of the family are included.

Support relationships within kinship families

The Bill does nothing to support relationships within kinship families as they work through new dynamics. Pre-existing, sometimes damaged relationships between kinship carers and birth parents can break down and hurt the child, who may even feel forced to choose between them, so support like mediation, Family Group Conferences or emotional support is needed.

Proposed changeWe want measures to better support kinship families to navigate these complex relationships and to keep up contact between children and the people who matter to them.

Explicitly name mental health in the Bill

The Bill omits any reference to mental health, which is a major omission given the well-documented high rates of mental ill-health among children in care and care leavers. We want the Bill to state explicitly that wellbeing includes or encompasses mental health.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill amended, ideally as a blanket statement, to state that wellbeing includes mental health, and specifically Clause 5(2)(a) and Clause 7(4)(b)(i) revised to read 'health and wellbeing, including mental health'.

Shared multi-agency mental health service specification

We welcome Clause 5's focus on kinship care, but the same provision should extend to all looked-after children and care leavers. We propose a shared, multi-agency-developed and published mental health and wellbeing service specification.

Proposed changeWe want an additional section in Clause 5 requiring local authorities to report on provision for the wellbeing, including mental health, of looked-after children and care leavers, produced as a collaborative shared service specification developed across mental health, health, education and social care, with Clauses 7-8 extended accordingly.

Record whether wellbeing needs are met

We recommend a statutory requirement for annual health assessment reviews to record whether a young person's wellbeing needs are being met, from the perspective of both the young person and their caregiver.

Proposed changeWe want a subclause added to a revised Clause 5, and to Clauses 7-8, requiring local authorities to collect data on whether young people and caregivers perceive that mental health and wellbeing needs are being met.

Define 'other person connected'

We'd ask the Minister to put on the record what 'other person connected' is meant to mean. It's central to the kinship definition but left undefined, even though it's supposed to capture wider family like cousins.

Proposed changeWe want the intended meaning of 'other person connected' clarified, ideally in regulations or statutory guidance.

Local offer for kinship carers

We welcome the local offer for kinship carers, backed by the 2024 statutory guidance on kinship care. But as with the care-leaver offer, it has to meet at least a consistent core requirement, and be addressed to the needs of the children themselves.

Proposed changeOur Amendment 6: the kinship local offer must meet at or beyond a consistent core requirement, and be addressed to the needs of the children.

Local kinship care offer

We welcome the duty on local authorities to publish a local kinship offer, but support varies widely and culturally sensitive engagement is too often poor. We'd recommend local authorities have regard to minoritised communities and draw on evidence-based practice such as our Kinship Care Practice Guide.

Proposed changeWe'd ask that local authorities have regard to the needs of minoritised communities when drawing up their local offer, and that they adopt evidence-based kinship support.

Kinship care and Virtual School Heads

We welcome the family-group-decision-making, kinship-definition and 'kinship local offer' provisions and the extension of Virtual School Heads to children in need and kinship care. We welcome proposals that strengthen families and increase the chances of children staying safely within their families and communities — this fits our existing family-help model and reunification work, where only a minority end up in public care, and we're already working on the barriers to achievement and on supporting people working with kinship children.

Kinship local offer and statutory definition

We welcome the new legal duty on local authorities to publish a 'kinship local offer' and the first statutory definition of kinship care, but on their own neither will improve families' experiences. They need to come with awareness-raising, training and support that reaches every kinship carer.

Proposed changeWe'd pair the local offer and the definition with awareness-raising, training and support that reaches all kinship carers, not just specific sub-groups.

Care-leaver/kinship information and signposting

We welcome the duties on local authorities to publish information for children in kinship care and a local offer for care leavers, including a supportive transition to independent living, and we hope this can signpost care leavers to financial-education support such as The Money House so we can reach them before they leave care.

Proposed changeMake sure the published care-leaver local offer and kinship information signpost financial-education support such as The Money House.

Kinship care and adult medical assessment capacity

We strongly welcome the expanded kinship care offer, but we're concerned about the demand and capacity for the adult medical assessments of prospective adoptive, foster and kinship carers. These aren't core GP business, there's no national tariff, and they already can't be completed within statutory timescales — which delays placements. We'd recommend a national, standardised approach that pays for them fairly.

Proposed changeWe'd introduce a national, standardised approach that pays for adult fostering and kinship medical assessments fairly and consistently.

Welcome kinship offer; add adoption review

We welcome clause 5's duty to publish a kinship local offer — it will help signpost kinship carers to support. But we want the Bill strengthened with a duty on the Secretary of State to review the adoption support local authorities offer, including birth-family contact, transition to adulthood and adult adoptees, and report to Parliament. Adoption support already exists under the 2005 regulations but varies hugely between local authorities, adoption agencies aren't Ofsted inspected so there's little accountability, and the 2005 regulations and now twelve-year-old guidance badly need updating…

Proposed changeWe want the Bill to add a duty on the Secretary of State for Education to review adoption support — including birth-family contact, transition to adulthood and adult adoptees — and report to Parliament, with a commitment to update the 2005 regulations and 2013 guidance.

Kinship care and family group decision-making

We support mandatory family group decision-making before care proceedings and defining kinship carers with a 'kinship local offer', but we want practice guidance that makes FGDM early and flexible, and local authorities that are properly resourced — including direct financial support for kinship families in poverty. Our members' relationship-based care and their therapeutic life-story and permanency work are central to making this work.

Proposed changeWe want practice guidance for early, flexible FGDM, and the kinship local offer properly resourced, including financial support for families.

Welcome kinship definition and local offer

We're delighted that our proposals for a statutory definition of kinship care and a kinship local offer have been taken up. We just want them strengthened — on the services they cover and on involving families.

Support for care leavers and kinship care

We support clauses 5-8 — extending Staying Close, the Virtual School Heads role and the local offer for care leavers — and we urge every government department to use the Ministerial Care Leavers Board to give care leavers the kind of support a parent would.

Publishing endangers vulnerable parents

I object again to the word 'publish' and to how vague 'kinship care' is — as a single parent and a domestic-abuse survivor, my information being made public could reach my abuser. And let resourceful home educators turn down offered support without it being treated as a concern.

Proposed changeAdd a provision that lets people decline information or support without it being treated as a cause for concern, while keeping that support there for anyone who does ask.

Equalise Virtual School remit across cohorts

We welcome clause 6 extending Virtual School Heads to children in need and kinship care, but it creates an inequality: the new cohorts get a duty to 'take steps it considers appropriate' while adopted and previously looked-after children are limited to information and advice. Where Virtual Schools go beyond that basic remit — advocacy, exclusion support — the results are good, but provision is a postcode lottery, and moving away from ringfenced section 31 grants puts future funding, especially for the previously-looked-after-children lead, at risk. We want the duty extended equally to all pre…

Proposed changeWe want clause 6 amended so the duty extends to all previously looked-after children — updating Children Act 1989 s23ZZA — and the Secretary of State required to review the Virtual School role, remit and funding across all cohorts and report to Parliament, with guidance ringfencing each cohort's budget.

Make Virtual Schools optional for home-educating guardians

I welcome extending Virtual Schools to kinship children who are in school, but for special guardians like me who choose to home educate it should be optional — a Virtual School worker often won't have the training to support home education in any meaningful way.

Proposed changeMake the Virtual Schools extension optional for special guardians like me who choose to home educate.

Split Virtual School Head roles

We're worried that one Virtual School Head covering children in care, in need and in kinship lumps together groups with very different needs, so we'd create separate roles — one for disabled children and one for children in care or at risk at home.

Proposed changeWe'd create two separate roles: one for the educational attainment of disabled children, and another for children in care (including kinship) or living at home but considered at risk of neglect or abuse.

Strengthen Virtual School Head duty

We welcome extending the Virtual School Head scheme to some children in need and children in care, but clauses 5 and 6 must be strengthened so the duty to promote the educational achievement of children with SEN isn't weakened. Clause 6(3) only requires a local authority to 'take such steps as it considers appropriate' — there should be guidance on what factors it must take into account — and clause 6(4) removes any requirement to take steps for a particular child, leaving a gap in individual, comprehensive support. We want a stronger duty to promote the educational achievement of children wi…

Proposed changeAdd statutory guidance on the factors authorities must consider, and impose a stronger duty to promote the educational achievement of children with SEN, removing the discretion that lets authorities decline to act for a particular child.

VSH welcome but more education support needed

We welcome putting the Virtual School Head extension on a statutory footing, but the Bill adds no further educational support that recognises kinship children's needs. We'd rather see a cohesive legislative approach than more piecemeal, stepped VSH extensions.

Proposed changeWe'd move away from further stepped VSH extensions funded by annual grants, and instead bring in cohesive legislation and guidance setting out advice and support for all kinship families, extending Pupil Premium Plus, priority admissions and EHC needs assessment to kinship children.

Recognise whole kinship families

We welcome the kinship steps in Clauses 5 and 6, but focusing only on 'children in kinship care and their carers' leaves out birth parents — and 88% of kinship children stay in contact with at least one parent. We'd use the term 'kinship families' so everyone, birth parents included, is considered and supported.

Proposed changeWe want the term 'kinship families' used instead of 'children in kinship care and their carers', so birth parents and every member of the family are included.

Kinship care and Virtual School Heads

We welcome the family-group-decision-making, kinship-definition and 'kinship local offer' provisions and the extension of Virtual School Heads to children in need and kinship care. We welcome proposals that strengthen families and increase the chances of children staying safely within their families and communities — this fits our existing family-help model and reunification work, where only a minority end up in public care, and we're already working on the barriers to achievement and on supporting people working with kinship children.

Kinship care and family group decision-making

We support mandatory family group decision-making before care proceedings and defining kinship carers with a 'kinship local offer', but we want practice guidance that makes FGDM early and flexible, and local authorities that are properly resourced — including direct financial support for kinship families in poverty. Our members' relationship-based care and their therapeutic life-story and permanency work are central to making this work.

Proposed changeWe want practice guidance for early, flexible FGDM, and the kinship local offer properly resourced, including financial support for families.

Extend Virtual School Head role to kinship children

We welcome extending the Virtual School Head's oversight to all kinship children, but the advice and information duties should reach all of them too — not just those under special guardianship or child arrangements orders — along with wider school support.

Proposed changeWe want the Virtual School Head's advice and information duties extended to all kinship children, with priority school admissions and Pupil Premium Plus for them.

Support for care leavers and kinship care

We support clauses 5-8 — extending Staying Close, the Virtual School Heads role and the local offer for care leavers — and we urge every government department to use the Ministerial Care Leavers Board to give care leavers the kind of support a parent would.

LAs treat all home educators as needing support

Under-qualified LAs would be the ones deciding who needs help, and this provision will be used to put every home educator under routine yearly checks with no complaint and no cause. That's unlawful harassment.

Proposed changeMake it clear that home educators aren't subject to routine support or assessment unless a concern has been reported, and require a cause before any contact or access.

Support is school-centric and discretionary

I'm sceptical about the support in s436G. LAs push school-centric 'support' regardless of what actually suits the child, and take offence if you don't follow it, and their advice is often out of date, inaccurate, biased or just dishonest. The wording 'the local authority considers fit' means most LAs will simply refuse what's asked for. What's going to guarantee the support is accurate, links to the range of home-education services, comes from SEN-trained staff and includes funding for exams?

Proposed changeSpell out what support an LA must provide when I ask, and make sure it's accurate, comes with no strings attached, and respects every style of home education.

Support is not a real requirement

I don't believe the 'support' in this bill is real support — the local authority can decide a request isn't 'fit' to be provided, there's no money offered by government to fund it, and I don't trust untrained ex-teacher EHE staff to give us anything useful.

Proposed changeSpell out and properly fund genuine support, with clear structures and people who actually have the right expertise.

Kinship care: statutory duties and equalisation

The Bill's kinship provisions are far too weak — they only ask local authorities to publish whatever support already exists rather than placing any statutory duty on them. I want statutory duties: a dedicated kinship team, support workers, training and financial assistance, and I want you to adopt the charity Kinship's four 'equalisation' asks.

Proposed changePut statutory duties on local authorities for kinship care — a dedicated team, support workers, training and financial assistance — adopt the charity Kinship's four equalisation areas, and give us a kinship-carer team in every local authority.

Staying close support for care leavers

We welcome the recognition that care-experienced adults shouldn't be forced to leave the areas they've settled in, but Clause 7's 'staying close support' is rudimentary — it adds nothing beyond what the law already provides, it gives the young person no voice, and it offers no entitlement to go on living near the homes they grew up in.

Proposed changeWe'd amend Clause 7 to put a duty on local authorities to provide assistance, including financial help, to maintain a 'staying close' arrangement — mirroring the 'staying put' duty in section 23CZA of the Children Act 1989.

Extend Staying Put and care-leaver support

We welcome Clause 7's Staying Close assessment and Clause 8's local offers, but the Staying Put scheme should be extended to age 25 to match Staying Close, and we support amendments 12-15 to make that happen.

Proposed changeExtend Staying Put to age 25 in line with Staying Close, through amendments 12, 13, 14 and 15.

Strengthen Staying Close entitlement

We strongly welcome Staying Close being made a legal offer up to age 25, but we're worried the way it's drafted could limit its impact. We want Clause 7 amended so it's a strong legal entitlement, broadens the support on offer, and puts young people's wishes at its heart.

Proposed changeWe'd amend 7(2) so the authority 'must assess what staying close support is required', drop the determination wording in 7(3), add in 7(5) '(c) any other support the local authority deems appropriate', and put in a new subsection (6) requiring proper consideration of the young person's wishes and preferences.

Hollow support and no exam funding

The 'support' in section 436G is hollow — it only requires whatever advice the local authority 'considers fit', when asked. There's no mention of financial support for public exams, which home-education groups have been requesting for years. GCSEs cost over £200 per subject, so ten subjects each for two children would be more than £4,000 in fees alone, before books and tutors. We home-educating parents often give up an income and care deeply about our children's education, and a government concerned with welfare and attainment should help all children gain qualifications.

Proposed changePlease strengthen section 436G to provide meaningful support, including financial help with public exam fees.

Require young person's wishes in staying-close assessment

I welcome the care-leaver support in Clause 7, but the staying-close support assessment must actively seek out the young person's own wishes and give them real weight. Article 39 is right that Clause 7 contains no such duty, and I support committee-stage amendment 3A, which would require due regard to the person's wishes and a record to be kept of them.

Proposed changeI'd amend Clause 7 to put a duty on the local authority, and on public-service agencies, to seek out and give weight to the young person's wishes in the staying-close support assessment, in line with amendment 3A.

Recognise supported lodgings in Staying Close

We welcome the new Staying Close support duty, and supported lodgings is well suited to delivering it. We want the Bill to explicitly reference supported lodgings as a recognised form of Staying Close provision that local authorities must consider.

Proposed changeWe want supported lodgings explicitly referenced within the legislative framework as a recognised form of Staying Close provision that local authorities must consider.

Access to examinations for home educators

Section 436G makes no provision for examinations for home-educated children. We want the Bill to give home-educated children access to examination centres in every local-authority area — something home-educating parents have been asking for for years.

Proposed changeInclude in the support provisions access to examination centres for home-educated children in every local-authority area.

Stronger Staying Close entitlement

We welcome clause 7 rolling out Staying Close nationally and extending it to age 25, but the assessment criteria and the definition of support are unclear and risk variation and budget-driven rationing area to area. Make it a legal entitlement for all care leavers.

Proposed changeWe'd amend clause 7 to make Staying Close support a stronger legal entitlement for every care leaver, except where it isn't needed or the young person opts out.

Lifelong Links entitlement for care leavers

The Bill's focus on family relationships — family group conferencing, kinship — must carry on for care leavers too, so we call for a Lifelong Links entitlement. It's cost-effective, it strengthens identity and wellbeing, and it cuts the risk of homelessness.

Proposed changeBring in a Lifelong Links entitlement as part of the National Offer for Care Leavers and Staying Close.

Strengthen care and care-leaver entitlements

I call for stronger provision for looked-after children and care leavers: a legal entitlement to receive care until 18, ending unregulated 16/17 placements; parity of 'staying close' with 'staying put' support; and extending homelessness 'priority need' for care leavers from 18 up to 25.

Proposed changeEntitle all children in care to care until 18; give 'staying close' the same support as 'staying put'; and extend care-leaver priority need to age 25.

Explicitly name mental health in the Bill

The Bill omits any reference to mental health, which is a major omission given the well-documented high rates of mental ill-health among children in care and care leavers. We want the Bill to state explicitly that wellbeing includes or encompasses mental health.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill amended, ideally as a blanket statement, to state that wellbeing includes mental health, and specifically Clause 5(2)(a) and Clause 7(4)(b)(i) revised to read 'health and wellbeing, including mental health'.

Shared multi-agency mental health service specification

We welcome Clause 5's focus on kinship care, but the same provision should extend to all looked-after children and care leavers. We propose a shared, multi-agency-developed and published mental health and wellbeing service specification.

Proposed changeWe want an additional section in Clause 5 requiring local authorities to report on provision for the wellbeing, including mental health, of looked-after children and care leavers, produced as a collaborative shared service specification developed across mental health, health, education and social care, with Clauses 7-8 extended accordingly.

Record whether wellbeing needs are met

We recommend a statutory requirement for annual health assessment reviews to record whether a young person's wellbeing needs are being met, from the perspective of both the young person and their caregiver.

Proposed changeWe want a subclause added to a revised Clause 5, and to Clauses 7-8, requiring local authorities to collect data on whether young people and caregivers perceive that mental health and wellbeing needs are being met.

Strengthen Staying Close support

We broadly support Staying Close, especially for care leavers aged 21-25, but the support as defined is too rudimentary, the assessment risks rationing, and it depends on accommodation that's in short supply. Offer it to all care leavers without assessment, fully resource it, and staff it with qualified, mental-health-trained people.

Proposed changeOffer Staying Close to every care leaver without assessment, fully resource it with suitably qualified, mental-health-trained staff, and guarantee accommodation by getting housing departments and social providers to work together.

Extend Staying Put to age 25

Clause 7 extends Staying Close, for residential care leavers, to age 25 but not Staying Put, for those living with former foster carers, which creates a two-tier system. We support amendments 12-17 to give Staying Put parity up to age 25.

Proposed changeWe want clause 7 amended through amendments 12-17 to include Staying Put support and extend it to age 25, in parity with Staying Close.

Support for care leavers and Staying Close

We welcome the emphasis on care-leaver support. Our evidence shows how central Personal Advisers are and how much promise the Staying Close programme holds, and we offer recommendations to improve care leavers' emotional wellbeing and transitions.

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to strengthen Personal Adviser relationships and Staying Close delivery, and to take up our study's recommendations to improve care leavers' wellbeing and transitions.

Support care leaver provisions; add welfare advice

We fully support Clauses 7 and 8 and putting 'Staying Close' on a statutory footing up to age 23, but we are disappointed that implementation would be delayed by three years. We ask that independent welfare-rights advice be added to the care leaver local offer and that the assessment of 'relevant individuals' be open to formal challenge.

Proposed changeAdd access to independent welfare-rights information, advice and guidance — preferably through a dedicated referral — to the services LAs must provide for care leavers, and let the 'relevant individuals' assessment be formally challenged.

Staying Close and care-leaver local offer

We support requiring Staying Close support for care leavers and including transition information in our published local offer.

Staying Close support for care leavers

We welcome the expanded Staying Close support for care leavers. Because there's currently no national data on their mental health and wellbeing, national wellbeing measurement would let local authorities design and tailor their local offer to care-experienced young people's needs. Homelessness among young care leavers has risen sharply, they have poorer mental health and are more likely to be NEET, and programmes like Coram Voice's Bright Spots show how this kind of data improves practice.

Proposed changeWe'd use national wellbeing measurement to help local authorities design and tailor their Staying Close offer and evaluate care-leaver support.

