Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Today the UK government introduces its landmark Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The bill proposes a range of measures with £50m of funding that focus on children’s education and safeguarding. The debate is sure to be lively over the next few months and SACPA will keep safeguarding practitioners and leaders up to date with the debate and public affairs activity on behalf of members.

In a nutshell the bill’s safeguarding proposals include;

• A register of children not in school
• The end to an automatic right to electively home educate, particularly where it is unconfirmed that this is in the best interests of the child, for example when our most vulnerable children are subject of child protection investigations and plans
• Unique identifiers for children to aid the lawful basis for information sharing and provision of the right services for children
• A more distinct join up between education settings and statutory safeguarding partner agencies, enabling greater influence by educators in safeguarding decision making
• A requirement for all Local Authority areas to establish `family group decision making’ to enable more children to remain within the extended family network and their family network to be involved in co-production of plans that prioritise their wellbeing.

You can read the Governments briefing here.