As of March 18th 2025, the Children Not In School clauses of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will apply to Wales as well as England as follows (scroll down or click on the footnote number for more detail) Other measures in the Bill are also set to apply to Wales (see Background below) but this page focuses on Children Not In School.
Scroll down to References or click on the footnote number for more detail
- consent for withdrawal from school (must be in child’s “best interests“) for a child subject to child protection enquiries or where child protection action has been taken OR if the child is attending a school where all children have Individual Development Plans [IDPs] ie a special school 1
- local authority registers for children not attending a registered school or being flexischooled 2
- register information to include names and addresses for both parents of the child + details of “education providers” (scope of education providers to be clarified in secondary legislation after the bill becomes law) –3
- parents having to provide certain information for the register + updates if information becomes out of date –4
- the local authority able to start the school attendance order process where parents will have to satisfy the LA about the child’s education if parents fail to provide required information for the register or fail to supply updates by a certain deadline 5
- the local authority able to start the school attendance order process and determine “best interests” for a home educated child subject to child protection enquiries or where child protection action has been taken 6
- the local authority able to judge education unsatisfactory if parents refuse home visits once in the school attendance order process 7
- new fast track attendance orders with more severe penalties for breach of attendance order (ie failing to register child at school should the LA choose to prosecute) on par with truancy penalties 8
Background
In March 2025 a month after the Bill had already been scrutinised in committee at Westminster it was announced that certain measures would also be extended to Wales, even though education is devolved in Wales, ie Wales is able to make its own education laws.
On March 10th 2025 Lynn Neagle, Cabinet Secretary for Education in Wales, issued a statement saying “we have discussed the Bill with the UK government and have asked that certain provisions within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, be applied to Wales in the same way as England.” [LINK]
Provisions extended to Wales were added to the Bill at Report in the House of Commons on March 18th and are now included in the current version of the Bill as presented to the House of Lords on March 19th. Clauses 30-35 can be viewed onscreen without needing to download a massive PDF [LINK]
On March 24th the Welsh Government laid a Legislative Consent Memorandum (LCM) on the Bill before the Senedd [LINK] NB although the LCM was not published until after the Bill was reprinted with provisions added for Wales plus new numbering for the House of Lords, it still uses the pre-March 18th numbering. (Hence clause 25 in the LCM = new clause 30 and so on)
According to this page, the Business Committee made referrals to the Children, Young People and Education Committee and the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee with a reporting deadline of 16 May 2025
My Comments
The Department for Education in England did not need to add “in Wales” throughout the CNIS clauses. From First Reading in the Commons up till Report on the afternoon of March 18th the Bill was not making specific references to England only, instead it proposed to insert new sections before section 437 of the Education Act 1996, which would replace s 437, and then to say that 437 would only apply to Wales.
Section 437 is about School Attendance Orders [SAOs] and currently applies to England and Wales. Read my page on SAOs here https://edyourself.org/school-attendance-orders/
Hence the main change to the Bill from March 18th has NOT just been adding multiple references to Wales, but – significantly – replacing s 437 in Wales as well as in England. Should the bill become law the whole of the new fast-track School Attendance Order process including much higher penalties if convicted of breaching the order, will apply across the board to Wales as well as to England, for education [Condition A], for safeguarding [Condition B], and for missing details from the register [Conditions C and D]
Scroll down to References for more detail on Conditions A-D.
Related Pages
References
The CNIS clauses can be viewed online here (including page numbers and line numbers relevant to proposed amendments) https://shorturl.at/eJleP without needing to download a large PDF
- CLAUSE 30, adding new section 434A Local authority consent for withdrawal of certain children from school to the Education Act 1996 ↩︎
- CLAUSE 31, adding new section 436B Duty to register children not in school to the Education Act 1996 ↩︎
- CLAUSE 31, adding new section 436C Content and maintenance of registers to the Education Act 1996 ↩︎
- CLAUSE 31, adding new section 436D Provision of information to local authorities: parents to the Education Act 1996 ↩︎
- CLAUSE 32, adding new section 436H Conditions C and D under Preliminary notice for school attendance order to the Education Act 1996 (replacing the current s 437) ↩︎
- CLAUSE 32, adding new section 436H(5) Condition B under Preliminary notice for school attendance order to the Education Act 1996 (replacing the current s 437) ↩︎
- CLAUSE 32, adding new section 436I School attendance orders to the Education Act 1996 (replacing the current s 437) ↩︎
- CLAUSE 32, adding new section 436Q Offence of failure to comply with school attendance order to the Education Act 1996 (replacing current s 443) ↩︎