Clause 39 page 67 of the Bill relates to a new requirement for
“Consent for withdrawal of certain children from school”.

The list of who such “certain children” are considered to be has grown considerably in the many amendments since it was first announced that the Welsh Government had sought for these clauses to apply to Wales.

 These “certain children” include if there has been not just a Child Protection Plan in the last 5 years but if there have even been investigations under s47 in the last 5 years.

This is even if these investigations have demonstrated no cause for concern, as, we gather, happens in over 80% of investigations under s47.

Even if the investigation concludes that the reporting was malicious.

But consent would also be required for children where a “Children in Need” (CIN) plan is in place.

This is even though these are voluntary arrangements in place for a very wide range of reasons which do often do not relate to concerns about parents.

Children can be on a CIN plan because of problems within the school environment, be they risks to their safety and wellbeing resulting from the school environment or from lack of suitable provision for them there.

Children can be on a CIN plan because of disabilities or medical needs.

Permission is presently required to deregister children in special schools, but at present this is purely based on an awareness that the parents can meet the child’s educational needs.

Under this legislation that is increased to the LA being promoted above the role of the parent and placed as the ones, not the parents, to determine what is in the child’s “best interests”.

Indeed, that is the case for all these “certain children”.

Whatever the background circumstances, the LA is deemed more powerful and significant in the lives of these children to make such important decisions about the lives of their children.

Even in the absence of any belief that the parents are abusive or neglectful.

ALL parents of “certain children” are considered less able to act in their child’s best interests under this legislation.

So, this is not a “tiny minority”, as has been claimed in the generic Welsh Government defence letter that has recently been circulated to some constituents.

All parents and families could find themselves in these categories.

And this would create a system that is open to profound abuse

For example,

Malicious referrals from an abusive ex-partner seeking increased opportunity to exercise damaging coercive control.
it is not unknown for ex-partners, or others, to use referrals to social services as threats against families, of attempts to use them as tools of coercive control or some form of retaliation or retribution.

This legislation would enable the outcome of such malicious referrals to not
any social services referral, investigation or involvement is naturally extremely stressful for families, whether they are struggling or whether there is a malicious or mistaken referral. Abusers or those who bear some form of grudge know this and can misuse the system for this purpose.

However, this system would not only cause the existing level of stress and potential damage for the family,

This system would enable those creating malicious or mistaken referrals to  cause measures or a chain of events that would prevent the resident parent from being able to act in their child’s defence. They could intentionally use these measures to remove the parent’s right and capacity to act in their child’s best interests.

In this way, these measures play into the hands of abusers or coercive controllers.

There can be cases of schools who refer children to social services on deregistration when no significant concerns had been raised to that point, where involvement of social services had not been considered or mentioned.

These may at times be justified if there has been a sudden change in circumstances to cause the school to believe the child is at risk.

It does raise the potential of referrals made by schools in defensive or “self protective” way when there was no consideration of such referrals being a requirement till that point. Parents have reported occasions where the potential of being referred to social services if they deregister felt to be used as a threat to try to prevent them deregistering their child, and reported how this felt somewhat ironic if they are deregistering their child because they feel their child is not safe in the school or because they believe there has been some degree of educational neglect.

It is also not unheard of for families to be referred to social services because people do not understand home education or have prejudices about it.

Disabled children – and parents – would feature strongly in this “certain children” category.

Children in Need plans are in place for a whole range of situations and circumstances, including children with disabilities, with concerns about risks of abuse or neglect in the family home forming only a small proportion.

To deem parents to be less able to act with parental responsibility by placing council staff as the determiners of a child’s “best interests” purely because the child is in some way disabled or impacted by poor health, or indeed if the parents were disabled, would be demeaning and discriminatory both to the parents and to these “certain children”.

To consider parents not sufficiently able to act in a child’s best interests, to prevent deregistration and therefore inhibit the right of that child to accessing suitable education for children purely because of disability of parent or child disabled, is clearly discriminatory and a violation of their human rights.

As an aside, this is not the only area of the Bill where the rights of disabled children would appear to be overridden.

For example, the Bill is not clear on this point, but 436P 8(a) can be read as indicating that if a child has an IDP then they do not have the right to even request for a School Attendance Order (SAO) to be removed

It is extremely rare for a Secretary of State to agree to any such requests for revocation of SAOs. Secretary of States or Ministers are not independent or impartial. There is far too much of a conflict of interest.  However, as there is no independent complaints/tribunal/mediation/advocacy/appeals process at present or under the proposals of this bill, this would remove the only opportunity for families of children with IDPs who wish to avoid defending their child’s needs in court.

