Petition Withdraw the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill immediately

This Bill is driven by the belief that every child deserves a safe, secure start in life and the opportunity to succeed. The Bill will reform both children’s social care and education to break down the barriers that hold children back, ensuring that at every stage of life, young people are supported to achieve and thrive.

Keeping children safe is a priority for this government. Practitioners supporting children and families must find, receive, and share relevant information to assess risks effectively. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill introduces provision in law, paving the way for a consistent identifier to be specified and the organisations required to use it via regulations. The Department has initiated a series of pilots so we can establish how a consistent identifier can be implemented effectively and securely.

Upholding children’s rights, particularly in relation to respect for private and family life, are critical and that’s why all these measures operate in compliance with data protection legislation. The Department takes its data protection obligations seriously and is committed to ensuring high standards of information security, privacy and transparency. We have formally consulted the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on all Bill measures that will involve the use of personal data to ensure full alignment with data protection legislation and established best practice for safeguarding children’s information. We continue to engage with the ICO on the Information Sharing Duty and the Single Unique Identifier, as well as with multi‑agency safeguarding organisations, sector representatives and practitioners, to support the ongoing development of these measures. Separately, we are engaging with the ICO on the data protection impact assessment related to Children Not in School measures. This engagement helps ensure that all proposals are underpinned by appropriate lawful bases, clear limitations on access, and strict requirements for necessity and proportionality.

All data obtained or processed by the Department will be handled strictly in accordance with UK‑GDPR principles, including lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, and security. Access to data will be tightly controlled through Role‑Based Access Control, ensuring that only those with an operational need can view or use personal information.

Regarding evidence and impact assessments, the government has published Impact Assessments setting out the potential effects of the Bill and all its measures. These include regulatory impact assessments following the Better Regulation Framework for those measures that are in scope. These are published on gov.uk Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill: impact assessments - GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/childrens-wellbeing-and-schools-bill-impact-assessments). The department welcomes the Regulatory Policy Committee’s ‘Green’ rating for the Bill’s Impact Assessment, meaning that they have assessed it as being fit for purpose. The department has also conducted and published an equalities impact assessment, in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty. As with all legislation, these assessments are periodically reviewed and updated throughout the Bill’s passage considering any new evidence and feedback from stakeholders.

In addition to these, the department has also conducted and published a Child’s Rights Impact Assessment (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/695d3d1b4b69d216c438a137/Children_s_Wellbeing_and_Schools_Bill_-_Child_s_rights_impact_assessment.pdf), identifying where children are directly affected by policy and where certain groups of children and young people are more likely to be affected than others.

The Bill will create a floor for standards across our education system but no ceiling on innovation to bring all schools to the level of the very best. We are continuing to engage extensively with leaders from across the school system to ensure we drive collaboration and enable best practice to be shared up and down the country. For Children Not in School, the measures support local authorities to identify these children in their areas, so they can intervene in cases where a child is not receiving a suitable education or is at risk of harm. The government has tabled several amendments at Report stage to reduce the burden on parents of giving information for Children Not in School registers, improve the support package for families, and add touchpoints before or shortly after children leave school rolls to support early identification of children’s needs.

The government notes the issues outlined in this petition on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. We welcome views and engagement from the public, and continued parliamentary scrutiny, and are committed to working closely with stakeholders to ensure that the Bill improves outcomes for children and families.

Department for Education