Residential schools inspection and guardians registration
IICSA · The Residential Schools Investigation Report · Issued 1 March 2022 · Addressed to: Department for Education
Government responseNo response yet
DeliveryNo statement from Department for Education found
Recommendation, 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 · 1 Mar 2022 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
AI-generated evidence summary
The Inquiry called for strengthened residential school inspections, mandatory abuse reporting, and educational guardian licensing. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, summarising a June 2022 response on a page archived in July 2022, reported that the UK government planned to strengthen National Minimum Standards (NMS) rather than adopt children's homes quality standards, while considering reporting rules alongside wider mandatory reporting policies and reviewing guardian licensing options (The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Jul 2022). According to the Inquiry's summary, the Welsh Government also stated in June 2022 that it intended to use regulation-making powers to regulate care and support in residential special schools potentially by December 2023, incorporating notification duties and progressing guardian measures alongside boarding school standards (The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Jul 2022).
Sources
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 5 Oct 2026.
Government response
●No formal government response recorded
The Index has not yet recorded a verbatim government response to this recommendation.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from Department for Education has been found in the sources searched. This is separate from the response above.
What other bodies have found
●Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · 25 Jul 2022
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). 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 who are dual registered as children's homes must comply with the children's home quality standards, which includes 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.
From: Recommendations - Residential schools investigation report
How this page is built
The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.