Legislation that causes deterrents to seeking help rather than improves access to this.

Under this legislation, removing parental capacity to act in their child’s “best interests” and require permission to the council to deregister their child from an unsuitable school environment for such “certain children” is to create is an enormous deterrent to struggling families from accessing and accepting the help such plans or support may offer.

This legislation is counter to the fundamental principles that such  support plans or provisions are meant to be based on, of empowerment of parents and of encouraging families to be together.

These measures would make it less likely for families to access the potential support and intervention that these can offer.

Such legislation and deterrents to accessing help therefore make it more likely for any families who are seeking to advocate and safeguard their children in challenging circumstances, to be forced to consider if it would be beneficial to seek the help of external agencies if this were to effectively strip them of their capacity to advocate for and safeguard their child.

It would be likely to result in request help or  for intervention or help to be sought by families at a later stage,
Because they are trying to advocate for their children’s needs and wellbeing but are aware that seeking such input would remove their capacity to do this,
Would remove their vital and essential capacity and role to act in the child’s “best interests”.

These measures therefore place significant obstacles and deterrents to families seeking help from external agencies.

This is clearly counterproductive to the claimed aims of these measures to protect and improve the wellbeing of children.

It is another way in which the measures of this legislation would have unintended consequences that would have the opposite effect of the stated aim.

Another way in which the measures in the Bill would not meet the standard of being “efficient” that is presently applied to consideration of parental provision of education.

Given that a core aim of this legislation is the concept that children should be “seen” regularly by adults other than family, then placing deterrents to struggling family seeking help would seem to be a remarkable own goal in producing such a counterproductive measure.

And it is children and families who would be the most impacted by this negative unintended consequence.

But surely if a LA is to act in the child’s best interests, then there is no cause for concern, a child’s best interests would always be protected?

But

Council staff can and do make mistakes and errors of judgements.

And there are no independent advocacy/complaints/appeals/mediation/tribunal mechanisms.

Council staff do not know the child. They are not party to hearing the child’s full voice as that requires the loving trust-based relationship of loved ones such as parents.

Council staff are not impartial or independent observers.  Councils are the ones responsible for the state schooling system that the family would be deregistering from. To agree that home education not school education is better for a child would be to expect council staff to admit that the system the council has in place is somehow “second best” for the child.

Councils are not without bias or discriminatory views. A number of councils have openly declared intentions to reduce the numbers of home educated children, demonstrating a pre-decided generic belief that home education is often not in a child’s best interests.

Council staff can also have biased or discriminatory views of what home education should entail, often seemingly leaning towards school-like concepts of eduction, thus impairing their understanding of the experience of home educated children and young people.

This is apart from the profound moral and ethical issues of placing the state in a higher position than parents in a child’s life.

This is mirrored in the Prime Minister’s disclosure of a desire to use schools as tools of influence over children that may be counter to parental and family core beliefs and cultural experience, to be “tougher” on home educating families and “raise the bar higher” for their ability and rights to raise their own children.

So, is there a better approach?

We propose a more appropriate approach to deregistration was seen in the previous Welsh Government guidance.

Under that process, when a child was deregistered, the school would inform the LA who would check with the school and statutory services for any known history or “red flags”. If these were present, then the LA would engage with those services, encouraging a review of the situation including consideration of any requirement for intervention.

Thus, under that approach, deregistration became an opportunity for timely intervention if required, and staff were able to focus their time and attention on any such cases.

This kind of approach advocated by the previous WG EHE guidance would, if used correctly, enabled services to have intervened and protected poor Sara Shariff.

That approach also allowed staff to focus on cases where help would have been most beneficial by not wasting time trying to visit, investigate, monitor and oversee normal healthy families where there were no concerns.

Thus, under this previous approach, deregistration was not an opportunity to block empowerment and choices of families in advocating for their children.

It was an opportunity to reflect, to review the situation and engage in whatever way was then identified as appropriate if required.

It enabled deregistration has to be an opportunity not something to be feared or prevented.

However,

The proposed approach in the CWS Bill would result in a number of “certain children” in environments that may well have not worked to safeguard them or that do not meet their educational needs.

If, as in the case of poor Sara Shariff, abuse has gone undetected or not acted upon for so many years in school, deregistration using this approach allows increased opportunity for appropriate skilled intervention, not continuation of a path and an environment that has not protected them to date.