Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Written evidence submitted by Neil Gordon-Orr, Assistant Director for Education Access, Southwark Council Children’s Services (CWSB212)

Call for Evidence for Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Summary: This evidence draws on the experience of a Local Authority to make comments and suggestions on proposals around the Register of children not in school, and the implications for tuition companies of expanding the definition of unregistered providers.

1. In common with any LAs, Southwark has for many years been maintaining records of children missing education (that is children without a school place) and children being electively home educated where they are known to the council.

2. In relation to the duty for LAs to maintain a Register, Section 25 of the Bill adopts a wider definition of ‘children not in school’ extended to include children who are registered pupils at a school but who are receiving education otherwise than at that school and will be absent from the school some or all of the time.

3. Schools do have the power to direct children to education off site to improve behaviour and such interventions can make a positive impact. However there can also be cases where children are perceived as being 'parked' long term in such provision, including on occasions in unregistered settings where they may in fact be missing out on a good quality education. The proposed new duty could create more transparency about which children may be in this position.

4. However it is not clear from the Bill as currently drafted how LAs would obtain the information about children placed by schools in off site provision. While the Bill sets out a duty on the providers of out of school education to provide information to LAs if requested there does not seem to be a duty on the schools who have placed children in such settings to inform LAs of this. Without this it is very difficult to see how an LA would identify all relevant children. Schools may be placing children in provision that we are unaware of, in or out of borough, so relying on gathering information from out of school education providers is likely to miss many pupils.

5. This gap could be addressed in the Bill, or potentially by amending the School Attendance (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations to require schools to notify the LA when a child is placed off site. Children may be placed in provision for very short periods, generating a high volume of data to process for little benefit, so it may be appropriate to consider setting a minimum time period of time (e.g. schools being required to inform LA if child has been placed off site for more than ten days).

6. The information gathered by LAs for this part of the register would be ‘useful to know’, for instance it might inform work that children's services practitioners are undertaking with relevant families.  However it is otherwise unclear what the expectations are of LAs’ use of such data. For children missing education we have a clear responsibility to help them secure a school place; for children being electively home educated we have responsibilities around assuring the suitability of education. For children on the roll of a school, but placed off site, the responsibility sits with the school, accountable to this via Ofsted. LAs will not usually be in a position to judge the quality of such arrangements or have the power to change them, particularly in relation to academy schools which in our borough provide almost all secondary education.

7. Section 30 of the Bill expands the scope of regulation of independent educational institutions including an amended definition of full-time education as where a child could be expected to receive all or a majority of their education. This is helpful to the extent that.

8. As part of exercising their Alternative Provision duties Local Authorities do sometimes arrange one to tuition for children who are unable to attend school. Where these children are not on the roll of a school and are only receiving tuition it is likely that the tuition providers would fall within this definition as providers of full time education and be required to register as schools.

9. Increased regulation and inspection of the tuition sector would be welcome as though the way many companies are organised is often very different from a school model. Thought will need to be given to how they would make the transition to meeting registration requirements and how these might be inspected.

February 2025