Select committee: Education Committee
Recommendation 35
Second Report - Educational poverty: how children in residential care have been let down and what to do about it
Published 8 Jul 2022
Paragraph 87
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)
Where this is in the child’s best interest, every looked-after child should be cared for in a local care placement, receiving their education at a good or outstanding local school. The Department must take greater responsibility for overseeing the placements system and for driving funded system change to reduce the current dependence on out-of-area placements. A national approach to commissioning of care places must consider the location of children’s homes in relation to local good and outstanding schools. Except in exceptional evidence-based cases, children should not be moved to residential placements where they cannot reasonably access good or outstanding local schools.
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 87, 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".