Government to introduce legislation requiring all schools to cooperate with local authorities on school admissions

The new Labour Government is to introduce a Children’s Wellbeing Bill that will require all schools to cooperate with local authorities on school admissions, SEND inclusion and place planning.

This comes among a set of new legislation announced in the King’s Speech yesterday (17 July).

According to the Government, the Children’s Wellbeing Bill will “remove barriers to opportunity” and “raise school standards” to ensure the school system is fair for every child.

Its main elements are:

• keeping children safe, happy and rooted in their communities and schools by strengthening multi-agency child protection and safeguarding arrangements.
• requiring free breakfast clubs in every primary school to ensure that every child, no matter their circumstances, is well prepared for the school day and can achieve their full potential.
• introducing legislation to limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require to bring down costs for parents and remove barriers from children accessing sport and other school activities.
• creating a duty on local authorities to have and maintain Children Not in School registers, and provide support to home-educating parents.
• making changes to the legislation about regulating and inspecting independent schools, including by providing Ofsted stronger powers to investigate the offence of operating an unregistered independent school.
• making changes to enable serious teacher misconduct to be investigated.
• requiring all schools to cooperate with the local authority on school admissions, SEND inclusion, and place planning.
• ensuring greater consistency between academies and maintained schools by requiring all schools to teach the national curriculum.
• recognising the status of the teaching profession and the difference that teaching makes to a child’s education by ensuring any new teacher entering the classroom has, or is working towards, Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).
• bringing multi-academy trusts into the inspection system, to make the system fairer and more transparent.

Source: King's Speech 2024: background briefing notes

Multi-academy trusts run over 45% of state schools. The current inspection arrangements focus on individual schools, with no powers for the inspectorate to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the trust in achieving good outcomes for young people across a trust’s schools, the briefing notes said.

The Government noted there is “considerable variation” in trust level performance.

Responding to the new legislation, Cllr Tim Oliver, Chairman of the County Councils Network (CCN), said: “The County Councils Network (CCN) is pleased to see that the Children’s Wellbeing Bill intends to strengthen multi-agency working across the children’s sector, including in particular the duty on schools to co-operate with councils so they are able more effectively plan school admissions, places and SEND inclusion – all of which the network called for in in its Manifesto for Counties.”

Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders said: “We welcome many of the measures outlined by the new government and we look forward to working with ministers and officials on the detail of these proposals.

“At the heart of these policies, there is clearly a burning desire to tackle inequities and improve the life chances of vulnerable and disadvantaged children. We fully support that direction of travel – it is long overdue. However, there is a vital missing ingredient to these plans as they currently stand and that is the question of ensuring that schools and colleges are sufficiently funded not only to deal with the current huge financial pressures they are facing but in order to be sustainable in the future. We recognise that national finances are tight, but this nettle simply must be grasped when the government sets out its spending plans in the autumn.”

Andy Smith, ADCS President, said: "It is refreshing to have a Bill announced today which aims to put children and their wellbeing at the centre of the education and children’s social care systems. This sends a strong signal to children about how this government values them and their contribution to society. The impact of poverty on children’s lives and childhoods is clear, it is linked to low birth weight in babies, poor physical and mental health and it is much harder to learn if you’re going to school hungry. Therefore, the requirement for breakfast clubs in every primary school is welcome but the government must go much further, and much faster, to eradicate poverty.

“Whilst the establishment of a task force to address child poverty is promising, for quite some time, ADCS has been advocating for the eradication of poverty and strongly urges the new government to prioritise addressing the underlying causes of poverty, rather than merely treating the symptoms."

He continued: "We are pleased the new government will introduce a national register of children who are not attending school. For too long we have had no way of assuring ourselves of whether a growing number of children are receiving a suitable education or that they are safe. While a register in and of itself will not keep children safe it will help to establish how many children are being educated other than in school and to identify children who may be vulnerable to harm. [...] In addition, we welcome proposals to strengthen the Local Authorities role in respect of place planning, admissions and SEND inclusion.”

Lottie Winson