Select committee: Education Committee
Recommendation 43
Second Report - Educational poverty: how children in residential care have been let down and what to do about it
Published 8 Jul 2022
Paragraph 107
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)
All looked-after children must have an independent advocate whose function is to champion their best interests, ensuring they are admitted to the best, most appropriate schools, and that they are fully supported to appeal to SEND tribunals where their Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan does not meet their needs. Virtual School Heads should play a key role here, advocating for the child’s needs to be identified, understood and met, ensuring that the child’s EHC Plan is appropriate, and where it is not, supporting the child to appeal.
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 107, 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".