Select committee: Education Committee
Recommendation 14
Second Report - Educational poverty: how children in residential care have been let down and what to do about it
Published 8 Jul 2022
Paragraph 45
Addressed to Department for Education
Education Committee Children's Homes All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
Under section 497 of the Education Act 1996, the Secretary of State has the power to take legal action against local authorities who are not meeting their statutory duties 46 Educational poverty: how children in residential care have been let down and what to do about it relating to the provision of education. The Department must provide clearer guidance setting out how it will identify and sanction local authorities who are breaking the law in failing to secure school places for their looked-after children. The Department must also set out clearer guidelines on the responsibility of central government when an authority is non-compliant.
From: Education Committee, Second Report - Educational poverty: how children in residential care have been let down and what to do about it (HC 57), paragraph 45, 8 July 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 10 November 2022 (deadline 8 September 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says it "fully agrees with the core message" that looked-after children are educationally disadvantaged and accepts the wide majority of recommendations fully or in part, with other recommendations handled through existing or planned reforms.
- On data, it says it "will publish the recommended breakdowns in the 2023 releases", in conjunction with its confidentiality policy, which "may result in us needing to suppress low numbers".
- On putting the extended Virtual School Head role on a statutory footing, it says longer-term plans, including whether to do so, "are under active consideration", informed by an independent evaluation.
- On a maximum 20-day timeframe for Schools Adjudicator decisions, it says this "would be unlikely to improve the speed of decisions", and it has "no plans" to extend Ofsted's remit to assess admissions.
- It is committed to a new school-movement framework and local authority backstop power, with a formal public consultation "in due course" and primary legislation "when an appropriate legislative opportunity arises".