Support for care leavers and kinship care

We support clauses 5-8 — extending Staying Close, the Virtual School Heads role and the local offer for care leavers — and we urge every government department to use the Ministerial Care Leavers Board to give care leavers the kind of support a parent would.

Care leaver support for employment

We welcome the focus on care leavers in Part 1, and we want the local offer and support provisions strengthened to improve their transition into education, employment and training. Too many face a 'care cliff edge' of support at 18 or younger, and they need ongoing, holistic help. What works is intensive, consistent support covering education and employment, accommodation, finance, mental health and trauma; early career planning and assessment while they're still in care; and access to further education and vocational training — on-the-job, off-the-job and apprenticeships have the greatest im…

Proposed changeStrengthen the support and the local offer for care leavers so they get intensive wraparound support, early career planning, and access to further education and vocational training.

Care-leaver info access limits fresh start

As a former care leaver myself, I object to our information being made accessible — to housing associations, for instance. It forces care leavers to stay defined by our past and denies us the fresh start we were promised. Distinguish 'moving-on accommodation' from ordinary housing associations.

Proposed changeDefine and separate 'moving-on accommodation', which can have more information access, from housing associations, which should get limited access like any landlord.

Resourcing local authorities to deliver

We caution that loading more requirements onto over-stretched local authorities without extra resources means care leavers won't reap the full benefits and will still face barriers; we urge the Government to think about the additional funding or resources needed.

Proposed changeGive local authorities the additional funding or resources they need to meet their new statutory requirements for care leavers in full.

Local offer and presumption of care to 18

Clause 8 adds requirements to the published 'local offer', but it gives adult care leavers no new housing rights and leaves out any statutory presumption that children stay looked after until at least 18. We want that presumption put in.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill to establish a statutory presumption that children in care will remain in care until they are 18.

Extend Staying Put and care-leaver support

We welcome Clause 7's Staying Close assessment and Clause 8's local offers, but the Staying Put scheme should be extended to age 25 to match Staying Close, and we support amendments 12-15 to make that happen.

Proposed changeExtend Staying Put to age 25 in line with Staying Close, through amendments 12, 13, 14 and 15.

Add financial literacy to Local Offer

We welcome the expansion of the Local Offer in Clause 8, but it should go further: local authorities should have to publish information about the services that support care leavers' financial literacy and their financial entitlements.

Proposed changeWe'd amend Section 2(2) of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to add, after paragraph (f), '(g) financial literacy and financial support.'

Make care leaver information accessible

We strongly support Clause 8's publication of transition-to-adulthood services, but we ask the legislation to require that this information be transparent, easy to access and understand, regularly updated, and not provided only digitally, because digital-only information is hard to use for care leavers with limited education or device access.

Proposed changeWrite into the legislation a requirement to provide care leaver information that is easy to access and understand and regularly updated, and preferably not only in digital formats.

Extend corporate parenting to public bodies

We'd amend the Bill to extend the corporate parenting principles in the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to a wider range of public bodies — including the DWP, NHS, Police, Home Office and MHCLG — because we need a joined-up, cross-government approach.

Proposed changeWe'd amend the Bill to extend the corporate parenting principles in the Children and Social Work Act 2017 to more public bodies, including but not limited to the DWP, NHS, Police, Home Office and MHCLG.

New statutory entitlements for care leavers 18-25

We'd amend the Bill to introduce new statutory entitlements for care leavers aged 18-25, improving their access to employment, education, health, housing and other services — mirroring the support most young people get from their families.

Proposed changeWe'd amend the Bill to introduce statutory entitlements for care leavers aged 18-25 covering internships, a housing guarantor and deposit, free prescriptions, mental health support, Universal Credit at the over-25 rate, and protocols to reduce criminalisation.

Sibling contact for looked-after children

We welcome relationships being part of staying-close support, but we want a new clause giving every looked-after child the same right to reasonable contact with their brothers and sisters that they already have with their parents.

Proposed changeWe want a New Clause 9 amending s.34(1) and Schedule 2 para 15(1) of the Children Act 1989 to add siblings (whole or half blood) to those with whom reasonable contact must be allowed and promoted.

Corporate parenting extension

We welcome publishing the local support offer for care leavers, but we're disappointed corporate parenting responsibilities aren't being extended to other government departments and public bodies. Extending them would secure the support care leavers and children in care need, and the government already committed to this in 'Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive'. We'd welcome an amendment naming corporate parents — departments and public bodies — in legislation.

Proposed changeAmend the Bill to extend corporate parenting responsibilities to government departments and public bodies, named in legislation, as the government already committed to.

National Offer for Care Leavers

We welcome the strengthened local offer in clause 8, but it doesn't fix the postcode lottery — the 'territorial injustice' of provision that varies from place to place. We want a National Offer for Care Leavers written into the Children and Social Work Act 2017, and we support amendment NC40.

Proposed changeMandate a National Offer for Care Leavers, written into the Children and Social Work Act 2017, covering connection, education and employment, living costs, accommodation and health.

Lifelong Links entitlement for care leavers

The Bill's focus on family relationships — family group conferencing, kinship — must carry on for care leavers too, so we call for a Lifelong Links entitlement. It's cost-effective, it strengthens identity and wellbeing, and it cuts the risk of homelessness.

Proposed changeBring in a Lifelong Links entitlement as part of the National Offer for Care Leavers and Staying Close.

Care-experience-aware mental health support

We call for dedicated, timely, trauma-informed and care-experience-aware mental health support for care leavers, modelled on Operation Courage. So many struggle to get the support they need, and it's exactly why corporate parenting must be extended to health bodies.

Proposed changeAt the very least, give care-experienced young people the option of Operation Courage-type specialist mental health provision as part of the National Offer for Care Leavers.

Care leavers and private rented housing

An opportunity has been missed here to make housing and homelessness prevention for care leavers a specified part of councils' responsibilities. Support like acting as guarantor or providing a rent deposit is patchy and hedged with restrictive eligibility criteria.

Proposed changeWe want guarantorship and rent deposits written in as part of councils' duties to care leavers, and corporate parenting duties extended to housing authorities and other relevant public bodies within the Bill.

Strengthen care and care-leaver entitlements

I call for stronger provision for looked-after children and care leavers: a legal entitlement to receive care until 18, ending unregulated 16/17 placements; parity of 'staying close' with 'staying put' support; and extending homelessness 'priority need' for care leavers from 18 up to 25.

Proposed changeEntitle all children in care to care until 18; give 'staying close' the same support as 'staying put'; and extend care-leaver priority need to age 25.

Shared multi-agency mental health service specification

We welcome Clause 5's focus on kinship care, but the same provision should extend to all looked-after children and care leavers. We propose a shared, multi-agency-developed and published mental health and wellbeing service specification.

Proposed changeWe want an additional section in Clause 5 requiring local authorities to report on provision for the wellbeing, including mental health, of looked-after children and care leavers, produced as a collaborative shared service specification developed across mental health, health, education and social care, with Clauses 7-8 extended accordingly.

Record whether wellbeing needs are met

We recommend a statutory requirement for annual health assessment reviews to record whether a young person's wellbeing needs are being met, from the perspective of both the young person and their caregiver.

Proposed changeWe want a subclause added to a revised Clause 5, and to Clauses 7-8, requiring local authorities to collect data on whether young people and caregivers perceive that mental health and wellbeing needs are being met.

Strengthen local offer for care leavers

We see little change in Clause 8 beyond bolting on Staying Close. We want concrete housing duties, a duty to co-produce the local offer with care leavers, and guidance that requires data to be collected on care leavers' needs.

Proposed changeAdd concrete requirements to provide housing, put a duty on local authorities to co-produce the local offer with care leavers, and issue guidance requiring them to collect quantitative and qualitative outcome data.

Care leaver support: speed and consistency

We welcome strengthened corporate parenting and the 'Staying Close' housing support for care leavers up to 25, but we want it sped up — it only fully applies three years after the Bill passes — and applied consistently across the country, along with several further measures.

Proposed changeWe want you to accelerate and standardise 'Staying Close' housing support, set up a Transitions Support Bank, and mandate care-leaver transport and digital access, university accommodation, an employer scheme, and anti-criminalisation guidance.

Support for care leavers and Staying Close

We welcome the emphasis on care-leaver support. Our evidence shows how central Personal Advisers are and how much promise the Staying Close programme holds, and we offer recommendations to improve care leavers' emotional wellbeing and transitions.

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to strengthen Personal Adviser relationships and Staying Close delivery, and to take up our study's recommendations to improve care leavers' wellbeing and transitions.

Care-leaver/kinship information and signposting

We welcome the duties on local authorities to publish information for children in kinship care and a local offer for care leavers, including a supportive transition to independent living, and we hope this can signpost care leavers to financial-education support such as The Money House so we can reach them before they leave care.

Proposed changeMake sure the published care-leaver local offer and kinship information signpost financial-education support such as The Money House.

Corporate parenting for care leavers

We welcome wider corporate parenting and the recognition of care-leaver status as a protected characteristic, but we're unclear what wider corporate parenting actually means for health, so we'd ask you to spell that out. We'd recommend robust health transition arrangements into Primary Care, and flagging care-leaver status with consent.

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to set out the health implications of wider corporate parenting and to put robust health transition arrangements in place for care leavers, with consent-based flagging of their status.

Support care leaver provisions; add welfare advice

We fully support Clauses 7 and 8 and putting 'Staying Close' on a statutory footing up to age 23, but we are disappointed that implementation would be delayed by three years. We ask that independent welfare-rights advice be added to the care leaver local offer and that the assessment of 'relevant individuals' be open to formal challenge.

Proposed changeAdd access to independent welfare-rights information, advice and guidance — preferably through a dedicated referral — to the services LAs must provide for care leavers, and let the 'relevant individuals' assessment be formally challenged.

Support for care leavers; national minimum offer

We support more consistent, more gradual transition support for care leavers. Our Bright Spots evidence shows personal advisers are a key source of trusted emotional and practical support, so Staying Close — only offered where 'support is required' — must not dilute their role. And young people experience what's currently on offer as a postcode lottery: our FOI research found wide variation in the amount, eligibility and rules around the GBP 3,000 leaving-care grant. We want a national minimum offer to put that right.

Proposed changeOur Amendment 7: strengthen the existing care-leaver local offer duty to guarantee a national minimum offer, with greater consistency and transparency.

Staying Close and care-leaver local offer

We support requiring Staying Close support for care leavers and including transition information in our published local offer.

Staying Close support for care leavers

We welcome the expanded Staying Close support for care leavers. Because there's currently no national data on their mental health and wellbeing, national wellbeing measurement would let local authorities design and tailor their local offer to care-experienced young people's needs. Homelessness among young care leavers has risen sharply, they have poorer mental health and are more likely to be NEET, and programmes like Coram Voice's Bright Spots show how this kind of data improves practice.

Proposed changeWe'd use national wellbeing measurement to help local authorities design and tailor their Staying Close offer and evaluate care-leaver support.

Support for care leavers and kinship care

We support clauses 5-8 — extending Staying Close, the Virtual School Heads role and the local offer for care leavers — and we urge every government department to use the Ministerial Care Leavers Board to give care leavers the kind of support a parent would.

Care leavers unprepared for independence

We see care leavers who are expected to be fully independent at 18 without ever being equipped for it — one of our clients ended up in debt, homeless, struggling with their mental health and relying on our foodbank. It shows why care leavers need far better support.

Care leaver support for employment

We welcome the focus on care leavers in Part 1, and we want the local offer and support provisions strengthened to improve their transition into education, employment and training. Too many face a 'care cliff edge' of support at 18 or younger, and they need ongoing, holistic help. What works is intensive, consistent support covering education and employment, accommodation, finance, mental health and trauma; early career planning and assessment while they're still in care; and access to further education and vocational training — on-the-job, off-the-job and apprenticeships have the greatest im…

Proposed changeStrengthen the support and the local offer for care leavers so they get intensive wraparound support, early career planning, and access to further education and vocational training.

Power to LAs without individual rights

I object to putting trust and authority in LAs with no requirement that they be qualified or experienced, and to giving the individual no rights over what happens to them. That's how mistakes and harm happen — I've lived it.

Delay Regional Care Cooperatives for evaluation

We're worried Regional Care Cooperatives won't deliver the improvements hoped for and could place children even further from their birth families. We'd hold off implementing them until the two pilots have been evaluated against clear measures — regional adoption agencies showed only limited success.

Proposed changeAmend Clause 9 to delay Regional Cooperation Agreements until the two pilots have been evaluated against the measures we list.

Conditional opposition to RCCs

We support greater collaboration in planning and commissioning, but we oppose mandatory regional care cooperatives if they put financial savings ahead of children's rights and local placements. RCCs should strengthen in-house local authority provision, integrate education, social care, health and justice, and not treat residential care as a last resort.

Proposed changeWe want RCCs to strengthen in-house, local provision and integrate services, not impose rigid regional models built around cost-cutting.

Regional care cooperatives and profit-capping

We understand the intent behind regional care cooperatives, but it's vital you don't repeat the mistakes of adoption regionalisation or distance decisions from participatory structures and children's voices. Market sufficiency across the statutory, voluntary and private sectors has to be carefully protected, and profit-capping needs to be done in a considered way so that placement options are strengthened, not diminished. We also want the national adoption register's matching service restored, and similar national approaches considered for fostering and residential care.

Proposed changeRestore the national adoption register and matching service, take a considered approach to profit-capping, and protect a mixed-economy continuum of care.

Safeguard against distant placements

We're worried that the regional co-operation arrangements in Clause 9 could end up moving even more children far from their support networks, so we want a safeguard requiring accommodation to be assessed as close to home as reasonably practicable.

Proposed changeWe'd amend the 'strategic accommodation functions' in Clause 9 so that accommodation requirements are assessed 'as close to home as reasonably practicable'.

Abolish unregulated under-18 placements

We call for unregulated and semi-independent accommodation for under-18s to be abolished and all looked-after children placed in regulated, fully staffed settings, because these placements lack mandatory safeguarding standards.

Proposed changeWe want the law to prohibit local authorities from using unregulated accommodation for any child under 18, and all looked-after children placed in regulated, fully staffed care settings.

Add inspection of Regional Care Co-operatives

We want the inspection of Regional Care Co-operatives included in the Bill. The statutory sufficiency duty stays with the local authority, but day-to-day delivery will sit with the RCC, and inspecting them fits the direction of travel toward inspecting the responsible groups and bodies. Placement sufficiency matters so much that any reduction in oversight here is a significant risk.

Proposed changeInclude the inspection of Regional Care Co-operatives in the Bill.

Health role in Regional Care Co-operatives

We see that establishing Regional Care Co-operatives and evidencing a regional sufficiency duty is ambitious. We'd urge you to make health's joint-commissioning responsibilities clear, and to include all statutory partners in decisions about how the new care market is expanded and governed.

Proposed changeWe'd make health's joint-commissioning responsibilities clear and bring all statutory partners into the expansion and governance arrangements for Regional Care Co-operatives.

RCCs and profit cap probing questions

We don't take an organisational view on the profit-cap policy itself, but we do have questions. How will Regional Care Cooperatives and the profit cap be shaped by children's own views? How will they actually improve the availability and quality of care? How will the cap deliver real reinvestment for children? And how will all this work alongside the parallel reforms in Wales?

Regional Care Cooperatives and out-of-area placements

We welcome the regional co-operation model — Regional Care Cooperatives — to tackle regional disparities and out-of-area placements, but we need detail on where budgetary responsibility sits, how RCCs interact with the financial oversight scheme, and recognition of localised, child-centric needs.

Proposed changeWe want you to clarify RCC budgetary responsibilities and how they interface with financial oversight, and to make sure RCC commissioning reflects localised and child-centric needs.

Regional co-operation and deprivation of liberty

We welcome the regional co-operation arrangements — we're already open to joint commissioning and part of a Regional Fostering Hub and regional care cooperative work — and we welcome a clear deprivation-of-liberty framework for us and practitioners, given the national shortage of secure and tier-4 health beds and the rising number of DoL orders. We'd also like these proposals to prompt some work nationally on expanding the secure estate.

Proposed changeUse the deprivation-of-liberty proposals to prompt national work on expanding the secure estate.

Regional co-operation for LAC accommodation

We welcome regional co-operation arrangements to create provision for children with complex needs. There's real appetite in London to deliver, but the model will need pump-priming funding to set up, given the pressures we face: our average London placement budget in 2022/23 was around £16m with about £3m average overspend — the highest proportional overspend in the country at 18% — alongside a shortage of beds for children with complex needs and rising autism, SEMH, trauma and learning-disability needs. Our boroughs are already developing provision and collaborating pan-London and sub-regiona…

Proposed changeProvide pump-priming funding to help us set up the regional arrangements.

Opening homes and Regional Care Cooperatives

We support the ambition to make it easier to open new children's homes by reforming the planning system and Ofsted's registration system. We've hit numerous obstacles trying to open residential settings in high-need areas and we're happy to share them. We also support the vision for Regional Care Cooperatives, and we plan to consult Greater Manchester on setting one up.

Proposed changeReform the planning and Ofsted registration systems to make opening children's homes easier, and push ahead with Regional Care Cooperatives.

Regional Care Cooperatives

We support measures to improve the planning and provision of children's homes, and we'll keep pressing for better accountability for poor providers and for LAs using inadequate or illegal placements, and for a bigger role for health.

'Secure' to 'deprivation of liberty' wording

I oppose changing the language from 'secure accommodation' to depriving children of their liberty — it turns the whole point from protection into stripping away their basic rights. It lets authorities deny children opportunities by citing 'risk of harm', and refuse help to vulnerable people.

Oppose deprivation-of-liberty expansion

We oppose the amendments to section 25 of the Children Act 1989 that would authorise deprivation of liberty in placements beyond secure children's homes. It's a sticking plaster that risks expanding unregulated, for-profit placements and exposing vulnerable children to harm, and we want an inquiry into the 462% rise in deprivation-of-liberty orders.

Proposed changeDrop the Clause 10 expansion, hold an urgent inquiry into the 462% rise in deprivation-of-liberty orders, and provide Section 17 support instead.

Relevant accommodation for deprivation of liberty

We welcome steps to end the High Court's reliance on ad hoc deprivation-of-liberty arrangements, but we're deeply concerned that 'relevant accommodation' is left undefined, that private profit-making providers and isolating 'solo placements' might be allowed, and we ask the Minister to spell out what the definition will be.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill to set out clearly what 'relevant accommodation' will be, and to rule out private, profit-run places of confinement and isolating solo placements.

Inspection of corporate care homes

I want corporate care homes housing young people inspected regularly, with those young people's voices heard on their healthcare and education and their consent fully informed, just as we'd expect for adults — and I'm uneasy about the rise in these homes also providing tuition.

Proposed changeRequire regular inspection of corporate care homes and informed-consent involvement of the young people in them, with extra scrutiny where they also provide education.

Deprivation of liberty and delayed discharges

We welcome the review of the legal framework for accommodation that deprives children of their liberty, but we're concerned too: tighter scrutiny and regulation of illegal placements risks increasing delayed hospital discharges. We need effective pathways for children who are medically fit for discharge but have no viable social-care placement to go to.

Proposed changeWe'd ensure there are effective discharge pathways for children who are medically fit for discharge but have no viable social-care placement.

Deprivation of liberty safeguards and advocacy

Children in secure settings get robust review through Independent Persons, but that isn't always there when DOLS orders are used in other settings. The DfE should add a census field recording whether a child is or has been deprived of liberty — the location, setting, reasons and duration. And as the Children's Commissioner recommends, independent advocacy should be provided for every child where a deprivation of liberty order is being considered or is in place, including non-instructed advocacy for non-verbal children.

Proposed changeOur Amendment 9: provide independent advocacy for every child subject to, or being considered for, a deprivation of liberty order, with specialist non-instructed advocacy for non-verbal children, and extend visiting advocacy in residential settings.

