On January 28th 2026 the House of Lords approved government amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill so that parents now have to give less information for the Children Not In School register. The House of Commons agreed these amendments on March 9th 2026.
The Wellbeing Bill received royal assent on April 29th 2026 and is now an Act of Parliament. WE DO NOT HAVE A DEFINITE START DATE FOR WHEN THE NEW LAW WILL COME INTO FORCE, SEE https://edyourself.wordpress.com/2026/06/04/confusion-over-start-date/
Less Information Less Often
The Wellbeing Bill CHANGED in January 2026 meaning that parents WON’T have to give such a detailed breakdown of the child’s week and WON’T have to report every little change within 15 days or face enforcement action.
Parents will only have to supply details about education providers if that provision exceeds a prescribed amount of time which is yet to be decided.
In addition, parents will wait to be asked about changes to providers, plus the LA may not ask for updates about providers more than every 3 months.
When the new law comes into force, parents will be asked to provide an estimate of the overall amount of time (rather than the exact amount of time) that the child spends receiving education from their parents, plus an estimate of the overall amount of time that the child spends receiving education from persons other than their parents.
The changes mean that when switching to a different provider, the parent no longer has a proactive duty to notify the LA, only to answer when asked (“inform the authority, on request”) and only in relation to providers above a certain number of hours (as yet unknown, see note on “prescribed” below) When asked, the parent will have 15 days minimum to respond.
In respect of the threshold or cut-off for provider hours we won’t know this until regulations are made. “Prescribed” means prescribed in regulations.
“Prescribed” is a very significant word, indicating it still has to be sorted out later. There will have to be a public consultation on regulations plus scrutiny in parliament. The new measures cannot come into force until after the regulation-making process is completed.
The government has said “To implement the registers, we will hold a consultation in due course on draft statutory guidance and on the policy content of regulations. There will then be a process of making the regulations, which will be voted on in Parliament, and further steps, including publication of the guidance and a period of pre-implementation to enable local authorities to prepare for the registers coming into force.”