The present Welsh Government want the Senedd to vote on 17^th March to give assent for Westminster to pass extensive legislation on behalf of Wales on a fully devolved issue.

That could be interpreted as something of a U-turn in relation to their spoken comments of support of devolution.

A U-turn about process.

However, this isn’t the only aspect of their decision to try to “piggyback” onto Westminster’s CWS Bill that’s a U-turn.

It’s also a major U-turn in content of policy.

But the Welsh Government have been remarkably silent on this.

No justification for why they once said one thing to the Senedd and now are saying the opposite.

The WG want the Senedd to approve, amongst other measures the introduction of mandatory registration of home educating families, purely because they have continued with their lawful right to oversee their children’s education rather than take up the government’s offer of free educational provision.

The then Education Secretary highlighted the key safeguarding issue with that proposal, telling the Senedd, regarding the concept of

“a compulsory register that would potentially criminalise parents if they failed to register”

that

“This element of compulsion could have the unintended consequence—the very real unintended consequence—of driving those parents further away from engagement with statutory services”

(see paragraph 395 here)

Nothing has changed in terms of that particular safeguarding risk. Parents want access to services, as this research report Confidentiality and Respect demonstrates.
 

Parents fight for access to services.

The same parents do not want to be criminalised or treated with suspicion for protecting and advocating for their children.

But many more safeguarding risks have ben added to it in the CWS Bill – a Bill that does not safeguard but causes safeguarding issues.

Especially as what is intended in the CWS are not “registers” but extensive databases that follow a child throughout childhood without checks and balances.

Extensive databases with unprecedented levels of information about each child, including:

• Information indicating children’s likely whereabouts at given times

• Contact information of many including BOTH parents (a significant safeguarding risk for families who have fled domestic violence)

• An undefined level of information about those who have educationally enriching input into their children’s lives.

• Whatever councils believe they should or may record

• Whatever the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers decide should be recorded.

Not only in exceptional circumstances. For all children where families have declined the option of school-based education, where there are no concerns about families.

No rights provided to see what is on such databases, let alone any form of redress or accountability for what is stored on them.

No form of redress for as and when such databases are inappropriately leaked, accessed or hacked by those with nefarious purposes.

Local authorities have been demonstrated to be one of the top offenders for data breaches across the UK, with Wales being identified as one of the worst areas.

Data breaches continue without lessons seeming to have been learnt.

For just one example, not one but two serious and recent data breaches of data of vulnerable children in one Welsh LA within months of each other.

So registers carry the known safeguarding risks and consequences of being counterproductive, and of placing children at risk from data leaks and hacks.

These are only two of the many safeguarding and other concerns about the concept of registers for families who are simply exercising a lawful right and duty.

More can be read here:

The Welsh Government have a few isolated cases of children to justify introducing this Bill – children were already well “known”, where concerns had already been raised but where statutory services had not used existing powers correctly.
Those children would not have been protected by a “register” (one of the three children they refer to was not even home educated but on a school register) – and the caution raised by the former Education Secretary may well have worsened such situations.

Do read more on the inappropriate use of such tragic cases here:

But the Welsh Government have not addressed their U-turn in policy.
They have not addressed this problem of the failure of registers to protect and the very real risks and likelihoods of them causing more harm to the safeguarding of children than any theoretical good.

Check out what happened with ContactPoint if not sure about these risks.

That system of databases of details of children had to be abandoned by the UK Government because it was realised that it put children at greater risk.

Oh – and children of politicians and celebrities were to be exempt from ContactPoint because of the risks.

We can’t have double standards.
If not safe for them, it’s not safe for our children.

The idea of ContactPoint was triggered by the death of Victoria Climbe, but the association created in her name condemns the use of registers for home educated children. The Victoria Climbe Association collaboratively produced this open letter, which has been signed by many professionals and experts, expressing concerns about a range of aspects of the CWS Bill as a whole, including concerns about “registers”.

But the Welsh Government are silent on its policy U-turn on safeguarding.

This Bill is not safe.
Even if one were to show a disregard for devolution and the use of devolved powers, it must not be applied to the children of Wales