Deprivation of liberty framework

I welcome Clause 10's amendment of Section 25 of the Children Act 1989, but it is crucial that it applies to all children who need to be deprived of their liberty for welfare reasons, within a clear legal framework backed by statutory guidance. Of the 775 children in unregistered placements on 1 September 2024, 31% were under a court-ordered deprivation of liberty, and most of those I've spoken to had previously been in an illegal children's home. The framework must cover children with learning or physical disabilities and those at risk of exploitation.

Proposed changeI'd make sure the clause gives a clear mechanism for restricting liberty outside secure settings for every child who needs it for welfare reasons, with statutory guidance.

Clearer grounds for deprivation of liberty

The surge in deprivation of liberty applications under the High Court's inherent jurisdiction, and the marked regional variation we see, show there needs to be a clearer definition of when depriving a child of their liberty is justified. That variation reflects different working practices and cultures, not just need, and case law already requires us to weigh welfare and proportionality because these placements can breach ECHR Articles 5 and 8.

Proposed changeSet out a clearer definition of the circumstances in which depriving a child of their liberty is justified.

Extend under-13 authorisation safeguard

We recommend extending the Secretary of State authorisation that's currently required to place under-13s in secure children's homes to all under-13s who are deprived of their liberty. 9.3% of inherent-jurisdiction deprivation orders were for children under 13, and Reg 4 of the Children (Secure Accommodation) Regulations 1991 already requires that authorisation for under-13s in secure homes — the same safeguard should apply here.

Proposed changeExtend the Secretary of State authorisation requirement to every under-13 who is deprived of their liberty.

Avoid default highest-level restrictions

We recommend the legislation make clear that depriving a child of their liberty in alternative accommodation under s.25 doesn't have to mean the highest level of restrictions in every case. Inherent-jurisdiction orders permitted an average of six restriction types per child, with constant supervision in 99% of cases and restraint in 69.4% — far more than is often needed. Because orders are permissive, restrictions need not be implemented unless they're actually necessary.

Proposed changeMake clear that s.25 deprivation in alternative accommodation does not require the highest level of restrictions in every case.

Define appropriate accommodation and care

The Bill doesn't define what accommodation is appropriate or what the 'care and treatment' should look like, and we think it must. Secure children's homes don't provide holistic assessment, care and treatment from multi-disciplinary teams, and the Bill is an opportunity to address that and set out a clear vision for quality care. Our Principles of Care, shaped by young people themselves, are a good starting point.

Proposed changeDefine appropriate accommodation and the nature of the 'care and treatment', and set out a clear vision for quality care for children with such significant vulnerabilities.

Limit duration of deprivation

Children should not have their liberty restricted any longer than is absolutely necessary, so the Bill should clarify and limit how long deprivation can last. Order lengths ranged from a single day to 12 months, and 68.3% of children were still on an order almost six months later. Providers are reluctant to remove restrictions even when permissive orders allow it, and under s.25 an initial placement is up to 3 months and subsequent orders up to 6 months with no limit on the number — we don't believe six months or more is justified for the majority of these children.

Proposed changeClarify and limit how long deprivation of liberty can last — six months or more isn't justified for most children.

Mandatory timely reviews on the order

Right now there's no mechanism to check whether the arrangements under an order are actually being followed, so the Bill needs to define how often and by whom deprivation restrictions are reviewed, and set the reviewing mechanism out on the face of the order. The Secure Accommodation regulations require three reviewers — one independent — to review within a month and then every three months, and to find out the wishes of the child, parents, independent visitor and home managers. We'd extend those arrangements to all children on deprivation of liberty orders, and because it's unclear how well…

Proposed changeDefine mandatory, timely review mechanisms on the face of the order, extend the secure-accommodation review duties to all these children, and set out reviewer accountability.

Accommodation far from home unsuitable

We recommend the Bill make clear that accommodation far from home is not suitable. The average placement distance from home was 56.3 miles and the maximum was over 390 miles — children shouldn't be placed that far away.

Proposed changeMake clear in the Bill that accommodation far from home is not considered suitable.

Better data collection and reporting

National data on children subject to deprivation of liberty orders is limited — there's no data on short, medium or long-term outcomes, and personal-characteristics data is patchy. Ethnicity was missing in 45.7% of the cases we analysed, and Mixed and Black children may be overrepresented, though we need more reliable data to confirm it. The Bill is an opportunity to legislate for better data collection and reporting on these children, including ethnicity and outcomes.

Proposed changeLegislate for better data collection and reporting on these children, including ethnicity and outcomes.

Clause 10 DoLS implementation lessons

Clause 10 needs to be easy to implement, and there are important lessons to learn from adult DoLS — the backlogs and resource shortfalls. The National Children's Deprivation of Liberty Court shows just how vulnerable, complex and unstable these children are, and a place-based, multidisciplinary approach fits that complexity far better. Prevention isn't fully realised because there aren't enough appropriate placements, and with DoLS applications more than doubling from 580 in 2020/21 to 1,200 in 2023/24, practitioners need greater legal literacy and a support programme backed by national pract…

Proposed changeTake a place-based, multidisciplinary approach to Clause 10, invest in prevention and appropriate placements, and provide a support programme with national practice guidance and workforce training.

Diagnosis gap and legislative alignment

As drafted, the DoLS provisions only apply to young people with a diagnosed mental disorder, which excludes many who'd benefit — children with suspected personality disorders, those on long CAMHS waiting lists, those with attachment or trauma difficulties. We'd encourage those drafting the Bill to coordinate Clause 10 with the ongoing Mental Health Act reforms and resolve how children without the requisite diagnosis can still access the safeguards, using the child's welfare as the organising criterion under the Children Act 1989 and aligning with UNCRC Article 2.

Proposed changeCoordinate Clause 10 with the Mental Health Act reforms and amend it so children without a formal diagnosis can still access the safeguards, using the Children Act 1989 welfare principle and UNCRC Article 2.

Deprivation of liberty and Mental Capacity Act

We urgently need clarity on clause 10 as it applies to children with SEND on care orders who lack the capacity to keep themselves safe, and we'd ask the Committee to consider how the clause relates to the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Proposed changeWe want it made clear how clause 10 interacts with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for SEND children on care orders.

Define the Clause 10 deprivation-of-liberty regime

Clause 10 widens the places where looked-after children can be deprived of their liberty under the Children Act 1989, so I ask that the Bill define its purpose, the type of regime, the funding and the intended outcomes.

Proposed changeDefine the purpose, the type of regime, the funding and the intended outcomes of the Clause 10 deprivation-of-liberty power.

Regional co-operation and deprivation of liberty

We welcome the regional co-operation arrangements — we're already open to joint commissioning and part of a Regional Fostering Hub and regional care cooperative work — and we welcome a clear deprivation-of-liberty framework for us and practitioners, given the national shortage of secure and tier-4 health beds and the rising number of DoL orders. We'd also like these proposals to prompt some work nationally on expanding the secure estate.

Proposed changeUse the deprivation-of-liberty proposals to prompt national work on expanding the secure estate.

Deprivation of liberty accommodation

We greatly welcome Clause 10, which lets courts authorise deprivation of liberty in 'relevant accommodation' beyond secure children's homes, but we need it made clear which settings actually count.

Proposed changeMake clear in the Bill what kinds of settings count as 'relevant accommodation'.

Mirror care-proceedings legal aid

Parents in deprivation of liberty proceedings face a means and merits legal aid test that they wouldn't face in care proceedings, and 88.5% of them were not legally represented at any hearing — even though they're automatically parties. We welcome the Government's stated intention to mirror the legal aid arrangements parents get in Secure Accommodation Order cases, and we hope it will do this as a matter of urgency.

Proposed changeMirror the care-proceedings (Secure Accommodation Order) legal aid arrangements for parents in s.25 deprivation cases, urgently.

CIECSS plans strip parental rights

This hands a stranger the power to impose parenting plans on me with no cause required, treats all parenting as one-size-fits-all, counts rejecting a plan as failing to comply, sets no end dates, and gives just 28 days to appeal — with the appeal able to be thrown out by CIECSS itself.

Proposed changeRequire a cause before any plan is imposed, give us a fairer, longer appeal route that CIECSS doesn't control, and build in support and guidance instead of punishment.

Illegal children's homes

I welcome the new powers for Ofsted to issue civil penalties against providers of unregistered children's homes, but local authorities and regional care cooperatives must also be held accountable for using illegal homes. The numbers Ofsted knows about jumped from 144 in 2020-21 to 931 in the year to March 2024, 775 children were in unregistered homes on 1 September 2024 — including under-10s and children in caravans — at over £1,500 a day, costing local authorities more than £400m a year. The use of these homes is a national scandal: vulnerable children are being failed, and that should never…

Proposed changeI'd hold local authorities and regional care cooperatives accountable for the use of illegal homes in their area.

Welcome group-level provider oversight

We welcome the increased oversight of provider groups. It should let us accelerate improvement for children, particularly where we have significant concerns about a provider group's leadership and management.

Ofsted civil penalties; unregistered homes

We welcome Ofsted's enforcement powers against providers of unregistered children's homes, but local authorities also have to be put off using them, through a strengthened Ofsted oversight regime built into the inspection of LA children's services.

Proposed changeStrengthen the Ofsted oversight regime within the inspection of LA children's services so authorities are put off using unregistered homes.

Ofsted oversight and financial oversight

We support more Ofsted oversight of multi-home and fostering operators, fines for unregistered children's homes, and the financial oversight scheme for designated providers. This will contribute to raising standards of care, and we agree a financial oversight scheme should make sure care meets the standards.

Ofsted oversight and wellbeing data

The Bill expands Ofsted's oversight, and we think national wellbeing measurement would give Ofsted-regulated institutions concrete data to drive improvement and support the move to report cards. We've seen wellbeing data help school leaders in #BeeWell regions during inspections, and it would inform the new RISE teams too. But schools aren't responsible for every wellbeing issue, public assessment of school belonging is a matter for Ofsted reform rather than this measurement, and we must avoid crude school league tables of wellbeing and unfair accountability.

Proposed changeWe'd pair the expanded Ofsted oversight with national wellbeing measurement to drive improvement, while steering clear of wellbeing league tables.

Ofsted provider-group oversight

We wholeheartedly support giving Ofsted new powers to oversee private provider groups through improvement plan notices and enforcement, alongside better re-registration for managers and stronger enforcement against unregistered settings. Group-level oversight is exactly how best practice gets shared and standards rise — 40% of our homes are Outstanding and 60% Good — and we'd be glad to work with the Department and Ofsted on getting it right.

Proposed changeBring in Ofsted provider-group oversight, and let us work with the Department and Ofsted to implement it well.

Penalties on satisfaction = opinion power

Penalties imposed whenever CIECSS 'is satisfied' let authorities punish people on opinion just for living differently. For home education it means LAs can control and monitor us even after they've decided we're satisfactory — with nothing requiring a cause and nothing protecting the public.

Proposed changeBuild trust and support instead of imposing on us, require proof rather than opinion, and bar opinion-based material from being shared in the family court.

Windfall tax on profiteering providers

I urge the government to think again about deciding not to bring in a windfall tax on the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies — the Bill's financial-oversight and monetary-penalty clauses just aren't enough.

Proposed changeBring in a windfall tax on the profits of the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies, reinvested in Family Help, rather than relying only on the Bill's civil-penalty and profit-limiting clauses.

Welcome power to fine unregistered provision

We welcome the power to fine unregistered children's social care provision. We have long called for it: a fine is a faster alternative to criminal prosecution, which is costly, protracted and time-consuming, and lets us act at pace. We'll use the power proportionately and with care against illegal operators.

Ofsted civil penalties; unregistered homes

We welcome Ofsted's enforcement powers against providers of unregistered children's homes, but local authorities also have to be put off using them, through a strengthened Ofsted oversight regime built into the inspection of LA children's services.

Proposed changeStrengthen the Ofsted oversight regime within the inspection of LA children's services so authorities are put off using unregistered homes.

Ofsted oversight and financial oversight

We support more Ofsted oversight of multi-home and fostering operators, fines for unregistered children's homes, and the financial oversight scheme for designated providers. This will contribute to raising standards of care, and we agree a financial oversight scheme should make sure care meets the standards.

Ofsted oversight and wellbeing data

The Bill expands Ofsted's oversight, and we think national wellbeing measurement would give Ofsted-regulated institutions concrete data to drive improvement and support the move to report cards. We've seen wellbeing data help school leaders in #BeeWell regions during inspections, and it would inform the new RISE teams too. But schools aren't responsible for every wellbeing issue, public assessment of school belonging is a matter for Ofsted reform rather than this measurement, and we must avoid crude school league tables of wellbeing and unfair accountability.

Proposed changeWe'd pair the expanded Ofsted oversight with national wellbeing measurement to drive improvement, while steering clear of wellbeing league tables.

Ofsted provider-group oversight

We wholeheartedly support giving Ofsted new powers to oversee private provider groups through improvement plan notices and enforcement, alongside better re-registration for managers and stronger enforcement against unregistered settings. Group-level oversight is exactly how best practice gets shared and standards rise — 40% of our homes are Outstanding and 60% Good — and we'd be glad to work with the Department and Ofsted on getting it right.

Proposed changeBring in Ofsted provider-group oversight, and let us work with the Department and Ofsted to implement it well.

Financial oversight misused on home educators

This huge finance-focused clause doesn't belong in a children's and education Bill. EHE LAs will misread it to demand financial and other information from home educators and providers, the renewable 12-month reviews leave people in limbo, funded groups commit fraud, and LAs simply don't have the expertise to judge anyone's or any business's financial stability.

Proposed changeRequire funding to go to its intended purpose with receipts, like a charity; limit who can assess finances to qualified accountants; and deal with provider fraud before you extend these powers.

Weak oversight of trust financial transparency

Take Wandle Learning Trust as a separate example of how weak the DfE's oversight is: it left a Reserves Policy out of its Trustees Report for both 2022/23 and 2023/24, against the Academies Accounts Direction 2.16. That matters because the trust runs a commercial operation reviewing its VAT position, so reserves transparency really counts. In a normal charity that kind of failure would have repercussions — reduced grant eligibility, say — but here there's nothing. Without an effective regulator, there's no consequence for governance failure, and that can't be right.

Proposed changeStrengthen the oversight so academy trusts actually comply with basic financial-transparency requirements like reserves policies.

Misquoting of the 2022 CMA report

The 2022 Competition and Markets Authority report on children's social care has been consistently misquoted: yes, it called the market 'dysfunctional', but it also found that a place in a private children's home costs no more than a local-authority place, and Ofsted found no difference in quality. We'd ask the Secretary of State to meet providers within three months to get a proper understanding of this.

Proposed changeWe want the Secretary of State to meet providers and key stakeholders within the first three months of the Act to gain further insight.

Windfall tax on profiteering providers

I urge the government to think again about deciding not to bring in a windfall tax on the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies — the Bill's financial-oversight and monetary-penalty clauses just aren't enough.

Proposed changeBring in a windfall tax on the profits of the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies, reinvested in Family Help, rather than relying only on the Bill's civil-penalty and profit-limiting clauses.

Extend oversight to supported accommodation

We want the financial oversight in clause 13 and the profit-limiting power in clause 14 extended to providers of supported accommodation, not just children's homes and fostering agencies.

Proposed changeWe'd amend sections 13(7) and 14(3) to bring in providers of supported accommodation alongside children's homes and fostering agencies.

Price controls and state-run provision

We urge the Bill to end the profit-driven model of child care by introducing price controls on private providers and increasing investment in state-run children's homes.

Proposed changeWe want price controls on private providers to prevent excessive profit-making, and more investment in state-run children's homes.

Clarify the financial oversight scheme

We're asking the government to clarify exactly what the financial oversight scheme involves, including when it will be implemented and which reporting requirements will fall on which fostering services.

Proposed changeWe want clarity on what the financial oversight scheme is, when it will be implemented, and what reporting requirements it places on fostering services.

RCCs and profit cap probing questions

We don't take an organisational view on the profit-cap policy itself, but we do have questions. How will Regional Care Cooperatives and the profit cap be shaped by children's own views? How will they actually improve the availability and quality of care? How will the cap deliver real reinvestment for children? And how will all this work alongside the parallel reforms in Wales?

Profit cap and financial oversight

I welcome the power to cap profit and the unlimited penalty for non-compliance, but I'm concerned there's no clarity on the timeframe for, or enforcement of, the cap. 94% of those 775 unregistered placements on 1 September 2024 came from private providers, and at an estimated £440m a year most of that money is going into private profit. Without a clear enforcement timeframe, I'm worried the financial oversight scheme won't act as a substantial deterrent to highly profitable private providers of unregistered children's homes.

Proposed changeI'd set out a clear timeframe for, and a firm commitment to, enforcing the profit cap.

Support financial oversight, seek clarity

We support a financial oversight scheme for the private children's social care sector — it brings transparency and stability — but we need clarity on what form it takes, how it's implemented, and which body oversees it.

Proposed changeWe want you to use the consultation period to design the financial oversight regime directly with us in the independent sector, and to name the regulatory or government body responsible for it.

Ofsted oversight and financial oversight

We support more Ofsted oversight of multi-home and fostering operators, fines for unregistered children's homes, and the financial oversight scheme for designated providers. This will contribute to raising standards of care, and we agree a financial oversight scheme should make sure care meets the standards.

Cost and price transparency

We support sharing more cost information with local authorities so commissioning delivers best value — 95% of our fostering placements already go through tender, so we're used to that transparency. But commissioning should weigh quality and outcomes too, not just cost, and asking for a retrospective cost figure for every individual child in residential care would place an undue burden on authorities and providers alike. We believe greater transparency can be delivered proportionately and practically.

Proposed changeMake cost and price transparency proportionate and practical — please don't require per-child retrospective cost figures that just create undue administrative burden.

Financial oversight scheme (offer to pilot)

We fully support introducing a financial oversight scheme — in fact, last month we offered the DfE to pilot the Financial Oversight Scheme for Looked After Children's Placement Providers. The details need to be right for it to work in practice, and we'd recommend a quarterly reporting system that fits normal business practice and avoids duplication.

Proposed changeAdopt quarterly reporting for the financial oversight scheme and make sure it works in practice — and we'd be glad to pilot it for you.

Profit limits irrelevant to children

Profit limits have nothing to do with children. Existing laws already cap pricing and profits, this treats foster carers like a profit-making business, and it exempts LAs while handing them even more power.

Oppose Amendment 42 (profit cap on ISS)

We oppose Amendment 42, which would pull independent special schools within Clause 14's profit cap, and we ask that it be withdrawn, disagreed or removed. Its scope is unclear and it would harm the vital residential and respite provision our members deliver.

Proposed changeWithdraw, disagree to, or remove Amendment 42 so that independent special schools are not brought within the profit cap.

Profit-cap powers risk overreach

We're concerned that the new power for the Secretary of State to limit profits moves undefined powers from Parliament to DfE officials, which risks regulatory overreach and makes it harder for providers like us to operate and to increase sufficiency.

Proposed changeWe want the profit-limitation powers defined and put through proper parliamentary scrutiny before DfE officials ever use them, and we want value for money not to be read as lowest cost.

Regional care cooperatives and profit-capping

We understand the intent behind regional care cooperatives, but it's vital you don't repeat the mistakes of adoption regionalisation or distance decisions from participatory structures and children's voices. Market sufficiency across the statutory, voluntary and private sectors has to be carefully protected, and profit-capping needs to be done in a considered way so that placement options are strengthened, not diminished. We also want the national adoption register's matching service restored, and similar national approaches considered for fostering and residential care.

Proposed changeRestore the national adoption register and matching service, take a considered approach to profit-capping, and protect a mixed-economy continuum of care.

Clause 14 impact on small/charity providers

We repeat the concern from our original 16 January evidence: Clause 14 will hit small providers who specialise in low-incidence, high-needs provision and charities running specialist day and residential SEND settings — and that impact simply hasn't been considered.

Proposed changeConsider Clause 14's impact on small specialist and charitable SEND providers, and deal with this policy as part of the wider SEND discussion rather than separately.

