Residential schools inspection and guardians registration
IICSA · The Residential Schools Investigation Report · Issued 10 March 2022 · Addressed to: Department for Education
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, E
The Department for Education and the Welsh Government should: require all residential special schools to be inspected against the quality standards used to regulate children's homes in England and care homes in Wales; reintroduce a duty on boarding schools and residential special schools to inform the relevant inspectorate of allegations of child sexual abuse and other serious incidents, with professional or regulatory consequences for breach of this duty; if the recommendation above is implemented, residential special schools will automatically be subject to this duty; and introduce a system of licensing and registration of educational guardians for international students which requires Disclosure and Barring Service and barred list checks to be undertaken.
IICSA, The Residential Schools Investigation Report · 10 Mar 2022 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- No published requirement for residential special schools to be inspected against children's home quality standards has been identified to March 2026.
Response — verbatim from government
●UK Government
On 30 June 2022, the UK government stated that it was still of the view that the best way to protect children in residential special schools was to strengthen the National Minimum Standards (NMS), and did not commit to implementing the first part of this recommendation. It stated that it will consider how the NMS could be strengthened, drawing on the children's homes quality standards. In respect of the second part of this recommendation, the UK government stated that residential special schools which are dual registered as children's homes must comply with the children's homes quality standards, which include notification requirements. It will consider reporting requirements as part of its broader consideration of mandatory reporting. It also stated that it was considering options to strengthen the safeguarding of international students, including the registration and licensing of educational guardians. On 30 June 2022, the Welsh Government stated that it would use regulation-making powers to regulate the care and support aspect of residential special schools in Wales. The date for this to come into force is to be agreed; however it could be December 2023. The Welsh Government also stated that notification requirements will be included as part of the proposed regulation of residential special schools, and that work to implement the final part of the recommendation would be taken forward alongside work on National Minimum Standards for boarding schools.
UK Government · 22 May 2023 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
No published activity has been recorded against this recommendation yet.
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.