Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-25

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2024-25 was introduced on 17 December 2024. It is bill 151 of the 2024-25 parliamentary session. The bill is listed for second reading on 8 January 2025.

The government intends the bill to improve the safeguarding of children (such as in care institutions and schools) and to raise educational standards.

This briefing does not provide an exhaustive guide to every clause of the bill. Analysis focuses on clauses that have legally or politically significant effects. See the bill’s explanatory notes for further detail on other clauses.

The government has also published a policy summary for the bill, which provides detailed information on its proposals.

Children social care and schools are devolved policy issues. Most of the bill’s provisions extend to England and Wales and would apply in England only. Clause 10 (on deprivation of liberty orders) also extends to Scotland as it makes consequential amendments to Scottish legislation.

Children’s social care policy

Many of the bill’s children’s social care provisions build on reforms begun under the Conservative government’s children’s social care reform strategy.

Among other things, the bill would define kinship carers in law and require local authorities to offer families a group decision-making meeting before applying to take a child into care. It would also make several changes aimed at improving child safeguarding, including allowing for the creation of a single unique identifier for children.

The bill would make a series of changes related to accommodation for looked after children (those in the care of the local authority), including:

• allowing the Secretary of State to direct local authorities to establish regional co-operation arrangements for planning and commissioning homes for looked after children.
• providing a statutory framework under which children could be deprived of their liberty in settings other than just a secure children’s home
• increasing Ofsted oversight of organisations that operate multiple children’s homes or independent fostering agencies and allowing Ofsted to fine unregistered children’s homes
• introducing a financial oversight regime for certain independent fostering agencies and children’s homes providers
• allowing the Secretary of State to cap the profits of children’s homes providers and independent fostering agencies.

Many of the bill’s children’s social care provisions have been broadly welcomed. However, concerns have been raised, including around the proposal to cap the profits of placement providers.

Schools policy Breakfast clubs and school uniforms

The bill would provide for breakfast clubs to be available before school begins at all state-funded primary schools in England, and ensure that the existing school food standards apply to all state-funded schools, including at breakfast.

The bill would also set limits on the number of branded items state-funded schools may require as part of their uniform, building on measures to reduce uniform costs introduced in 2021.

A register of children not in school

The bill would require children to be registered with the local authority when they are being educated outside of school for some or all of the time, such as through home education.

Similar measures have been proposed in the past, including by the previous Conservative government, and have proven controversial. Many home educating parents and campaigning organisations object to the principle of being required to register their children, as well as to the practicalities of many of the proposals that have been made.

Independent educational institutions

The bill would make a series of changes to expand the regulation of independent educational institutions that provide all or a majority of a child’s education. Successive governments have been concerned that the existing regime to regulate these institutions is not sufficient. It would also strengthen Ofsted’s powers to investigate unregistered, and therefore illegal, independent schools.

Regulation of teachers

The bill would make changes to the regulatory regime for teachers, following concerns that some teachers may ‘fall through the gaps’ and be allowed to carry on teaching in the future, despite having potentially engaged in serious misconduct or committed a relevant offence. It would extend the current law to teachers in a wider range of settings, such as further education colleges. It would also allow for teachers to be investigated regardless of whether they were employed as teachers at the time of the alleged misconduct or a relevant offence.

Academy schools

The bill would make very significant and wide-ranging changes to academy schools and the rules they have to follow. These are schools that are funded by the government but are not connected to local authority; instead they are run by an academy trust, a not-for-profit company.

In short, the bill would ‘roll back’ many of the freedoms these schools were given when the current academy framework was established under the coalition and conservative governments after 2010. Academies would be subject to most of the same duties as maintained schools – that is, schools funded and overseen by local authorities. The Conservatives’ Schools Bill of 2022-23 also included provisions on academies; these were controversial and most were removed at Lords’ report stage (before the bill was abandoned). The current government says these changes are necessary to bring more consistency and drive up standards across the school sector.

Academies would be required to teach a revised national curriculum (currently they don’t have to follow the national curriculum), follow national pay and conditions rules for teachers, employ qualified teachers in most circumstances, and admit particular children if directed to do by a local authority.

Establishing new schools

The bill would also make changes to the current process for opening new schools, and to how school admissions work.

Since coalition government reforms in the early 2010s, most new schools have been required to be free schools – that is, wholly new academies. Some have been concerned that restricting local authorities’ ability to open new maintained schools in most circumstances conflicts with their statutory duties to manage the local supply of school places.

The bill would restore local authorities’ powers to propose new maintained schools, although opening an academy would still be an option. Schools (including academies) and local authorities would also have to cooperate more closely when taking annual decisions about school admissions criteria, and there would be new powers to challenge some admissions policy decisions by individual schools.