Bill does not address root financial causes

We reject the implication that providers like us drive up cost. The Bill goes after the market instead of the root financial causes, when in reality our agencies deliver high-quality, good-value care for complex children on modest profit margins.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill refocused on the root financial causes of the pressures in children's social care, not just on the provider market.

Profit cap backstop clarity

We'd support a profit cap backstop only if it's well-designed. Our primary concern is minimising the uncertainty around how it would apply, because that's what risks deterring the investment the sector needs. We reinvest over 95% of our post-tax profit into better services and more places and we pay UK corporation tax, so any cap must be set at a reasonable level, communicated clearly in advance, based on a fair definition of profit, and account for capital reinvestment — and designed so it doesn't inadvertently drive bad behaviour.

Proposed changeGive us clarity on the profit cap backstop — its level, scope, how reinvestment and profit are defined, and what would trigger it — set at a reasonable level and communicated in advance.

Windfall tax on profiteering providers

I urge the government to think again about deciding not to bring in a windfall tax on the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies — the Bill's financial-oversight and monetary-penalty clauses just aren't enough.

Proposed changeBring in a windfall tax on the profits of the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies, reinvested in Family Help, rather than relying only on the Bill's civil-penalty and profit-limiting clauses.

Profit limits should cover supported accommodation

We welcome the Secretary of State's new power to limit the profits of children's homes and fostering agencies, but we deeply regret that 'care-less' supported accommodation providers — a fast-growing for-profit market — have been left out.

Proposed changeWe'd extend the Clause 14 profit-limiting power to cover supported ('care-less') accommodation providers too.

Extend oversight to supported accommodation

We want the financial oversight in clause 13 and the profit-limiting power in clause 14 extended to providers of supported accommodation, not just children's homes and fostering agencies.

Proposed changeWe'd amend sections 13(7) and 14(3) to bring in providers of supported accommodation alongside children's homes and fostering agencies.

Price controls and state-run provision

We urge the Bill to end the profit-driven model of child care by introducing price controls on private providers and increasing investment in state-run children's homes.

Proposed changeWe want price controls on private providers to prevent excessive profit-making, and more investment in state-run children's homes.

Narrow scope of profit-cap powers

These profit-cap powers were meant for the largest providers, but they're drawn far too broadly: clause 14 lets them apply to any provider running one or more home, over 80% of providers, and no rationale is given for that. We'd amend the definition of 'relevant provider' so it only covers those running 25 or more children's homes and/or fostering agencies with two or more branches.

Proposed changeWe'd amend clause 14(2) so 'relevant provider' means a person (other than a local authority) registered as carrying on either 25 or more children's homes and/or two or more fostering-agency branches.

End profiteering across all children's social care

I call for the Bill to introduce measures to end profiteering across all children's social care — residential and foster care, children's homes and specialist residential provision — to stop funding being transferred away from children's services.

Proposed changeIntroduce measures to end profiteering across all children's social care provision.

Ban for-profit provision, not just cap profits

Rather than capping profits, there should be no for-profit organisations at all in children's homes, residential schools or foster care — Scotland has banned them and Wales is doing the same — and the money saved should go to Section 17 support.

Proposed changeBan for-profit provision across children's homes, residential schools and foster care, rather than just capping profits.

Undefined 'profiteering'/'excessive profits'

This profit-cap power shouldn't exist without clear definitions of 'profiteering' and 'excessive profits'. These terms are thrown around with no clear meaning, and we've been told to 'address' them with no sense of what acceptable behaviour even looks like, so we want the Secretary of State to work with stakeholders within the first three months of the Act to make clear what we'd have to address to keep the power from being used.

Proposed changeWe want the Secretary of State to commit to working with key stakeholders within the first three months of the Act to define what behaviour is acceptable and what isn't.

RCCs and profit cap probing questions

We don't take an organisational view on the profit-cap policy itself, but we do have questions. How will Regional Care Cooperatives and the profit cap be shaped by children's own views? How will they actually improve the availability and quality of care? How will the cap deliver real reinvestment for children? And how will all this work alongside the parallel reforms in Wales?

Profit cap and financial oversight

I welcome the power to cap profit and the unlimited penalty for non-compliance, but I'm concerned there's no clarity on the timeframe for, or enforcement of, the cap. 94% of those 775 unregistered placements on 1 September 2024 came from private providers, and at an estimated £440m a year most of that money is going into private profit. Without a clear enforcement timeframe, I'm worried the financial oversight scheme won't act as a substantial deterrent to highly profitable private providers of unregistered children's homes.

Proposed changeI'd set out a clear timeframe for, and a firm commitment to, enforcing the profit cap.

Profit caps welcomed

We welcome the powers for the Secretary of State to cap profit and to set an acceptable level of profit from children's social care placements.

Profit cap a step; eliminate profiteering

We oppose profit-making in children's social care. The profit cap is a positive step, but in the long term we want to see profiteering eliminated altogether, with investment and capital funding so local authorities can build children's homes and deliver in-house, welfare-focused, local, relationship-based services.

Proposed changeWe want you to go beyond the profit cap toward eliminating profiteering, with capital funding for local authority children's homes and in-house provision.

Profit cap on children's-home providers

We strongly support the power to cap provider profits — it's long overdue. For too long the private sector has been able to profiteer from vulnerable children, often charging well more than running costs and a reasonable profit. One of our own children's home placements averages around £3,500, while a similar independent-sector placement can be £6k to £16k per week.

'Persons' wording sweeps in home educators

The word 'persons' is wide open to interpretation, and EHE LAs already believe provisions like this apply to them — so they'll demand financial statements and fine home-educating families with no cause at all. You haven't made it obvious enough that the real target is foster care.

Proposed changeName the intended department or target — foster care, say — instead of the broad 'local authorities' or 'persons'.

Windfall tax on profiteering providers

I urge the government to think again about deciding not to bring in a windfall tax on the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies — the Bill's financial-oversight and monetary-penalty clauses just aren't enough.

Proposed changeBring in a windfall tax on the profits of the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies, reinvested in Family Help, rather than relying only on the Bill's civil-penalty and profit-limiting clauses.

Unlimited monetary penalty power

We welcome Ofsted's power to issue unlimited monetary penalties where a provider doesn't comply with an improvement plan, but we're worried there's no clarity on the timeframe for enforcing the cap.

Proposed changeMake clear the timeframe for enforcing the profit cap.

Ofsted oversight and financial oversight

We support more Ofsted oversight of multi-home and fostering operators, fines for unregistered children's homes, and the financial oversight scheme for designated providers. This will contribute to raising standards of care, and we agree a financial oversight scheme should make sure care meets the standards.

Open-ended fines and interest on home educators

This penalty procedure will be misused against home educators and the providers we rely on. 28 days is too short to produce reports, a penalty 'may be any amount', the relevant authorities decide it all on opinion, the Judgments Act 1838 interest provision is misapplied, and the appeal rights are stacked in the authority's favour, not the individual's.

Proposed changeName the departments these powers apply to, require equivalent qualifications and experience, set interest in line with what the courts rule, and lengthen and rebalance the appeal rights.

Windfall tax on profiteering providers

I urge the government to think again about deciding not to bring in a windfall tax on the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies — the Bill's financial-oversight and monetary-penalty clauses just aren't enough.

Proposed changeBring in a windfall tax on the profits of the largest private children's home providers and independent fostering agencies, reinvested in Family Help, rather than relying only on the Bill's civil-penalty and profit-limiting clauses.

Ban for-profit provision, not just cap profits

Rather than capping profits, there should be no for-profit organisations at all in children's homes, residential schools or foster care — Scotland has banned them and Wales is doing the same — and the money saved should go to Section 17 support.

Proposed changeBan for-profit provision across children's homes, residential schools and foster care, rather than just capping profits.

Profit cap a step; eliminate profiteering

We oppose profit-making in children's social care. The profit cap is a positive step, but in the long term we want to see profiteering eliminated altogether, with investment and capital funding so local authorities can build children's homes and deliver in-house, welfare-focused, local, relationship-based services.

Proposed changeWe want you to go beyond the profit cap toward eliminating profiteering, with capital funding for local authority children's homes and in-house provision.

Ofsted oversight and financial oversight

We support more Ofsted oversight of multi-home and fostering operators, fines for unregistered children's homes, and the financial oversight scheme for designated providers. This will contribute to raising standards of care, and we agree a financial oversight scheme should make sure care meets the standards.

Ofsted oversight and wellbeing data

The Bill expands Ofsted's oversight, and we think national wellbeing measurement would give Ofsted-regulated institutions concrete data to drive improvement and support the move to report cards. We've seen wellbeing data help school leaders in #BeeWell regions during inspections, and it would inform the new RISE teams too. But schools aren't responsible for every wellbeing issue, public assessment of school belonging is a matter for Ofsted reform rather than this measurement, and we must avoid crude school league tables of wellbeing and unfair accountability.

Proposed changeWe'd pair the expanded Ofsted oversight with national wellbeing measurement to drive improvement, while steering clear of wellbeing league tables.

No GDPR safeguards in info sharing

'In connection with the Secretary of State's functions' and 'functions of a person' are so broad they'd permit almost any sharing of personal data. There's no mention of GDPR or any data-protection safeguard, and I can't refuse to hand over my information on privacy grounds.

Proposed changeDefine 'relevant information' and 'functions', add explicit GDPR and data-protection safeguards, and let me refuse on privacy-law grounds.

Agency social-worker use

Children tell us they dislike having to rebuild relationships over and over when their social worker changes, and frequent changes erode trust. Agency staff are only needed where services can't recruit and retain permanent workers, so we'd rather you focus on recruitment and retention than on provisions around agency use.

Vague regulations; only care workers targeted

What are these regulations, exactly? This punishes LAs for using approved outside agencies that a child's care may actually need, and I can't see why only care workers are targeted while EHE teams — whose complaints are handled in-house, slowly and with bias — get no monitoring at all.

Proposed changeSpell out the regulations, and widen the monitoring to other LA functions, including the EHE teams.

Agency workers and workforce stability

Behind Clause 18 there's a real recruitment and retention crisis. Agency workers aren't always a bad thing, but leaning on them to fill long-term gaps strains council finances and means families lose the consistency they need.

Proposed changeWe'd invest in leadership and professional development to build a sustainable workforce and cut the over-reliance on agency workers.

Agency-worker regulation

We support regulating agency workers — it strengthens the recent agency rules and supports the work we've done to cut our agency use. We believe it's long overdue and will help us, and other LAs, return to a permanent children's workforce.

'Regulated establishment' wording

'Regulated establishment' reads like a detention or jail term, and in an opinion-based system that kind of language colours how a child and their family get treated. Wording matters.

Protection of 16-17 year-olds from ill-treatment

Clause 19 extends the adult-social-care ill-treatment and wilful-neglect offence to 16-17 year-olds, and to us that's a further 'adultification' of teenagers. We'd rather you amended the child-cruelty offence so these young people are better protected within the child protection framework.

Proposed changeWe'd amend section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 — the cruelty-to-children-under-16 offence — to extend it to 16 and 17 year-olds.

Prosecute directors and fit-and-proper test

Existing legislation should be updated so directors of independent and residential schools can be prosecuted for wilful neglect or abuse, just as care providers in independent hospitals can be, and a fit-and-proper-persons test should be introduced. Because these settings are regulated by Ofsted rather than deemed 'health care providers', the section 21 ill-treatment and wilful neglect offences in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 can't be applied to their directors. So directors aren't subject to fit-and-proper-persons vetting and can't be prosecuted for abuse that happens at their se…

Proposed changeUpdate the legislation so directors of independent and residential schools can be prosecuted for wilful neglect or abuse, as care providers in independent hospitals can be, and introduce a fit-and-proper-persons test.

Extend ill-treatment/neglect law to 16-17s

We support extending the ill-treatment and wilful-neglect law to 16- and 17-year-olds. This cements their position firmly as children and ensures their safety in care and detention settings, and makes sure allegations are robustly explored through child-protection investigations — though we'd note it may make recruitment and retention in these settings harder.

Medical examination for work experience

We oppose letting local authorities require a child to have a medical examination to get a work permit — it would put off many young people, including home-educated ones, from taking up valuable work experience.

Proposed changeDon't require children to have a medical examination in order to get a work permit or take part in work experience.

Medical examination for child employment

I oppose letting a local authority require a child to have a medical examination or provide information just to be allowed to work. Children shouldn't have to hand over medical information to seek work experience — it's an invasion of privacy. My own children are at an age to look for work experience, which builds independence, and this is a deterrent and a barrier to that.

Proposed changePlease remove the requirement for medical examinations or information as a condition of child employment.

Medical exams for work experience

We object to imposing medical examinations for work experience (17A): since the child can only do light work within reasonable limits anyway, there's no reason for the LA to see their medical data, which is confidential between the child and their GP. Delete 17A(5)(a).

Proposed changeDelete 17A paragraph (5) item (a).

Child work hours and permit confusion

This clause contradicts itself on ages and hours. 35 hours a week with only two weeks' holiday is far too much for children — children not in school should have to apply to work hours like that. There's no detail on work permits, and EHE LAs will treat ordinary home chores as illegal child labour.

Proposed changeMake children not in school apply before working long hours unless they're pursuing qualifications, clarify the permit process and which authority issues them, and make sure any regulations LAs create are themselves regulated.

8pm limit still excludes sporting/backstage roles

We're concerned the 8pm limit still shuts young people out of televised and floodlit sporting events — young referees, ball assistants, front-of-house — and out of hospitality and backstage non-performance theatre roles. It doesn't fit weekend and holiday shift patterns, so we'd allow older 15-16-year-olds to work later than 8pm on a Friday or Saturday when the next day isn't a school day, or for up to three days in the holidays, within the permitted total hours and with safe transport home.

Proposed changeLet older 15-16-year-olds work later than 8pm on non-school nights (Fri/Sat) or up to three days in the school holidays, within the total permitted hours and with arrangements to get them home safely.

Keep sporting schemes distinct from employment

I'm asking that the Bill's child-employment provisions keep structured sporting participation like our Ball Boy and Girl scheme classified as not employment under the Part P exclusion, recognise its educational and developmental character, and let our safeguarding best practice continue.

Proposed changeI'd have the Bill's child-employment provisions keep demonstrable structured sporting schemes like ours distinct from employment classifications under the Part P exclusions, acknowledging their educational and developmental aspects.

Child-employment rules: welcome but many questions

We welcome the more flexible permitted hours — like working until 8pm on any day and increased Sunday hours — but we have a number of questions. Could 15- and 16-year-olds be allowed to work until 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays? The Bill takes away our power to set byelaws — our own date from 1998 — in favour of national ones, so are we going to be consulted on that? Will it cover children employed as influencers and online, which is currently unregulated? Will prohibited work be clearly identified and easy to update for new types of work? Will the penalties, unchanged for decades, finally be…

Proposed changeLet 15- and 16-year-olds work until 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays, consult us on the national byelaws, regulate online and influencer work, clarify the rules and raise the penalties, and clarify how this works for home-educated children.

On-site inspection of workplaces vs employer DBS checks

I'd have the regulations require us to inspect and approve the workplace before issuing a permit, as a safeguarding measure. I'd rather use a code of practice between employer and local authority than the mandatory employer DBS checks the NNCEE seems to want — those would be unaffordable for many businesses and would cut children's job opportunities.

Proposed changeRequire us to inspect and approve the workplace before issuing a permit, and use an employer-local-authority code of practice rather than mandatory DBS checks on employers.

Specify offences and penalties for breaches

The regulations should spell out the offences and penalties for employers and parents who breach them. We need transparent guidance we can point to when our enforcement is challenged.

Proposed changeSet out in the regulations the offences and penalties for breaches by parents and employers.

LA consultation and discretion on work types

We should be consulted and keep the discretion to use our professional judgement on jobs that aren't explicitly listed as permitted or prohibited. There are real grey areas — backstage theatre work, for instance, where the licensing and employment rules pull against each other.

Proposed changeGive us the chance to comment on, and discretion over, which types of work are permitted and prohibited.

Allow longer single shifts; sport gaps

I support the 8pm finish and equal Sunday and Saturday hours, but two hours after school just doesn't work for many employers — in hospitality, for example, dining runs from 6 to 9pm and shifts come in 4-hour blocks. I'd let young people do a single 2.5-4 hour weekday shift, capped at the existing weekly maxima (12 hours for 13-14s, 15 for 15-16s), which would suit employers and open up theatres and cinemas. And the 8pm extension still doesn't help ball assistants at football matches that start after 7:30pm, or at Wimbledon where matches run past 8pm.

Proposed changeIntroduce a single 2.5-4 hour weekday shift option, within the existing weekly caps, and sort out the sport-sector hours the 8pm finish doesn't cover.

National guidance, awareness and sports permits

My recommendations are to liaise with local authorities, employers and young people; to develop national guidance for employers, parents and carers, young people and LAs, building on a National Guidance Booklet I co-produced; to raise awareness of the new legislation through websites and roadshows; to clear up the inconsistency in paid sport — football-academy ball assistants get treated variously as training or paid work — by introducing a sporting permit like the Body of Persons Approval (BOPA) in the performance regulations; and to give employers better information on getting work permits…

Proposed changeIssue national guidance, run awareness campaigns, clear up sports licensing with a BOPA-style sporting permit, and give employers better information on permits.

Define 'work'; exempt digital learning

We welcome Clause 20, but we'd amend the law to clearly define 'work' and exempt structured, voluntary digital learning experiences like ours, which work much more like youth development than conventional employment.

Proposed changeWe'd amend the Bill to clearly define 'work' and create exemptions for structured digital learning experiences, while keeping the safeguarding protections in place.

Centralised digital work permit system

We'd replace the fragmented local-council permit processes with a centralised, fully digital national work permit system run through a government portal, to cut burdens, ensure consistency and improve data security.

Proposed changeWe'd amend child employment legislation to set up a centralised, legally recognised digital permit system, with statutory guidance defining what councils' role is.

Remove ID barriers for work permits

Requiring passports or birth certificates shuts out young people from low-income or marginalised backgrounds, so we'd bring in a digital 'Young Person's Work Pass' linked to GOV.UK Verify or a school-issued ID.

Proposed changeWe'd introduce a digital 'Young Person's Work Pass' linked to GOV.UK Verify or a school-issued ID, to verify age and eligibility securely and consistently.

Flexible working hours for remote work

The existing restrictions on when children can work are too rigid for remote programmes, so we'd update the regulations to reflect modern, flexible remote working patterns.

Proposed changeWe'd update the working-hours regulations to reflect modern remote working patterns.

Centralise licensing; give councils compliance powers

We'd centralise the administration of young-performer licensing — a single point of entry for licensing and chaperone vetting — while keeping enforcement local, to cut burdens, improve efficiency and create a level playing field, and we want councils given compliance powers.

Proposed changeWe'd centralise licensing administration into a single point of entry for licensing and chaperone vetting, keep enforcement local, and give councils fixed-penalty, improvement and prohibition-notice and legal-undertaking powers to secure compliance.

Fix licence cross-reference in 17A(7)

We've found a drafting gap: the new section 17A(7)(a) only covers performance licences under Part II of the 1933 Act, which are for children performing abroad, and misses the everyday licences for performing, paid modelling or paid sport in Great Britain or the island of Ireland, which are granted under section 37(1) of the 1963 Act. Clause (a) should reference that section too.

Proposed changeWe'd amend section 17A(7)(a) to read 'under the authority of a licence granted under this part or under subsection (1) of section 37 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963.'

Industrial undertaking prohibition (1920 Act)

The 1920 Act's blanket ban on child employment in any 'industrial undertaking' is far too broad and out of date. The 2009 guidance reads it as forbidding even office work at a road haulage firm simply because the firm is an industrial undertaking — taken to its logical end, it would stop a child doing basic remote admin at home for a parent's company. The Bill's new section 17A(1)(c) now lets the Secretary of State prohibit specified work by regulation, so we'd suggest using that and amending or repealing the relevant parts of this 100-year-old Act, which is no longer fit for purpose.

