Two weeks ago, after the CWS Act had gained Royal assent, the Department for Education (DfE) at Westminster wrote to each LA in England to remind them that they should not be attempting to implement measures or concepts within that Act.

To clarify that the measures put forward in that Act will not and cannot come into force until a number of steps have been worked through, including a public consultation and preparation of guidance on how the measures should and should not be implemented.

Copies of those letters from the DfE at Westminster can be found here:

This is an indication of awareness of the DfE the risk of LAs overstepping existing lawful remits.

Surely councils should already be aware that these measures are not in place and that guidance has to be issued before they can be.

Although already experience of home educators in some areas in England would suggest otherwise.

The DfE also asked each LA in England to forward a letter to each EHE family in their area to clarify the same.

However, almost one third of English LAs have not followed the DfE’s direction and forwarded this essential and protective information within the reasonable time frame of 15 days.

Bear in mind that, as the LA will already have an easily accessible list of email addresses for EHE families they are aware of, this would be a simple 5 minute task to forward an email onwards using that mailing list.

This isn’t rocket science, it isn’t a challenging task.

Notably, there has been absolutely no equivalent communications, clarification or information to Welsh LAs or Welsh home educating families from the Welsh government.

Regardless of elections, civil servants are still in post- those civil servants that the former Cabinet Secretary for Education claimed were in regular communications with the DfE at Westminster.

So, no such reassurances for Welsh home educating families,

and no such protective instructions for Welsh LAs.

At the very least, none that are transparently available in the public domain that would provide reassurance and information for all.

Is this part of the fruit of having “piggybacked” onto what was designed as an England-only Bill?

Is the impact on Welsh families yet again an afterthought?

Will the new generation of Senedd Members be willing to view with fresh eyes the impacts of the measures in this Bill, and the lack of engagement and adequate scrutiny that have led to the present situation?