, Cabinet Secretary for
Education: Since becoming Cabinet Secretary for Education in
March 2024, the wellbeing and safeguarding of children has been a
top priority for me. I have taken every opportunity to keep
children and young people safe and ensure they feel supported and
engaged in their learning.
Families have the right to educate their children at home.
However, where parents choose to exercise this right there is a
balance to be struck between that right and the child's right to
a suitable education. As Cabinet Secretary for Education, I
want to ensure all children can access and exercise their right
to an education, and I have taken forward a range of measures
relating to elective home education (EHE) and children missing
education (CME) to ensure this is the case.
A child who is in receipt of a suitable education at home is not
missing education. However, local authorities need to be
confident that they know of all the children living in their
area, and that they are sure all of those children are in receipt
of a suitable education. To support this we took forward a
pilot with seven local authorities in 2025, to test an
information sharing arrangement between health and education
services, intended to help local authorities identify children
who are missing education.
We passed the Children Act 2004 (Children Missing Education
Database) (Pilot) (Wales) Regulations 2025 and the Education
(Information about Children in Independent Schools) (Pilot)
(Wales) Regulations 2025 in April 2025. They required the
sharing of information with local authorities to enable them to
better identify CME.
The pilot for the CME database has recently been evaluated, and
the evaluation report and recommendations will inform the work
for the Welsh Government and local authorities to take to
strengthen systems and processes, so that there is a more
effective and reliable way of identifying children who may be
missing education. I have agreed that the Welsh Government will
work with local authorities and address the recommendations as
part of a new ‘CME action plan'. This approach builds on the
existing stakeholder engagement arrangements we have in place.
Are we publishing the evaluation at the same time as the
statement?
A separate aspect of the policy work in relation to EHE and CME
is the ongoing implementation of the statutory EHE
guidance.
The guidance was published in 2023 and in May 2025 I agreed plans
to commission an independent evaluation of its impact. The
evaluation report was published in January 2026. As with
the CME database pilot evaluation, the report includes
recommendations that will strengthen local authorities' existing
arrangements.
The evaluation report supports local authorities' views that the
current guidance and legislation are not sufficient to enable
them to identify all children they have responsibility for. This
view is supported by the Children's Commissioner for Wales, and
the National Independent Safeguarding Board.
Work to address these longstanding concerns has been undertaken
in collaboration with the Department for Education via new
provisions in the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. The
stakeholder engagement and consultations we have already
undertaken in relation to these policies have informed our
position and evidence base for the measures in the Bill.
On 17 March 2026 the Senedd agreed the motion to provide consent
for certain provisions to apply to Wales, including the ‘children
not in school' clauses. Under these clauses, local authorities
will be required to establish ‘children not in school' registers,
with separate requirements on parents and carers of children who
are receiving education at home or alternative provision, to
register with the local authority. The new requirements will
provide greater oversight of children not in school and reduce
the risk of vulnerable children slipping through the net. Under
the Bill there are delegated powers for the Welsh Government to
determine how the provisions will work in Wales, via new
secondary legislation and statutory guidance. Royal Assent of the
Bill is expected in May. It is my expectation that the next
Welsh Government will engage closely with local authorities and
undertake a full public consultation on the provisions for Wales
as early as possible in the new Senedd term.
As part of the development work for the legislation,
consideration also needs to be given to how funding is allocated
and how to support local authorities in effectively discharging
any new responsibilities.
As this Senedd term draws to a close, any decisions on future
priorities and the governance of this work will be for the next
Welsh Government. However, the children not in school clauses of
the Bill provide a strong foundation on which to build on the
policy work already undertaken on elective home education and
children missing education. The foundations are now firmly in
place for the next Welsh Government to progress this work,
ensuring that all children in Wales are supported to receive a
suitable education and that their wellbeing remains at the heart
of our approach.