Proposed changeWe'd use the new section 17A(1)(c) regulations to prohibit the relevant 'industrial undertaking' work types, and amend or repeal the relevant parts of the 1920 Act, which at over 100 years old is no longer fit for purpose.

Coverage of academies and home-educated children

I need to know whether the new permit rules cover all children, however they're educated. Section 559 of the Education Act 1996 only lists certain school types, and that gap once let a home-educating parent get a notice I'd served revoked, by arguing s.559 didn't cover home-educated children.

Proposed changePlease make clear in the legislation that the regulations apply to all children whatever their education, closing the Section 559 gap.

Whether 13-year-olds will be permitted to work

Will 13-year-olds still be allowed to work? The Bill only says the Secretary of State 'may' authorise light work for them, and I'm not sure what 'may' means here — most of our current byelaws, and the rest of the UK, already let 13-year-olds work.

Proposed changePlease clarify whether 13-year-olds will be permitted to work under the new regulations.

Clarify specific roles and street trading

I need clarity on some specific and emerging kinds of work — football match ball assistants, child social influencers and content creators, and self-employed young people advertising skills like tutoring or babysitting on apps. And will street trading, which is in most of our byelaws but missing from the Bill, be included?

Proposed changePlease give more detail on these specific and emerging kinds of work, and confirm whether street trading will be included in the new regulations.

Child employment and register interaction

I'd like it made clear whether part-time-work information ends up on the same register as our education data, and I want children to keep the right to do light part-time work outside their education hours.

Proposed changeClarify how child-employment records relate to the education register, and protect children's access to permitted light part-time work.

How will greater safeguarding be implemented?

The Bill mentions greater safeguarding, but how will that actually be implemented? Right now there are no requirements to run safeguarding checks on employers, and blanket employer DBS checks wouldn't solve it — they'd be especially problematic for larger companies where a young person works alongside lots of people. In Nottinghamshire we use a code-of-conduct scheme (signed every three years, with named safety contacts) that gates the permit, plus site inspections and joint visits with Trading Standards, and that's what keeps young people safe.

Proposed changeClarify how safeguarding will be implemented, and use an employer code of conduct, site inspections and inter-agency working rather than blanket employer DBS checks.

Numerous clarifications sought on scope and process

We need to know when the current byelaws cease and Secretary of State regulations replace them, and we have many scope questions: DBS/disbarring checks for employers; how this applies to home-educated and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller young people; social-media creators; self-employed app-based work; restricted roles; sport coaches; work experience and volunteering; paid choristers and streamed services; young people from the EU and overseas with different school ages; how quickly amendments can be made; post-exam Year 11 pupils; and how section 559 of the Education Act 1996 applies to academies.

Proposed changeGive us clarity in the regulations and guidance on the byelaw-to-regulation transition, DBS checks, and all the scope questions we've listed, including how section 559 of the Education Act 1996 applies to academies.

Hours/breaks/leave for home-educated children

We note that the new hours and times restrictions in section 17A(1) are tied to the days and weeks a child is 'required to attend school', so they don't apply to an electively home-educated child who isn't required to attend. Section 17A(6) lets the Secretary of State set hours, meal and break intervals and leave entitlements — will that power be used to take that opportunity for electively home-educated children?

Proposed changeWe'd use the section 17A(6) power to specify the permitted hours, times, meal and rest breaks and leave for electively home-educated children.

Duke of Edinburgh charity-shop volunteering

Does the Secretary of State have a view on whether a child volunteering in a charity shop for a Duke of Edinburgh's Award is 'employed' within the meaning of the 1933 Act? Section 30(1) deems anyone assisting a trade run for profit to be employed even if unpaid, and the 2009 guidance treats unpaid charity-shop work that way, yet children do this all the time for the Award — so there's real uncertainty about whether the 1933 Act and our byelaws apply. If it isn't employment, please make that explicit.

Proposed changeWe'd ask the Secretary of State to state whether Duke of Edinburgh charity-shop volunteering is 'employment', and if it isn't, to use the section 17A(4)(b) power to exempt it from the employment-permit requirement.

Street trading and child busking

The Bill replaces our street-trading byelaws with national regulations but leaves the 1933 Act's street-trading definition untouched. Section 20(1) bans child street trading while section 20(2) lets us make byelaws allowing 14-plus children to trade for their parents, so we'd ask whether the new national regulations will still permit that. We'd also flag the anachronistic section 30(1) definition — hawking matches, shoe-blacking — which, because it includes 'playing, singing or performing for profit in streets or public places', means the 1933 Act bans a child busking for tips in any circumst…

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to clarify whether the new national regulations will let children over a certain age street-trade in specified circumstances, and to address the anachronistic definition, including the ban on child busking.

Enhanced DBS checks for those working alongside child employees

We'd ask the Secretary of State to use the new regulations and guidance to clarify, with concrete workplace examples, when someone working alongside an employed child under 16 falls within 'regulated activity' and so needs an enhanced DBS check with a Children's Barred List check. Under Schedule 4 Part 1 of the SVG Act 2006, teaching, training or supervising such a child 'intensively' or 'frequently' is regulated activity, but the qualifying wording is opaque and may be under-applied, so clear examples would help make sure the check is done where it's meant to be.

Proposed changeWe'd use the new child-employment regulations and guidance to spell out, with concrete workplace examples, when an enhanced DBS check with Children's Barred List check is required for people working alongside employed children.

Interaction with the 1920 Act on industrial work

How do the new regulations sit with the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920? The Bill says nothing about it, and if the 1920 Act's broad ban on 'industrial undertakings' stays in force it could keep barring children from that work — undermining the very aim of removing outdated restrictions.

Proposed changePlease clarify whether and how the 1920 Act's prohibitions, such as on industrial undertakings, are affected by the new regulations.

Welcomes reform of child-employment framework

I welcome removing the local byelaws while keeping our work permits and letting the Secretary of State regulate child employment — it should improve working hours, opportunities and consistency. But the guidance needs updating; the last was issued in 2009.

Proposed changePlease issue updated statutory guidance to go with the new regulations — the last guidance dates from 2009.

Welcome but insufficient child-employment changes

I welcome the Bill's child-employment changes overall, but on their own they won't fix the issues we face, deliver fairness or opportunity for young people, or meet what the employment market needs. Work permits have fallen — in Nottinghamshire to around 400 in 2024 from about 1,200 a decade ago — partly because employers, young people, parents, schools and even our own LA departments aren't aware of the rules, and because the legislation is outdated and over-restrictive. Our Youth Council and Youth Parliament members didn't know the legislation existed and want flexible hours, clear support…

Proposed changeGo beyond the proposed changes and modernise child-employment legislation for fairness, opportunity and the modern market.

National regulations to replace slow byelaws

I welcome national regulations replacing local byelaws — amending byelaws takes far too long, and the differences between authorities disadvantage young people (Nottinghamshire's byelaws differ from our neighbours', for instance one prohibits work in a public house or restaurant). The underpinning law is also outdated: the Employment of Women, Young People and Children Act 1920 bars work in 'industrial undertakings', so a young person can be blocked from the office of a manufacturing business away from the shop floor, or barred from a Saturday job in a garage after doing work experience there.

Proposed changeAdopt national regulations and repeal or update the outdated underpinning law, such as the 1920 Act's 'industrial undertaking' restriction.

Support modernised child employment hours

We welcome and support moving the latest working hour from 7pm to 8pm and removing the two-hour Sunday limit. The current child-employment legislation is outdated, and these changes will let more young people access employment opportunities.

Collaborate on job-role regulations and guidance

We'll work with the DfE and employment organisations to review the proposed Secretary of State regulations on the job roles young people can do, help update the DCSF guidance that was last revised in 2009, and roll out guidance and training for local authorities while promoting the changes to young people, parents and local employers.

Outdated law and risk of illegal working

To conclude, these are changes we've long advocated, working closely with the DfE and employment organisations. The current legislation is outdated and has stopped some young people accepting jobs. We're worried by the drop in permit requests since the pandemic, which may mean more children are working illegally and at risk. We welcome the Bill letting more young people gain valuable work experience, and we're happy to attend in person and for our submission to be published.

Breakfast clubs over tackling poverty

Why put breakfast clubs ahead of tackling child poverty and the cost-of-living crisis? Spend the money so children can have breakfast with their families at home.

Proposed changeTackle child poverty and the cost-of-living crisis rather than — or at least before — setting up breakfast clubs.

Breakfast club duty: funding and logistics

We recognise the benefits of free breakfast clubs, but our members have significant concerns about funding, staffing, space, the shift from education to childcare, and whether they will actually reach the children who would most benefit. We urge careful thought and close attention to what the early adopter programme tells us.

Proposed changePlease make sure the funding is sufficient and pay close attention to what the early adopter programme finds before this is rolled out.

Breakfast clubs welcome only if funded

We'd welcome free breakfast clubs if they're properly funded — they'd help working parents and cut school transport costs. But as we saw with Universal Infant Free School Meals, limited per-meal funding will mean schools having to subsidise the activity from the funding meant for core education. Our heads worry it could bring an end to the small-group breakfast provision they currently run for vulnerable pupils.

Proposed changeFund breakfast clubs properly per meal and protect the targeted small-group provision for vulnerable pupils.

Breakfast club food quality and funding

The real problem is the quality and quantity of school food — I can list the inadequate meals they serve. Where's the breakfast-club funding even coming from? And breakfast clubs won't help children who can't eat in the morning, or who lose family mealtime by being packed off to school earlier.

Breakfast clubs: funding and operability

We agree breakfast clubs are valuable, but we have real concerns about whether the funding is enough, especially for schools with below-average numbers of FSM-eligible pupils. A universal 30-minute offer is hard to run alongside the longer paid wraparound care many parents need, space and the crucial pre-school preparation time are at risk if lots of pupils attend, and clubs shouldn't be run by teaching staff — schools will lean on support staff taking extra hours. We see no workload impact assessment, and primary leaders already work around 57.9 hours a week. It's imperative these concerns a…

Proposed changeProvide enough funding, allowing for low-FSM schools, and sort out how this works alongside existing wraparound care, plus space, staffing and workload, before any national roll-out.

Pupil premium erosion and FSM threshold

If you want to remove barriers to opportunity, the Bill has to tackle the erosion of pupil premium funding and the outdated Free School Meal threshold — both of which have failed to keep pace with inflation.

Proposed changeUprate the pupil premium at least in line with inflation, and raise or revisit the FSM earnings eligibility threshold.

Bill neglects SEN children and provision

The Bill is overly focused on mainstream education and fails to address inadequate SEN provision and over-stretched social services. Before- and after-school clubs don't cater for complex needs, and the cost of the register may divert money away from essential services.

Proposed changeWe want additional funding and support directed to SEN children, and before- and after-school provision made inclusive of complex needs.

Concerns over breakfast-club duty

We support the aims behind breakfast clubs, but we have significant concerns about making them a statutory duty. Making it a duty rather than something schools choose to do is a worrying shift from schools being places of education to places of childcare. It brings real logistical challenges around staffing and space — attendance is hard to predict when provision is free and open to all — and without adequate funding we'll have to subsidise it, stretching budgets and risking disruption to existing wraparound care. The burden falls disproportionately on primary leaders, amounting to an unconsu…

Proposed changeAmend the Bill to cut the detail in the breakfast-club clause and instead place a duty on primary schools to follow statutory guidance on breakfast clubs, with the detail adjustable through secondary legislation or guidance.

Breakfast clubs to meet food standards

We support breakfast clubs in every primary school, but they should meet the same nutritional standards as school lunches, and the current school food standards should be made compulsory with proper reporting and accountability.

Proposed changeHold breakfast clubs to the same nutritional standards as school lunches, and make school food standards compulsory with clear reporting and accountability.

Make breakfast clubs accessible to SEND

We welcome universal free breakfast clubs, but the Bill doesn't do enough to make sure they're accessible to children with SEND. Disabled children face real barriers — dietary and feeding needs, transport that only runs at the start and end of the school day, and no specialist staff during breakfast hours. We want schools required to make reasonable adjustments, including specialist support staff, with guidance on adjustments such as food vouchers for children who can't access the meals because of disability. And we want duties on local authorities to co-operate, to make sure home-to-school t…

Proposed changeAmend the breakfast-club provision to require reasonable adjustments, specialist support and transport for SEND children, and put access support in their EHC plans.

Add quality-assurance and monitoring expectation

We'd ask the Bill to require not just that provision exists, but that it's monitored regularly and systematically for quality — going beyond the School Food Standards — tracking which children it reaches, how consistent it is across schools and areas, and the wider impacts, while gathering the views of schools, parents and pupils over time.

Proposed changeWe'd add a quality-assurance expectation to the Bill requiring regular, systematic monitoring of uptake, quality, reach and impact beyond the School Food Standards, informed by what schools, parents and pupils tell us.

Provide ongoing support for schools

We'd argue the Bill should include appropriate, ongoing, easy-to-access support and guidance for schools, because the NSBP shows schools need an experienced, responsive team behind them to run breakfast well, cost-effectively and with enrichment.

Proposed changeWe'd include in the Bill appropriate ongoing support and guidance for schools to set up and keep improving their breakfast provision.

Adopt a national programme approach

We'd argue for a national programme approach that gathers and shares best practice while still supporting individual schools — it makes it easier to set clear expectations, secure equity of provision across the country, and achieve economies of scale.

Proposed changeWe'd deliver the duty through a national programme approach so we get equity, clear expectations, consistent data and economies of scale.

Flexible models; reach late pupils and most in need

We warn that universal provision must keep reaching the pupils who need breakfast most. The Bill should allow flexible models, not just a 'club', because the 'before the start of the first school session' wording and the 30-minute funding window risk leaving out the late-arriving pupils.

Proposed changeWe'd word the Bill to allow flexible delivery — grab-and-go, classroom, and late provision — and fund breakfasts outside the 30-minute window so we reach the late-arriving pupils and those who need it most.

Consult children on daily school experience

We recommend the Bill require schools to consult children on the decisions that shape their daily school experience, for instance through school councils. In our CHANT work, with proper consultation children improved the school food, the use of spaces, the playground equipment and the clubs on offer — and they wanted a say over their learning too, not just the practical things.

Proposed changeRequire schools to set up effective children's-voice mechanisms, including but not limited to school councils, covering both practical matters and learning and teaching.

Add enrichment-activity guidance to breakfast clubs

We strongly support the free breakfast clubs, and we propose an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to issue guidance encouraging enrichment activities within breakfast club sessions — to get the most out of the clubs and help close the enrichment gap for disadvantaged pupils. A nutritious breakfast improves concentration, attainment and wellbeing, but one in five pupils (and one in four disadvantaged pupils) get no enrichment in a typical week, and enrichment like film clubs slots easily into the 30-minute breakfast period. We're preparing our own guidance on film screening, discussio…

Proposed changeWe'd insert into Clause 21, after s551B(3) at page 41, line 19, a duty on the Secretary of State to issue guidance to schools on building enrichment activities — educational, cultural and recreational — into breakfast club sessions to enhance pupils' development and wellbeing.

Statutory duty to measure and monitor impact

The Bill has nothing in it to measure and monitor breakfast provision. We want a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to collect impact data aligned to HM Treasury's Magenta Book, covering pupil characteristics, stakeholder satisfaction and outcomes.

Proposed changeAmend Clause 21 to require the Secretary of State to collect and evaluate impact data on breakfast provision.

Formal expert advice and support for schools

The Bill gives schools no formal advice and support beyond written guidance. We want expert support provided — trained staff, grants, free foods and materials — because that's what will make or break this policy.

Proposed changeAmend the clause to provide formal expert advice and support to schools.

Put guidance on a statutory footing

The 'issue guidance' and 'have regard' wording isn't strong enough. Put the guidance on a statutory footing so schools must follow it, as in R v Islington ex p Rixon, to avoid a postcode lottery.

Proposed changeAmend the clause and the notes to give the guidance a statutory footing with the Rixon legal effect.

Extend scope to secondary special-school pupils

Extend the scope from 'qualifying primary pupils' to all pupils in special schools through Year 14. The roughly 100,000 secondary special-school pupils add only 2.22% to reach, and all-through special schools can't fairly feed only some of their pupils.

Proposed changeExtend and fund the provision to all pupils in special schools, as defined by the Education Act 1996, through Year 14.

Support and fund mixed delivery models

We want the Bill to be far more forthright about supporting and funding alternative, mixed delivery models — classroom, takeaway, nurture groups — beyond the traditional breakfast club. That improves reach, cuts cost, suits special schools, and stops schools opting out altogether.

Proposed changeAmend the Bill to explicitly support and fund mixed delivery models, so schools don't need an exemption and can reach more pupils.

Learn from Wales's flawed scheme

We warn that the English policy could repeat the failures of Wales's Free Breakfast in Primary Schools scheme — it created stigma and barriers, reached only 15% of disadvantaged pupils, muddled breakfast with childcare charging, and had no support, no monitoring and no sound exemption clause.

Proposed changeDesign Clause 21 to avoid Wales's pitfalls by building in support, monitoring, clear charging rules and a sound exemption clause.

Universal free school meals across the day

We want the Bill to build on the breakfast club policy by bringing in universal free school meals across the whole school day, free from the stigma of means-testing, starting with an immediate extension to the children who need it most.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill to include universal free school meals for all, with a long-term ambition to reach every pupil, immediate steps for those most in need, a direct grant so pupil premium isn't affected, and a Free School Meals Implementation Expert Panel to deliver it.

Make breakfast clubs inclusive for SEND

We welcome universal free breakfast clubs, but many disabled children face barriers around food provision, transport and specialist support, so we want a clear requirement for reasonable adjustments, guidance on alternatives like food vouchers, and a duty for local authorities to cooperate.

Proposed changeWe want a clear requirement for schools to make reasonable adjustments, including specialist staff, guidance extending reasonable adjustments such as food vouchers, and a duty for local authorities to cooperate on transport and EHC-plan support.

School food standards compliance programme

Breakfast club and FSM funding must actually meet mandatory school food standards, so we want a formal monitoring and compliance programme rolled out progressively across England over the next 12 to 24 months — which is what amendment NC41 would do, and we support it.

Proposed changeWe want the Bill to require government to introduce a formal school food standards monitoring and compliance programme, rolled out progressively across England over the next 12 to 24 months, as NC41 proposes.

Breakfast clubs must reach food-insecure children

We welcome the statutory breakfast club provision, but the clubs have to be designed and monitored so they actually reach the children at greatest risk of food insecurity — and secondary schools currently subsidised under the National Schools Breakfast Programme mustn't lose their provision.

Proposed changeAdd monitoring and evaluation of how far breakfast clubs reach the children who need them, and keep breakfast provision going in secondary schools currently eligible for the NSBP.

National monitoring of school food quality

Clause 21 lets the appropriate authority choose the breakfast food as long as it meets the food standards duty, but there's nothing here to monitor whether schools actually comply — and many fail the school food standards — so the Bill needs to bring in national monitoring.

Proposed changeBring in a national system to monitor school food standards across breakfast, breaktime and lunch, plus a process to support the schools that aren't complying.

Careful design of out-of-school provision

The explanatory notes let schools meet their duty using premises near the school. We ask you to anticipate and mitigate the particular challenges of out-of-school provision, using the Early Adopter Scheme as a testing ground.

Proposed changeUse the Early Adopter Scheme to test and iron out the challenges of out-of-school provision.

Breakfast clubs; extend to early years

We welcome the universal primary breakfast club initiative as a way to reduce the impact of poverty. But there's no equivalent for early years, and we'd like that put right.

Proposed changeOur Amendment 10: amend the Bill to give young children parity by extending free breakfast and lunch into early years.

Free breakfast clubs

I welcome the requirement for free breakfast clubs in all primary schools, and I want them offered to children of all ages who would otherwise start the day hungry. Children told me they wanted breakfast clubs in every school — 8% of children, and 13% of those on free school meals, said they look forward to them — and they help motivate attendance.

Proposed changeI'd offer breakfast clubs free of charge to children of all ages who would otherwise start the day hungry.

Welcome overall safeguarding and poverty measures

We welcome the Bill's overall measures for a better strategic safeguarding structure, and the breakfast and uniform policies will equalise the school experience for children growing up in poverty — reducing the vulnerability that is itself a vital protective factor against abuse.

Breakfast clubs and uniforms welcomed

We welcome the breakfast-club and school-uniform provisions as sensible measures that most help families in poverty, but they won't on their own solve the underlying pressures schools face.

Proposed changeWhether in the Bill or separately, set out a coherent vision and a cross-government response to fix the underlying foundations.

Welcome primary breakfast club programme

We welcome the Government bringing in the national primary breakfast club programme in England through this Bill — the benefits of breakfast clubs are well demonstrated.

Breakfast clubs and transport access

We welcome free breakfast club provision from Reception to Year 6. But deaf children who need the breakfast club and rely on transport to get to their setting shouldn't be shut out of it.

Proposed changeMake sure deaf children who rely on transport can still get to the breakfast club.

Uniform limits and breakfast clubs

There are provisions here that we very much welcome, including the limit on the number of branded school uniform items and free breakfast clubs in primary schools in England.

Free breakfast clubs at primary schools

I support free breakfast clubs at primary schools, and I want them made consistent and required by law. We're supporting growing numbers of children with emergency food parcels — children who are likely going to school hungry and unable to learn. National auto-enrolment for Pupil Premium would also help over-stretched school budgets.

Proposed changeMake free breakfast clubs at primary schools a legal requirement, and bring in national auto-enrolment for Pupil Premium.

Breakfast clubs welcomed

We strongly support breakfast clubs as a way to tackle child poverty — 77% of our schools, around 1,600, already run one. They mean pupils start the day with a nutritious meal in a calm social setting that improves behaviour, attendance and concentration, and they help parents get to work on time, especially when they have children at different schools. Provision is currently mixed — some free, some authority-funded, some paid-for — and we look forward to the early adopters scheme bringing a more uniform approach and informing a national rollout.

Breakfast clubs must include SEND pupils equitably

We warmly welcome free breakfast clubs, but we need clarification and adjustments so children with SEND in special and mainstream schools can access them equitably. Please clarify whether state-funded special schools providing primary education count as 'a maintained school' under s551B(6)(b)(d), because children with a learning disability are 1.6 times more likely to live in income poverty and could particularly benefit. Reasonable adjustments to home-to-school transport — extra or smaller vehicles — may be needed, but it's unclear whether the LA or the school funds these, since transport is…

Proposed changeClarify in the legislation or guidance that maintained special schools are covered, set out clearly which body funds the additional transport adjustments, and require trained staff and provision for SEND medical and dietary needs.

Breakfast clubs and food standards

We support free breakfast clubs and school food standards, and we ask that the food provided, and the messaging around it, accommodate students with menstrual-related dietary needs — for example iron-rich options.

Proposed changePlease make sure school food standards and provision take menstrual-related dietary needs into account, such as iron-rich food options.

Fund breakfast clubs; extend provision

We welcome Clause 21's free breakfast clubs for primary pupils, but they have to be adequately funded for the long term, and we want funded provision extended to secondary pupils and to after-school and holiday provision too.

Proposed changeWe want breakfast clubs adequately funded for the long term, and comprehensive investment in before- and after-school and holiday provision.

Breakfast clubs and food standards for academies

We fully support free breakfast clubs and extending school food standards to academies. Locally, 40% of our food-bank enquiries came from families with children; lack of nutrition affects attendance and performance, and we see hidden food poverty even in affluent areas. Not extending food standards to academies makes no sense.

Proposed changeGuarantee free breakfast club access for FSM-eligible primary pupils and extend school food standards to academies.

Welcome universal breakfast duty

We welcome the new duty on primary schools to provide free universal breakfast in clause 21, and we offer what we've learned from the NSBP to make sure it delivers consistent quality, is easy for schools to run, and reaches children whatever their circumstances.

Support breakfast clubs and uniform-cost reduction

We fully support the free breakfast clubs and the reduction in uniform costs. Bradbury and Vince's (2025) cost-of-living research shows how important non-stigmatising, universal food provision is for learning, behaviour and family relationships, and how cheaper uniform with fewer branded items lets children in poverty feel normal and fit in.

Fund and staff universal breakfast clubs

We support universal breakfast clubs, but they have to be properly funded and staffed — and the next goal should be free school meals for all primary pupils.

Proposed changeWe'd properly fund and staff the breakfast clubs and go further to universal free school meals for all primary pupils.

Support inclusive nurturing breakfast clubs

We support free breakfast club provision under Clause 21, and we'd add staff training, embed nurture principles, fund the tools, and have Ofsted assess it — so breakfast clubs act as an inclusive 'soft start' supporting wellbeing and children with SEND.

Proposed changeWe'd provide training and funding for breakfast club staff in nurture practice and the Boxall Profile, embed the Six Principles of Nurture, and have Ofsted assess how breakfast clubs support inclusion and wellbeing.

Breakfast clubs and uniform cap as poverty measures

We support the breakfast clubs and the branded-uniform cap as significant steps to ease the impact of poverty on children's outcomes. With FSM-eligible pupils now at 2.1 million, and child poverty so strongly linked to poor wellbeing and lower future earnings, wellbeing measurement — covering things like sleep, activity and diet — would let us properly evaluate these measures, weigh their cost-effectiveness and spot where else disadvantaged children need help.

Proposed changeWe'd use wellbeing measurement to evaluate the breakfast clubs and uniform measures and to identify further interventions that reduce poverty.

Free breakfast clubs (with FSM ask)

Parents strongly support free breakfast clubs, but on their own these don't go far enough for families in poverty, so we'd also ask the government to consider free school meals for all primary children in England.

Proposed changeWe'd press ahead with free breakfast clubs and, on top of that, roll out free school meals for all primary school children in England.

Extend free school meals to all primary

We welcome the free breakfasts in Clause 21, but we want the Bill to go further with universal free school lunches, and we support NC2, tabled by Dr Simon Opher MP, to extend free school meals to all primary children as a first step towards universal provision.

Proposed changeWe want you to support NC2 to extend free school lunches to all primary school children, as a step towards universal free school meals.

Poverty measures should go further

We welcome free breakfast clubs and statutory uniform branding limits as poverty-alleviation measures, but the Government must do more to tackle the root causes of child poverty — backing the Child Poverty strategy and reviewing the pupil premium.

Proposed changeTackle the root causes of child poverty and review the application and effectiveness of the pupil premium to support the Child Poverty strategy.

Extend breakfast clubs / FSM auto-enrolment

We support breakfast clubs, and we'd extend them to every secondary-age child who couldn't otherwise afford one, alongside automatic enrolment for free school meals.

Proposed changeExtend breakfast clubs to secondary-age children who can't otherwise afford one, and bring in automatic free-school-meals enrolment.

Extend food support to low-income secondary pupils

We welcome the breakfast clubs and wider school-food efforts, but we're concerned that low-income secondary pupils miss out and that the frozen Free School Meals income threshold shuts so many out; we'd prioritise support for low-income families whatever the child's age.

Proposed changeWe want resource prioritised to support low-income families whatever the child's school age, and the frozen FSM eligibility threshold addressed.

Strong support for breakfast clubs

We welcome the Bill and strongly support the breakfast club provision in clause 21. We'd love to work with government to get the most out of it, and we think its benefits can be made even greater by including enrichment activities such as play.

Year-round cost of feeding children

We see that feeding children is a year-round struggle for families: parents tell us breakfast clubs are expensive, Free School Meal vouchers are hard to get in the holidays, and SEND children and food intolerances add to the bill — all on top of school trips.

Breakfast clubs need full funding and standards

We support free breakfast clubs as a positive step, but they have to be fully funded — for staffing, food, hygiene and energy costs — and a consistent 'healthy' standard should apply across all institutions.

Proposed changeFully fund state-funded primary breakfast clubs — staffing, food, hygiene and energy costs — with consistent healthy-food standards.

Extend breakfast clubs to SEN schools, make accessible

We welcome free breakfast clubs, but we're concerned they don't extend to SEN schools. They should cover all pupils and be fully accessible to disabled children, not provided in an 'alternative' or segregated way.

Proposed changeWe want the free breakfast club duty extended to all schools including SEN schools, and provision — including by third-party providers — to be fully accessible, with trained staff and reasonable adjustments.

Evidence on breakfast clubs and measurement

Our 2006 evaluation of the Welsh school breakfast initiative found qualitative benefits — better behaviour, attendance and concentration — and pinned down what makes delivery effective. We recommend the Government build a way to measure breakfast-club impact into the Bill.

Proposed changeAs part of this Bill, build in a way to measure the impact of breakfast clubs.

Evidence and offer of partnership on play

We believe in the transformative power of Learning-through-Play for children's curiosity, creativity, wellbeing and life skills, and we'd like to partner with government to deliver it. We run our Power of Play initiative in Tower Hamlets, we're committed to upholding children's right to play under Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and we helped bring about the UN's International Day of Play on 11 June — and we want to work with you and others so every child can access Learning-through-Play through the breakfast club programme.

Breakfast club duty: funding and logistics

We recognise the benefits of free breakfast clubs, but our members have significant concerns about funding, staffing, space, the shift from education to childcare, and whether they will actually reach the children who would most benefit. We urge careful thought and close attention to what the early adopter programme tells us.

Proposed changePlease make sure the funding is sufficient and pay close attention to what the early adopter programme finds before this is rolled out.

Breakfast clubs welcome only if funded

We'd welcome free breakfast clubs if they're properly funded — they'd help working parents and cut school transport costs. But as we saw with Universal Infant Free School Meals, limited per-meal funding will mean schools having to subsidise the activity from the funding meant for core education. Our heads worry it could bring an end to the small-group breakfast provision they currently run for vulnerable pupils.

Proposed changeFund breakfast clubs properly per meal and protect the targeted small-group provision for vulnerable pupils.

Enforce/change food standards instead

It's the School Food Standards themselves that need changing and enforcing — not just making academies follow them.

Proposed changeChange the school food standards and enforce them, rather than just extending them to academies.

Breakfast clubs to meet food standards

We support breakfast clubs in every primary school, but they should meet the same nutritional standards as school lunches, and the current school food standards should be made compulsory with proper reporting and accountability.

Proposed changeHold breakfast clubs to the same nutritional standards as school lunches, and make school food standards compulsory with clear reporting and accountability.

Review and monitor school food standards

We want the Bill to review, update and monitor the decade-old school food standards, apply them right across the school day, and set up an accountability mechanism with mandatory reporting and quality assurance.

Proposed changeWe want a commitment to review, update and monitor the school food standards: bring in the FSA pilot recommendations in 2025/26 with a five-year plan, require a lead Governor or Trustee for food, and make schools publish a food policy and report on take-up, funding and compliance using a standard DfE template.

Breakfast clubs and uniforms welcomed

We welcome the breakfast-club and school-uniform provisions as sensible measures that most help families in poverty, but they won't on their own solve the underlying pressures schools face.

Proposed changeWhether in the Bill or separately, set out a coherent vision and a cross-government response to fix the underlying foundations.

Food standards welcomed

We welcome food standards for any breakfast club provider, so that the food children get is healthy.

Breakfast clubs welcomed

We strongly support breakfast clubs as a way to tackle child poverty — 77% of our schools, around 1,600, already run one. They mean pupils start the day with a nutritious meal in a calm social setting that improves behaviour, attendance and concentration, and they help parents get to work on time, especially when they have children at different schools. Provision is currently mixed — some free, some authority-funded, some paid-for — and we look forward to the early adopters scheme bringing a more uniform approach and informing a national rollout.

Breakfast clubs and food standards

We support free breakfast clubs and school food standards, and we ask that the food provided, and the messaging around it, accommodate students with menstrual-related dietary needs — for example iron-rich options.

Proposed changePlease make sure school food standards and provision take menstrual-related dietary needs into account, such as iron-rich food options.

Breakfast clubs and food standards for academies

We fully support free breakfast clubs and extending school food standards to academies. Locally, 40% of our food-bank enquiries came from families with children; lack of nutrition affects attendance and performance, and we see hidden food poverty even in affluent areas. Not extending food standards to academies makes no sense.

Proposed changeGuarantee free breakfast club access for FSM-eligible primary pupils and extend school food standards to academies.

Support breakfast clubs and uniform-cost reduction

We fully support the free breakfast clubs and the reduction in uniform costs. Bradbury and Vince's (2025) cost-of-living research shows how important non-stigmatising, universal food provision is for learning, behaviour and family relationships, and how cheaper uniform with fewer branded items lets children in poverty feel normal and fit in.

Support food standards; review needed

We support the nutrition provisions, including applying the food-standards duty to academy breakfast provision for the first time, and we back the Food Foundation and School Food Review Working Group's call to review the School Food Standards as you think about enforcement.

Proposed changeConsider how you'll enforce the food-standards duty, and review the School Food Standards.

Year-round cost of feeding children

We see that feeding children is a year-round struggle for families: parents tell us breakfast clubs are expensive, Free School Meal vouchers are hard to get in the holidays, and SEND children and food intolerances add to the bill — all on top of school trips.

Limit on branded uniform harms industry

We oppose the proposed limit on branded school uniform items: it would damage our industry and employment and, in the end, push up prices and lower quality for the very families it is meant to help.

Proposed changeStop the Bill's branded-uniform limit before it harms our industry and tips us into recession.

Four-item branded cap has unintended consequences

The proposed cap of four branded items (including a tie) for secondary schools will be counterproductive. It will increase pupils' anxiety about what to wear and push up truancy — 37% of the 277 school leaders we surveyed already noticed more truancy on non-uniform days. PE bottoms and midlayers are the first things to be dropped under a cap, and because unbranded midlayers are scarce, parents will be forced to buy Nike, Adidas or Under Armour. Children without those brands feel anxious in PE, so participation falls, especially among body-conscious girls. Our specialist schoolwear is 74% chea…

Proposed changePlease don't adopt the four-item branded cap for secondary schools.

Contract and stock costs of branded-item limits

Limiting branded items ignores the reality that many schools are locked into supplier contracts needing 18 months to two years' notice — sometimes longer. Force a mandatory change by 2026 and the financial fallout is considerable: schools end up absorbing the cost of stock they can't use. And disposing of all those unsellable uniforms means landfill waste, which cuts straight against the eco-friendly work our industry has been doing.

Proposed changeReconsider the branded-item limits, and take account of the contract notice periods we're tied to and the cost and environmental impact of the stock that would be left over.

Economic impact on schoolwear sector

This Bill threatens real damage to the schoolwear sector. A recent Schoolwear Association survey found 31% of businesses might have to shut and 88% would be forced to lay off staff. As a small business owner with seven employees, I'd have to make at least two of my people redundant.

Uniforms support wellbeing and inclusion

Even though the aim is wellbeing, weakening uniform policies could do the opposite — more disparity, more bullying, more peer pressure and more anxiety, all harming children's mental health. Uniforms put every child on an equal footing whatever their background and build a sense of belonging. Take that away amid the rising mental-health pressures already hitting the NHS, and you heighten feelings of inadequacy, exclusion and competition. Uniforms cut distractions and reduce bullying and peer pressure over clothes. You may be trying to save parents money, but you can't put a price on a child's…

Proposed changeRecognise and protect the role uniforms play in inclusion, community and mental-health stability, instead of weakening uniform policies.

Branded items not the real problem

Branded items aren't the issue — they're affordable now, and the limit just takes away a parent's choice. The real problem is poor-quality, inappropriate school-regulated uniforms — short skirts, low-cut blouses, flimsy shoes — and teachers bullying children over their clothing. Abolish or simplify uniforms and stop schools sending children home over them.

Proposed changeAbolish uniforms, or allow simple generic items — black or grey trousers, a white or grey shirt, a jumper — and stop schools sending children home over their uniform.

Cap will raise costs and harm schools/business

We oppose the branded-item cap. It'll raise parents' costs rather than cut them, shrink the pre-loved market, strip schools of their identity and the uniform's role as a leveller, make branded PE kit obsolete and put girls off sport, and threaten schoolwear businesses like ours along with the jobs and community services we provide.

Proposed changeDon't impose the three-item cap — and if you must cap it at all, set the limit at five branded items plus a tie.

Academisation rebranding worsens uniform costs

We've seen the shift from local-authority schools to academy trusts make uniform problems worse. Converting to an academy trust routinely changes the branding and colours, so families have to buy a full new uniform — and after a rebrand it often takes two or three years before there's enough second-hand stock to draw on.

Existing mitigations are ineffective

From what our clients tell us, mitigations like uniform exchanges, grants and bursaries are largely ineffective at ending the hardship. Exchanges are often cancelled at short notice, run during working hours and rarely stock blazers or branded skirts; grants and bursaries are hard to access and poorly promoted, so families don't even know about them; and the gap has been filled by third-sector grants, which simply isn't sustainable in the current climate.

Government saving figure is flawed

I don't accept the Government's claimed £50 annual saving. The Schoolwear Association has robustly shown the average compulsory secondary uniform costs £92.35, so a £50 saving simply isn't conceivable — it would require uniform sales to more than halve. The sums just don't add up.

Proposed changePlease revisit the financial analysis behind this policy before you legislate.

Sector failure and need for consultation

This cap will cause real business failures in the specialist sector, shifting sales to supermarkets and international sports brands that can't match our quality, range and year-round availability. The 2021 statutory guidance already worked — it cut the real cost of uniform by 25%, over 85% of schools are now compliant, tenders are more competitive and second-hand is everywhere. We operate on thin margins and simply cannot face another shock so soon; if the industry fails, uniform provision breaks down. This element of the Bill needs extensive consultation, exactly as happened in 2021.

Proposed changePlease undertake extensive, meaningful consultation before any change, and don't impose a fresh shock on the specialist sector so soon after 2021.

Lack of consultation and evidence

There's been no proper consultation with schools, head teachers, PE teachers, parents or the Schoolwear Association. Most head teachers don't even know about the cap, the parents we talk to value branded uniform as good quality and value, and the Minister has dodged meeting our industry despite the evidence that disputes the Government's cost-saving claims.

Proposed changeConsult us properly — schools, head teachers, PE teachers, parents and the Schoolwear Association — and meet with our industry to look at the evidence we have.

Second-hand exchanges and 'optional' items insufficient

Second-hand uniform exchanges aren't an adequate answer. Nearly all schools have one, but some treat that as meaning nothing more needs doing — and second-hand uniform can be stigmatising. We should tackle the cause, not treat the symptoms, by making sure uniform is genuinely affordable for everyone. 'Optional' branded items just create peer pressure so children don't stand out, and there's often a lack of clarity about which items must be branded, sometimes with the uniform policy not even published.

Proposed changeTackle affordability at source by making sure more generic items are available, rather than relying on second-hand exchanges, and scrutinise 'optional' branded items.

Frequent uniform design changes

There's another problem too: schools change uniform design far too often — usually when a new headteacher arrives, or through small crest and stripe tweaks rolled out to every year group. That forces families to re-buy, blocks hand-me-downs and resale, and creates waste.

Proposed changeRestrict frequent or needless changes to uniform design so families can reuse items and pass them on.

Cap weakens school standards and equality

The cap will undermine the behaviour, equality and academic benefits of branded uniforms, and it loads an operational burden onto schools that have only just been through a statutory review.

Risk to retailers and swap-shop charities

The cap threatens the family-run specialist retailers and community swap-shop charities we represent, and the support they give to low-income families and SEND pupils.

Existing guidance effective; lacked consultation

A statutory cap isn't needed: the 2021 DfE guidance has already cut costs, and this proposal never had enough consultation with our industry or with school leaders.

Proposed changeLet the existing 2021 DfE guidance keep doing its job, and phase in any statutory change no earlier than September 2026.

Prefer a uniform cost cap

We understand the aim here is affordability, but the branded-item limit could backfire by ramping up competition over expensive non-uniform clothing, especially sportswear. Some of our members also question whether government should be involved at this level of detail, and we think a uniform cost cap might work better.

Proposed changeWe'd ask you to consider a uniform cost cap as an alternative to limiting branded items.

Uniform policy and menstrual comfort

We ask that Clause 23's uniform changes accommodate managing menstruation — with flexible policies, support for sustainable reusable products, and adequate, accessible toilet facilities.

Proposed changePlease make sure Clause 23's uniform policy considers menstrual-comfort accommodations and that toilet and facility access is taken into account.

Go further: single branded item, ban optional items

The restriction doesn't go far enough. We'd encourage the committee to go further and cut the limit to a single branded item — two if a tie is included — at both primary and secondary level, and to ban the additional 'optional' branded items that add an average £116.75 per child (96% of Halton schools offer them). A third of our clients feared their child would be bullied or wouldn't fit in without the full branded uniform, so many bought the optional items despite the hardship. The 2021 legislation was largely circumvented, with 'should' used to dodge its spirit, and no local uniform policy…

Proposed changeCut branded items to a single item (two with a tie) and ban optional branded items.

Limit branded items; tie should not be extra

We fully support Clause 23's statutory limit on branded uniform items — 3 branded items is more than enough — but we disagree that a tie should count as an additional allowable item. Our survey shows the current guidance is failing and uniform costs stay high with families unsupported.

Proposed changeLimit branded items — 3 is enough — and do not count a tie as an additional allowable branded item.

Add statutory comfortable, inclusive PE uniform

I'd add a sub-section to Clause 23 making it statutory for schools to ensure PE uniforms are comfortable and inclusive for all pupils. My research shows ill-fitting PE uniforms put adolescent girls off, and giving them more choice would get more of them taking part.

Proposed changeI'd add a statutory sub-section requiring schools to make sure PE uniforms are comfortable for and inclusive of all pupils, building in the choice and design points I've set out.

Reduce branded-item cap from four to two

We support limiting branded uniform items, but four is still too many. From our Youth Ambassadors' experience, schools should be allowed to require only two — branded items can cost double the unbranded equivalent and stay out of reach for low-income families.

Proposed changeAmend clause 23 so schools can require no more than two branded uniform items.

Affordable alternatives to branded items

We want the Bill to require schools to offer cheaper alternatives to branded items — like sewing a school badge onto a generic jumper — and to keep other required items generic, such as black or grey tights and black trousers.

Proposed changeRequire schools to provide or allow alternatives for branded items, and to keep non-branded items generic.

Mandatory pre-loved uniform service

We want the Bill to make a pre-loved, second-hand uniform service mandatory for any school requiring branded items, available before children start and to mid-term joiners — the current guidance just isn't applied consistently.

Proposed changeMake a pre-loved uniform service mandatory for schools that require branded items.

Direct grant system for uniform costs

We want schools to run a grant system that pays money straight to low-income families so they can afford the required uniform — including pricey non-branded items like smart shoes, coats and football boots.

Proposed changeRequire schools to run a grant system that gives money directly to families for uniform items.

No punishment for poverty-related uniform issues

We want the Bill to make sure pupils aren't punished — put in isolation or sent home to change — over uniform issues, especially poverty-related ones. Teachers often can't tell when a family is struggling, and being shut out of lessons hits poorer children hardest and harms their education.

Proposed changeMake sure pupils aren't punished for uniform issues, and ban using isolation or sending them home as the punishment.

Transition period for uniform policy changes

When a school changes its uniform policy, we want at least a term's transition where both the old and new uniform are allowed, so low-income families have time to budget for the new items.

Proposed changeRequire at least one term's transition, with both old and new uniform allowed, whenever uniform policy changes.

Estranged young people fund own uniforms

We want whoever drafts uniform policy to recognise estranged young people who have to fund their own uniforms, and to give them a grant through their school covering the full cost.

Proposed changeGive estranged young people a grant through their school that covers the full cost of the required uniform.

Enforcement mechanism for non-compliant schools

We want a quick, easy way for families to report schools that don't comply, and an enforcement route to make them fix their policies — Ofsted could check that uniform policies meet the law and are applied consistently.

Proposed changeCreate a reporting and enforcement route for non-compliant schools — for example, Ofsted checking uniform policies and pre-loved provision at inspection.

Cap at five/six items instead of four

I'd strongly recommend a more measured cap of five compulsory items for secondary schools — six where one is a tie — which realistically means three daywear and three PE items. That lets every school provide an effective, enforceable uniform and PE kit while still stopping the outlier schools that set excessive requirements, and it avoids all the unintended consequences. A worked example comes to about £92 — blazer £32, jumper £15, tie £5; PE T-shirt or polo £12, midlayer £18, bottoms £10 — roughly 46 pence a day for a full-time pupil.

Proposed changePlease set a secondary-school cap of five compulsory items — six where one is a tie — that is, three daywear and three PE items.

Consult children on daily school experience

We recommend the Bill require schools to consult children on the decisions that shape their daily school experience, for instance through school councils. In our CHANT work, with proper consultation children improved the school food, the use of spaces, the playground equipment and the clubs on offer — and they wanted a say over their learning too, not just the practical things.

Proposed changeRequire schools to set up effective children's-voice mechanisms, including but not limited to school councils, covering both practical matters and learning and teaching.

Raise branded uniform cap to five items

We oppose the three-branded-item cap and would replace it with five branded items, or six if one is a tie, leaving schools to decide the daywear/sportswear split and excluding non-compulsory items.

Proposed changeReplace Clause 23, Subsection 3 with a new section 551ZA setting the limit at five different branded items a school year, or six if one is a tie; exclude non-compulsory branded items; and let schools decide the daywear/sportswear split (we'd suggest three daywear, two sportswear).

Engage industry; PE-kit example

Have you actually talked to the teachers and PE departments who'll be affected by this? Take Meopham School in Gravesend: they dropped the designated PE kit for plain black clothing, students turned up in all sorts of branded sportswear, it created economic divides and put children off taking part — and the school went back to a specified PE uniform to keep things equal. I'd urge you to engage with us in the industry, with teachers and with PE departments.

Proposed changeEngage with us in the schoolwear industry, and with teachers and PE departments, so you understand the practical effects, especially on PE kit.

Implementation: timeline and consultation

On putting the law into practice, we'd recommend giving schools a timeline that factors in how existing items are phased out, consulting parents about the uniform they want to see, and considering whether making branded items 'optional' simply increases peer pressure.

Proposed changeGive schools an implementation timeline for phasing out items, require them to consult parents, and scrutinise the 'optional' item loophole.

Limits on branded uniform items welcomed

We welcome limiting branded uniform items as a way to bring down costs for parents — 94% of our schools, over 1,900, already provide uniform support. That support reduces stigma and bullying and promotes equality between pupils, and it's especially vital for families with several children, given how fast uniform costs add up. Almost all our schools already run uniform exchanges or second-hand sales.

School uniform branded-item limit

I welcome the limit on branded uniform items and hope it relieves some of the financial pressure families face — children repeatedly raised the cost of uniform and equal access with me during the cost-of-living crisis. I'd urge the Government to look at other ways to poverty-proof schools through the Child Poverty Taskforce.

Proposed changeI'd look at further ways to poverty-proof schools through the Child Poverty Taskforce.

Welcome overall safeguarding and poverty measures

We welcome the Bill's overall measures for a better strategic safeguarding structure, and the breakfast and uniform policies will equalise the school experience for children growing up in poverty — reducing the vulnerability that is itself a vital protective factor against abuse.

Breakfast clubs and uniforms welcomed

We welcome the breakfast-club and school-uniform provisions as sensible measures that most help families in poverty, but they won't on their own solve the underlying pressures schools face.

Proposed changeWhether in the Bill or separately, set out a coherent vision and a cross-government response to fix the underlying foundations.

School uniform cost limits

We welcome the uniform limits, and we'd also welcome further guidance on bringing down the cost of branded and expensive items, for example through uniform banks.

Proposed changeGive schools further guidance on bringing down uniform costs, for example through uniform banks.

Uniform limits and breakfast clubs

There are provisions here that we very much welcome, including the limit on the number of branded school uniform items and free breakfast clubs in primary schools in England.

Limit on branded uniform items

I strongly support a statutory limit on branded uniform items — ideally about 3-4, including PE kit, with a choice of two or more suppliers. In our area families spend at least £200-300 a year on uniform, when they'd prefer to spend £85-105 — that's a month of the Universal Credit child element. Even with the 2021 guidance, schools still demand mostly branded items or use a single supplier, and the cost pushes low-income families into debt or to our food parcels.

Proposed changeLimit branded uniform items to about 3-4, including PE kit, and require a choice of two or more suppliers.

Tighten uniform limits; add grants

We welcome Clause 23's statutory limit on branded uniform items, but it could do more to protect secondary-age children by limiting them to three branded items, as in primary schools. We also want national uniform grants, and Behaviour in Schools guidance updated so children aren't sanctioned over income-related issues.

Proposed changeWe'd lower the secondary branded-item limit to three, set up a national framework and funding for uniform grants, and update the Behaviour in Schools guidance.

Support restricting branded uniform items

We broadly support Clause 23's restriction on the number of branded uniform items — enshrining a limit in law is to be commended as a commitment to minimising inequality of opportunity for struggling families. We see the average uniform cost is £371 per child, families with school-age children are over-represented among the people we advise on debt, housing and benefits, and these costs hit hardest over the summer when childcare, food and energy pressures pile up.

Support limit on branded uniform items

I think Clause 23's statutory limit of three branded uniform items is appropriate and important for reducing income-based inequality, because branded items bought from school providers are often more expensive than what you'd pay at a standard retailer.

Limits on branded uniform items

We agree with the statutory limits on branded uniform items — most of our schools have already worked hard to carefully restrict them.

Support breakfast clubs and uniform-cost reduction

We fully support the free breakfast clubs and the reduction in uniform costs. Bradbury and Vince's (2025) cost-of-living research shows how important non-stigmatising, universal food provision is for learning, behaviour and family relationships, and how cheaper uniform with fewer branded items lets children in poverty feel normal and fit in.

Uniform branded-item limit

We're broadly supportive of limiting the number of branded uniform items schools can require. For most primary schools — which typically ask for around three branded items like a jumper, t-shirt and book bag — we don't expect significant problems, and only some secondary schools may find the cap a little more challenging.

Limit branded uniform items, add grants

We welcome limiting branded uniform and PE items to make uniform more affordable, and we'd ask that this comes with grants for families who are struggling.

Proposed changeWe'd pair the branded-item limit with uniform grants for families in financial hardship.

Support hard limit on branded uniform items

We support Clause 23's measures to limit branded uniform items, but we need a hard, enforceable limit, because the 2021 statutory guidance uses 'should' not 'must' and schools have easily sidestepped it while councils can't compel compliance. Branded items at the most expensive school cost up to £217.50, with several others over £150-£200. In our survey, 68% of parents make cutbacks on food, bills and family days out to afford uniform, 51% go into debt or borrow, and 70% disagreed that uniform is affordable. A hard limit would solve the enforcement problem and remove the uncertainty.

Proposed changeSet a hard, enforceable statutory limit on the number of branded uniform items, rather than relying on non-binding guidance.

Breakfast clubs and uniform cap as poverty measures

We support the breakfast clubs and the branded-uniform cap as significant steps to ease the impact of poverty on children's outcomes. With FSM-eligible pupils now at 2.1 million, and child poverty so strongly linked to poor wellbeing and lower future earnings, wellbeing measurement — covering things like sleep, activity and diet — would let us properly evaluate these measures, weigh their cost-effectiveness and spot where else disadvantaged children need help.

Proposed changeWe'd use wellbeing measurement to evaluate the breakfast clubs and uniform measures and to identify further interventions that reduce poverty.

Limiting branded uniform items

We welcome limiting compulsory branded uniform items as a step towards easing the cost of sending a child to school, but parents' worries about school costs go well beyond uniform — to school trips and technology too.

Proposed changeWe'd limit compulsory branded uniform items and also tackle the wider school costs that hit parents — school meals, trips and technology.

Poverty measures should go further

We welcome free breakfast clubs and statutory uniform branding limits as poverty-alleviation measures, but the Government must do more to tackle the root causes of child poverty — backing the Child Poverty strategy and reviewing the pupil premium.

Proposed changeTackle the root causes of child poverty and review the application and effectiveness of the pupil premium to support the Child Poverty strategy.

Lower and equalise uniform caps

We welcome the cap on branded uniform items, but we'd prefer lower caps and parity between primary and secondary schools, as part of reducing the financial burden on families and tackling child poverty.

Proposed changeWe want the branded-item caps lowered and made equal between primary and secondary schools, with the wider policy aligned through the Child Poverty Strategy.

Limit branded and over-specified uniform

We run a pre-loved uniform shop, so we strongly support statutory limits on branded items and urge you to redefine what schools can require. Branding, monogramming, specific PE kit, blazers, plaid skirts, formal leather shoes and house-specific ties make uniform prohibitively expensive and impossible to reuse or pass down.

Proposed changePut statutory limits on how many branded items a state-funded school can require, and rein in over-specified compulsory items — blazers, ties, formal footwear, specific PE kit and monogramming.

Limits on branded uniform items

We support statutory limits on branded uniform items. Uniform does have a role in belonging, but costs are rising and there's little evidence that belonging actually requires branded items — though we'd note enforcement could be challenging.

Proposed changeLegislate to ensure school uniform is affordable for all families, removing financial barriers and the potential for discrimination.

Welcome uniform limits; ensure accessible uniform at same cost

We welcome the statutory limits on branded uniform items, given that disabled children face higher poverty and extra costs, and we want accessible uniform options to be available, with families supported to buy them at the same cost as non-accessible clothing.

Proposed changeWe want accessible school uniform options to be available, and families supported where needed to buy them at the same cost as non-accessible clothing.

Cost drivers in secondary-school uniforms

Let us spell out what drives the high costs, especially at secondary level. Most infant and primary schools are affordable and would comply — some need no branded items at all if the colours are right — but secondary schools have far more branded items and are much more expensive. Skirts and kilts and branded PE socks and shorts often have to come from a single store, and house colours and frequent logo changes make uniform obsolete and stop it being passed down. The most cost-effective secondary option tends to be a blazer-and-tie uniform.

Best-interests power overrides suitable home education

The proposed 'best interests' requirement is the single biggest undermining of parental authority in the history of UK education law. It uniquely lets a local authority enforce school attendance even where my home education is suitable, and there is no adequate justification for it.

Proposed changeRemove the 'best interests' requirement that lets LAs override suitable home education and force school attendance.

LA consent to withdraw: special schools and s.47

I oppose the new requirement to get LA consent to withdraw a child from school in two situations — a special-school placement under an EHC plan, and while a Section 47 child-protection enquiry is running, even if it has nothing to do with education. In both, the LA would have to refuse consent even where my home education is suitable.

Proposed changeRemove the requirement for LA consent to withdraw a child from school in the EHC special-school and Section 47 situations.

ECHR breaches and inadequate ECHR Memorandum

These provisions breach ECHR Articles 8, 9, 14 and Article 2 of Protocol 1, and the Department's ECHR Memorandum fails to justify the interference — it only addresses unsuitable home education and ignores the cases where suitable home education is overridden.

Proposed changeReconsider these provisions so they comply with ECHR Articles 8, 9, 14 and Article 2 of Protocol 1.

Withdrawal-consent harms SEND / section 47 cases

Making families get local-authority consent to withdraw a child who is subject to a section 47 enquiry or child-protection plan — or a SEND child — hits hardest the families who may be deregistering to escape harm at school. It locks children into schools that may be unsafe for them.

Proposed changeI'd take SEND children and families under a section 47 enquiry or child-protection plan out of the consent requirement altogether. Instead, make sure support services don't lapse over the school holidays, and appoint an independent agency to handle complaints against local authorities.

LA consent blocks removal of EHCP child from harm

I oppose having to get the LA's permission to withdraw a child with an EHCP from school. It would stop me pulling my daughter out of danger straight away, and it'll put families off ever trying a return to school at all.

Proposed changeDon't make me get the LA's consent to withdraw a child with an EHCP or medical vulnerability from school — let me remove my child from harm immediately.

Home visits mandatory by threat; Article 8 breach

In practice this Bill makes home visits compulsory, because if I refuse one the LA can use that to issue a School Attendance Order. That presumes I'm guilty and breaches my Article 8 right to private and family life.

Proposed changeTake out the provision that lets refusing a home visit trigger a School Attendance Order, and don't allow forced entry into my home unless there's an immediate safeguarding concern.

Deregistration consent blocks escape from harmful school

The deregistration-consent provisions could let schools or the local authority use safeguarding 'threats' to stop families pulling children out of settings that are harming them, risking prosecution, real distress and unwarranted social-services involvement. We were effectively 'managed out' of school with a threatened safeguarding referral when we declined Early Help — under this Bill that kind of threat could simply block deregistration.

Proposed changeDon't let safeguarding allegations or assessments block deregistration, especially when they have nothing to do with the home — keep my ability to withdraw my child from a school that isn't working.

Local authorities not fit to hold more power

I oppose giving local authorities more authority over home-educated and out-of-school children. From my own experience, LAs make poor, frequently unlawful decisions that aren't in children's best interests, so these new powers will harm large groups of vulnerable children.

Proposed changeReconsider the provisions that hand local authorities more control over home education and out-of-school children.

Best-interests override undermines parental primacy

Making the local authority refuse consent whenever it thinks school attendance is in the child's best interests strips away my settled role as the one who decides what's in my own child's best interests. As things stand, nothing short of a court order — a care or supervision order — subjects any other group of children to a 'best interests' decision against their parents, so this is hugely discriminatory to home-educating families, and the people making these decisions aren't even required to have any experience of home education.

Proposed changePlease remove the local authority's power to override my decisions about my child's education on a 'best interests' basis.

Don't tie deregistration to s.47/CPP status

Requiring council permission to deregister a child subject to a s.47 investigation or a child protection plan is wrong: nearly 80% of those investigations find no cause for concern, and protection plans exist for all sorts of reasons. Forcing these children into school would only traumatise already-vulnerable children.

Proposed changeI'd not require council permission to deregister a child who is subject to a s.47 investigation or a child protection plan.

Oppose LA consent during s47 investigation

Requiring local-authority consent to home educate during a section 47 investigation is unworkable and conflicted: local authorities are biased towards school and have a conflict of interest as the very body providing the alternative.

Proposed changeRemove the requirement for local-authority consent to home educate during a section 47 investigation.

Shifting suitability decision to local authorities

I oppose moving the decision on whether a child's education is suitable away from parents and into the hands of the local authority. It shifts power from families to the State without enough safeguards, leaves ordinary home-educating families like mine exposed to LA over-reach and unwarranted school attendance orders, and ultimately puts children at risk.

Proposed changeLeave the decision on whether home education is suitable with us, the parents. Keep the existing report-based system and my right to refuse State employees entry to my home where there's no evidence of wrongdoing, add proper safeguards, and require LAs to consult experienced home educators when they judge suitability.

Oppose LA permission for SEND home education

Forcing parents of children with SEND to get LA permission to home educate is an incredible overreach of state interference — it's exactly those children who most need home education as a safety net.

Proposed changeRemove the requirement for LA permission to home educate a child with SEND, and let us parents make that decision.

Forced home visits into a child's safe space

436I(2)(a) and (c) will be misused to force visits into my home. My home is meant to be my child's safe space, so this really concerns me. How can it even be legal, when normally only someone with a warrant can enter my home? And would whoever turns up have had any training at all?

Proposed changeRemove the forced home-visit powers altogether, or at the very least require a warrant and properly trained visitors.

Coercive home visits and privacy invasion

Treating a refused home-visit request as a 'relevant factor' coerces us into accepting visits, in fear that otherwise our child will be sent to school. There's no guidance on whether visits are announced or unannounced, and no consequences for a local authority that abuses this.

Proposed changePlease remove or restrict the home-visit provision so a visit only happens where there are clear, evidence-based safeguarding concerns, with safeguards against misuse.

Assessing the home environment

The Bill stretches oversight beyond education itself and lets local authorities assess the home environment — even a child's bedroom if learning happens there. That's intrusive, wide open to abuse, and has no clear definitions or guidelines, and it would apply to all of us, not just where there's a concern.

Proposed changePlease remove the power to assess the home environment unless there are clear, evidence-based safeguarding concerns.

LA 'best interests' power and home entry

I already have a legal duty to provide an efficient, full-time, suitable education, yet the Bill lets the local authority decide my child's 'best interests' — even whether school would be 'better' — overriding my responsibility and the deep knowledge I have of my own child, and lets them into my home with no safeguarding concern at all. That's an unacceptable intrusion, and people who don't know my child could make life-altering decisions about her.

Proposed changePlease don't give local authorities the power to override my judgment of my child's best interests, and limit any home entry to cases with clear, evidenced safeguarding concerns.

Erosion of parental rights

A compulsory national register and giving local authorities the power to deny home education are a major departure from the established primacy of parents, and they undermine our right to choose an education that meets our child's needs.

Proposed changeRemove the compulsory register requirement and any power for local authorities to deny home education.

Against expanded state control of home education

The research evidence does not justify expanding state control over home education the way this Bill does. Home-educated graduates show positive academic, civic and social outcomes, and there is no robust evidence that would warrant overturning a long history of home education.

Proposed changeDon't expand state control over home education as this Bill proposes.

Undermines parental rights and existing laws

This Bill undermines my fundamental right and primary responsibility for my child's education and overrides the Education Act 1996. The safeguarding laws we already have are enough, but they go unused — Sara Sharif's death shows that. So enforce the laws we have rather than regulating families like mine who are doing just fine.

Proposed changeUphold and properly apply the laws we already have, instead of bringing in new regulation that overrides my parental rights and our family autonomy.

LA consent for withdrawal discriminatory

I oppose requiring council consent to withdraw a child, especially the way Condition A applies it to SEN children. It singles out a whole community and leaves us at the mercy of regional policy and the personal values of council staff who have no training in neurodiversity. Unlike Condition B, which is about safeguarding, Condition A targets all of us, and attendance officers who see a child for a short visit don't get the whole picture and push children to their limits. The law already lets councils ask about education and welfare and follow up real safeguarding concerns.

Proposed changeTake SEN children out of Condition A and don't give councils the power to refuse withdrawal — rely on the powers you already have.

LAs unqualified to define suitable education

Councils don't have the experience to judge what a 'suitable education' is and shouldn't be made legally responsible for that decision, because they assume home education just means 'school at home'. They don't understand the diversity of how we educate, and elective home education builds self-understanding and confidence that they can't assess. There should be more focus on welfare and mental health and less on prescriptive education — and the Secretary of State's role in subsections (10) and (11) becomes unworkable if councils are the ones deciding suitability.

Proposed changeDon't make councils legally responsible for deciding whether my home education is 'suitable'.

s47 trigger and parental best-interests primacy

We strongly object to Condition B, which puts a parent under a duty to satisfy the local authority whenever a s47 investigation is under way, and to the rule that the LA must refuse consent if it thinks school is in the child's best interests. This overrides the parent's long-established role as the arbiter of what is in the child's best interests.

Proposed changeRemove Condition B — the s47-enquiry trigger — and the requirement for the local authority to decide the child's best interests; limit this duty to cases with a court order or a Child Protection Plan.

Refusing consent harms vulnerable SEN children

Refusing consent to home-educate a child with additional needs forces some of the most vulnerable children to stay in school, making their anxiety and mental health worse — when so many of us turn to home education exactly because schools failed to meet our children's SEN, stop the bullying, or look after their mental health.

Proposed changeDon't refuse consent to home-educate children with additional needs.

No permission needed to home educate

As a child's mother, father or guardian, I should have the final say over the kind of education my child receives — the state doesn't have each individual child's best interests at heart. No one should have to seek permission to home educate. Home education is the default option in England; school is a choice we opt into if we want to.

Proposed changePlease don't require us to seek permission to home educate.

Undermining parental primacy

Page 46 line 34 and page 59 line 26 undermine our primacy as parents. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 makes it our duty to ensure a suitable education, whether by school attendance or otherwise, and no public body should be deciding what's best for our child — except where the child is under social services' supervision and care.

Proposed changeKeep our primacy as parents in deciding what counts as a suitable education, in line with section 7 of the Education Act 1996.

'Best interests' test undermines parental primacy

The Bill lets LAs stop my home education on a 'best interests' basis even when the education is wholly suitable under s7 of the Education Act 1996. That undermines the primacy of the parent and treats home-educating families like mine as guilty until proven innocent.

Proposed changeTake away the LA's power to stop home education on a 'best interests' basis where the education is suitable under s7 of the Education Act 1996.

Measures ineffective and disproportionate

These safeguarding measures are ineffective and disproportionate. Sara Sharif's case is an outlier — the authorities already knew the situation and failed to act — and her death happened during the summer holiday, when school attendance would have made no difference. Blanket oversight only diverts resources away from genuine risk.

Proposed changeStrengthen existing safeguarding mechanisms so authorities can act effectively where genuine concerns arise, rather than imposing blanket burdens — use targeted, evidence-based intervention.

LAs should not decide best interests

I oppose giving the LA the power to refuse consent just because it thinks school attendance is in the child's best interests. We parents know our children's best interests, any disagreement should go to the Family Courts, and the LA simply doesn't have the skill base to make these decisions.

Proposed changeDon't give the LA the power to decide a child's best interests or what counts as suitable education — leave any disputes to the Family Courts.

LA consent could block protective SEND withdrawal

Requiring the local authority's consent to withdraw a child for home education under Clause 24 / s.434A could stop parents of children with diagnosed SEND from making the decisions we have to make to protect our child's mental and physical health. My son's autism (PDA) meant school couldn't meet his needs and was actively harming him — before we deregistered he had sensory overload, violent meltdowns, school refusal and constant illness, and once tried to get out of a moving car to avoid school.

Proposed changePlease exempt children with diagnosed special educational needs from the local-authority consent requirement for withdrawal.

LA overriding parental responsibility and deregistration

We oppose giving local authorities the power to decide our child's best interests and to refuse deregistration across a wider range of situations. It displaces our parental responsibility, and it's especially harmful for SEND children the state system has already failed.

Proposed changeDon't give local authorities the power to override our deregistration decisions, and above all don't apply those powers to SEND children.

Clauses 24-26 misunderstand home education

Clauses 24, 25 and 26 read as if whoever wrote them barely understands how elective home education actually works — or is trying to ban, through the back door, the very styles of home education that produce good outcomes for most of our children.

Proposed changePlease rewrite clauses 24-26 to reflect how elective home education really works, so you don't end up restricting the home-education styles that actually work for our children.

LA consent disproportionately harms SEN children

I oppose making local-authority consent a condition of withdrawing certain children. Saying the local authority 'must' refuse deregistration when it decides it's not in the child's best interests, and then barring you from asking again for six months, takes away the voice of the parent and the child and discriminates against SEN children.

Proposed changeDon't make local-authority consent, or a duty to refuse deregistration, override us as parents — and scrap the automatic six-month bar on asking again.

Implied state ownership; Named Person parallel

These clauses imply the state owns or controls our children, and they mirror Scotland's Named Person scheme — which the UK Supreme Court found incompatible with Article 8 of the ECHR. That's state overreach into family life.

Mass-education regulation harms home education

Regulating elective home education with frameworks built for mass schooling will only lower the quality of the tailored education we provide. It applies the wrong benchmarks and forces personalised learning into a mould that doesn't fit.

Proposed changeDon't impose mass-schooling regulatory frameworks, standardised curricula or benchmarks on elective home education.

Risk of authoritarian education control

Clauses 24-29 echo authoritarian, state-controlled education systems and risk turning education into a vehicle for state-sanctioned ideology and social engineering.

Council consent to withdraw child from school

I object to requiring a council's consent before a parent can withdraw a child with an EHCP at a special school, or one under a section 47 investigation, to another school or to home education. This hands the best-interests and suitability decision to the very body that controls the SEN budget and is so often the defendant in negligence claims.

Proposed changeRemove the section 434A council-consent requirement for withdrawing or transferring these children.

Duty to refuse consent

The provision that alarms me most is the duty in subsection (6): a council must refuse consent if it thinks regular school attendance is in the child's best interests, or that no suitable arrangements have been made. I have no doubt children will be harmed by it.

Proposed changeRemove or amend the duty to refuse consent in subsection (6).

LA consent infringes families' rights

I oppose the local-authority consent regime. If my daughter tried a specialist school and later wanted to come back to home education, we'd be at the mercy of the LA — and this provision tramples on the rights of disabled children and their families.

Proposed changeRemove the LA-consent requirement and protect our right as parents to choose home education.

Presumption of guilt and home entry

The Bill treats me as guilty of harming my child's wellbeing before anything is shown: it lets councils refuse to let me withdraw my child and lets inspectors enter my home so I can justify that I provide a 'safe environment' and a 'suitable education'. No other family faces this invasion without evidence of risk.

Proposed changeI'd remove the presumption of guilt, the power to deny me withdrawing my child, and the right to enter my home where there is no evidence of risk.

Existing powers suffice; presumption-of-innocence eroded

Councils can already step in when they don't believe a suitable education is being provided, and social services can act where a child is at risk of harm — all built on innocent until proven guilty. This Bill flips that for us: it makes it seem as though, as home-educating parents, we have to constantly prove we're good enough. Conflating home education with an automatic safeguarding risk erodes trust in families.

Proposed changeRely on the council and social-services powers that already exist, rather than reversing the presumption of innocence for home educators.

LA refusal to deregister from special school

Clause 24 makes the local authority refuse special-school deregistration whenever it decides that's not in the child's best interests, and that puts far too much trust in the local authority. It leaves out my voice and my child's, ignores the provision I've arranged, and could force children to stay on roll even when the school can't meet their needs, is unsafe, or we've freely chosen to home-educate.

Proposed changeDon't give local authorities the power to override my voice and my child's in refusing special-school deregistration.

LA as final arbiter of suitability

The idea that the LA is the final arbiter of whether home education is suitable for a child is incredibly worrying. Most LA home-education staff don't know the range of additional and complex needs or the educational styles we use, so they can't properly assess suitability, and some counties' LAs are known to dislike home education and overstep the law and guidance. The Bill gives such staff carte-blanche to do largely what they like.

Proposed changePlease don't make the LA the final arbiter of suitable education; recognise parents' primacy and provide independent adjudication.

Parental primacy and the child's voice

The Bill removes the primacy of parents in deciding how and where our children are educated, and it doesn't even consider the voice of the child. Children could be forced back into a school even when they have real fears, concerns or mental-health issues about going back. I know my child better than any teacher, EHE officer or social worker, and I'm especially worried about children reported to children's services — over bullying, abuse or mental health — who couldn't home educate without LA permission and could be forced back into school, leaving them open to abuse by anti-home-education LA…

Proposed changePlease preserve parents' primacy in education decisions and include the child's voice, and don't force children with social-services involvement back into unsuitable schools.

LA consent for home education

I oppose Clause 24's requirement for local-authority consent to electively home-educate certain children. It gives a disproportionate and undue amount of power to the LEA over my child's education, and it's open to misuse where the decision-makers aren't trained in my child's SEN or the benefits of EHE. It removes parental responsibility without a legitimate process, and in domestic abuse cases it could let an abusive partner endanger the abused parent or child by sharing sensitive information.

Proposed changeRemove or fundamentally rethink the local-authority consent requirement.

State deciding withdrawal affronts parental rights

On principle, I object to a law that lets the state, rather than me as a parent, decide whether my child can be taken out of school. It's an affront to basic rights and it strips away my freedom to educate my children in the way I believe is best.

Proposed changeDon't give the state the power to decide whether my child can be withdrawn from school.

Effectively mandatory home visits by unqualified staff

I object to the LA's proposed right to enter my home to judge it a suitable learning environment. Refusal must be counted against me, the assessors are unqualified and inexperienced in home education and SEND, and our home is our safe space — this violates our privacy and our human rights.

Proposed changeLet me refuse a home visit without it counting against me, and require any decision-maker to be properly trained in home-education law and practice.

Removes freedom to choose home education

This Bill removes my freedom to choose home education, which has been the best choice for me — I get a say in my subjects, I'm treated as an individual and I study at my own pace. Being forced into school would be stressful, especially during my GCSEs.

Proposed changePlease preserve the freedom for children and families like mine to choose home education, rather than letting the Bill force me back to school.

Withdrawal consent triggered by s.47 enquiries

I accept needing LA consent to withdraw a child where there's a Child Protection Plan, but it goes too far to trigger it on a section 47 enquiry alone — most of those enquiries never result in a Plan, and home-educating families are referred far too often in the first place.

Proposed changeI'd limit the withdrawal-consent trigger to children who are actually subject to a Child Protection Plan, not to any section 47 enquiry.

LA final say on deregistration is dangerous

Section 24 should be removed or significantly amended: giving local authorities — who often failed these children in the first place — the final say on deregistration is absurd and potentially dangerous. The default should be that parents choose. Almost 80% of the school-aged children in our group were deregistered because mainstream school couldn't meet their emotional, mental-health or SEND needs, and this Bill could have stopped parents taking that necessary step for at-risk children. It's naive to assume a child is automatically safer if they're registered at school — most serious case re…

Proposed changeRemove or significantly amend Section 24 so we keep the default right to choose our children's education, and only bring social services in where there are already significant safeguarding concerns.

Remove local authority consent power

The extra restrictions in Clause 24 requiring local authority consent to withdraw a child are unnecessary and biased — councils already have emergency powers, and there's a built-in conflict of interest in a council that runs schools getting to decide on home education.

Proposed changeI'd remove the Clause 24 consent restrictions entirely.

Remove LA consent for deregistration

Clause 24 should go entirely. Refusing consent while a child-protection case or assessment is running punishes families who are on CP for issues that have nothing to do with the home; letting an LA refuse special-school deregistration on its own 'best interests' view invites misuse off the back of incorrect school information; and subsections 8(b) and 12 are simply harmful.

Proposed changeI want clause 24 removed completely; at the very least, reword it so each situation is assessed individually and delete s24(8)(b) and s24(12).

Remove local-authority consent for withdrawal

We oppose requiring local-authority consent to withdraw certain children from school. It puts more barriers in front of disabled children and children with social services involvement, and the only referral route — to the Secretary of State — isn't a genuine appeal.

Proposed changeWe'd remove this part of the legislation and instead create a way for parents to appeal a local authority's decision, with an outside level of accountability.

LA consent undermines parental rights

Requiring LA consent, and letting the LA refuse it whenever it thinks school is in the child's best interests, undermines parental choice and could trap vulnerable children in environments that are unsafe or simply don't meet their needs.

Proposed changeRemove the LA's power to refuse consent and force school attendance against my judgement as a parent.

Home visits infringe privacy and are coercive

LA home visits infringe our family privacy, are carried out by officers with no relevant training, duplicate powers social services already have, and are effectively mandatory because refusing one can trigger a school attendance order.

Proposed changeRemove the LA home-visit powers — they're unnecessary given the safeguarding powers that already exist.

LA consent / 'must refuse' for special school deregistration

I oppose the new section 436A consent test. LAs already believe school is best for every child, so they can't judge a child's best interests without bias, and the 'must refuse consent' wording effectively hands them parental duties. It would trap SEN children, and families on child protection plans for reasons that have nothing to do with their parenting, in schools that can't meet their needs. This section should be removed or very carefully reworded.

Proposed changeRemove or reword section 436A to fit the existing law — let me show how I'll meet my child's SEN, rather than giving the LA a power to 'must refuse consent'.

Automatic 6-month bar on repeat requests

I oppose automatically refusing a new deregistration request within 6 months of a previous refusal. Children's needs and family circumstances are always changing, and a blanket 6-month bar could leave a child stuck in a school that can't meet their needs or isn't safe. Every request deserves proper time and consideration.

Proposed changeRemove the automatic 6-month bar on making another deregistration request.

Best-interests override on withdrawal

I object that Clause 24 (the new s434A) forces a local authority to refuse consent to withdraw a child for home education, even when it accepts that the home education is suitable, purely because it thinks staying at school is in the child's best interests — in two situations: a child at a special school under an EHC plan, and any child subject to s47 enquiries. This is the greatest undermining of parents in the whole history of education law.

Proposed changeRemove the requirement to refuse consent on a 'best interests' basis where everyone agrees the home education is suitable, and remove or at least limit the s47-enquiry trigger.

LA consent to deregister SEN pupils

I oppose needing LA consent to deregister a child from a special school. It's discriminatory — you can deregister a non-SEN child freely — and finance-driven LAs are not the right people to judge my child's best interests. This power would put families off ever placing a SEND child in a special school, or trying school again at all.

Proposed changeI'd remove the requirement for LA consent to deregister children from special schools.

Registration impractical for flexible home education

Making me register every bit of supervised and unsupervised learning is impractical and bureaucratic — it forces our flexible, organic home education into a rigid school-like mould and undermines the very thing that makes it work.

Proposed changeDon't make me register all our learning — drop the whole Clause 24-29 home-education regime.

Reject Clauses 24-29 and consult stakeholders

My recommendations are simple: reject Clauses 24-29, enforce the laws we already have instead of piling on new regulation, and consult widely with home-educating families, privacy advocates and civil-liberties organisations.

Proposed changeReject Clauses 24-29, enforce the legislation we already have, and consult widely with home-educating families and civil-liberties and privacy organisations before you legislate.

Remove LA consent for deregistration

Clause 24 — refusing consent to deregister during a child-protection case or where the LA decides it's not in the child's best interests — should be removed entirely. It harms families who are on a CP plan for reasons that have nothing to do with their home, it can be misused with incorrect school information, and the LA isn't the one who knows each child best.

Proposed changeRemove clause 24 completely — or at the very least reword it to deal with each situation individually and delete s24(8)(b) and s24(12).

Six-month bar on fresh deregistration requests

The automatic six-month bar on making a fresh deregistration request after a refusal is dangerous, because children's needs and family circumstances are always changing, and it should be removed.

Proposed changePlease remove the automatic six-month bar on new deregistration requests in s24(12).

Remove Clause 24 entirely

I want Clause 24 removed entirely. Current law already lets local authorities and social services get emergency rulings to protect any child they decide is at risk, so these extra restrictions simply aren't needed.

Proposed changePlease remove Clause 24 in its entirety.

Remove Clause 24 (LA consent to withdraw)

Clause 24 is harmful and should go. It forces my LA to refuse deregistration during a child-protection case even when the concerns have nothing to do with my parenting, lets the LA block me from withdrawing my child from a special school on shaky 'best interests' grounds, hurts families like those split apart by abuse (8(b)), and under (12) automatically denies a fresh request within six months even though a child's needs can change overnight.

Proposed changeRemove Clause 24 — or at the very least rewrite it so each case is looked at on its own and every child is protected.

Remove consent-to-deregister provisions

Clause 24's expectation that local authorities refuse consent to deregister during a child-protection case or assessment, or from a special school, is a problem for families facing malicious referrals or CP plans that have nothing to do with their parenting. s24(8)(b) could harm families separated because of abuse, and s24(12) automatically denies re-requests within six months despite children's needs changing. I want clause 24 removed entirely.

Proposed changeI want section 24 removed entirely, and at the very least the six-month bar in s24(12) deleted — existing emergency rulings already protect at-risk children.

Section 47 enquiry should not block withdrawal

I accept you should need LA consent to withdraw a child who's on a child protection plan, but I oppose Condition B, which extends that to children under a section 47 enquiry. So many of those enquiries are unfounded or malicious, and this would wrongly trap children — especially SEN children — in school settings that are harming them.

Proposed changeI want you to remove clause 24 subsection (4)(a) — Condition B — so that being under a section 47 enquiry on its own can't block deregistration.