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Welcome to the Department for Children, Schools and Families e-consultation website. From here you can access all of our live and archived consultations, or view the results of consultations.
Consultations are listed in date order – the most recent at the top of the list. You can also use the search facility to find a consultation by title or keyword.
To view and/or respond to a consultation, click on the title.
You can create your own user account and subscribe to receive email updates when new consultations are published by visiting the Register page. Creating a user account also allows you to partially complete your response and return to it at a later date.
This consultation seeks views on draft regulations made under paragraphs 19(2) and (3) of Schedule 6 to the Education and Inspections Act 2006, that update the School Governance (Transition from an Interim Executive Board) (England) Regulations 2004.
The 2004 Regulations are being brought in to line with provisions in the School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2007 made under the Education Act 2002 to take full account of new models of school governance.
It is also proposed that the 2004 Regulations are amended to replace the duty on local authorities to appoint a shadow governing body as part of the transitional arrangements from an Interim Executive Board (IEB) to a normally constituted governing body, with a power. This would give local authorities discretion over whether there is a need to appoint a governing body to shadow an IEB for at least 6 months, or whether it would be reasonable given all the circumstances to establish a normally constituted governing body in a shorter timescale, or immediately.
Launch Date: Wednesday 3 February 2010
Closing Date: Wednesday 17 March 2010
Consultation on draft Regulations to require local authorities in England to provide services designed to assist parents/carers to be able to continue to provide care for disabled children and young people, or to do so more effectively, by giving them access to short breaks from their caring responsibilities. Also consulting on associated draft Statutory Guidance aimed at helping local authorities, and others, to understand the legal context of their duty to provide short breaks; issues related to eligibility for short breaks; the range of short breaks required; local assessment of sufficiency of provision; planning and information.
Launch Date: Monday 1 February 2010
Closing Date: Monday 26 April 2010
The purpose of this consultation is to gather views on the draft document, Sex and Relationships Education Guidance. This document provides guidance to maintained primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units (PRUs) in England on all matters relating to SRE, including how good quality SRE can be planned and delivered, how to develop an SRE policy and how to support the health and social needs of all pupils with regard to sex and relationships. It is relevant to all staff, particularly senior managers and those responsible for co-ordinating, teaching and supporting the delivery of SRE. Headteachers and governing bodies are required by law to have regard to the guidance
Launch Date: Monday 25 January 2010
Closing Date: Monday 19 April 2010
This Green Paper sets out a wide range of measures to support all families as they bring up their children and to help families cope with times of stress and difficulty. The proposals recognise that while all families need some help, there are families in our society with complex needs and others who require additional - and sometimes non-negotiable - support.
The Paper's proposals aim to influence factors that can strengthen or weaken family life, such as the choices available about balancing employment with bringing up children; and how welcoming and accessible public services are to families of all kinds.
The Paper focuses mostly on supporting family relationships by enabling families to help themselves. It also considers the position of children and other family members when family relationships have broken down.
Some of the policy proposals can be implemented straight away; others are for consultation or will take longer to put into place.
Launch Date: Wednesday 20 January 2010
Closing Date: Wednesday 21 April 2010
The Pupil and Parent Guarantees (PPG) bring together in one place an account of the key components of a good education. The focus throughout is on the entitlements and the responsibilities of pupils and parents. The Guarantees will help to ensure that parents and pupils know what they can expect from schools. The Guarantees also spell out what schools can expect from parents and pupils in terms of their responsibilities to support schools. This consultation sets out the full text of the Pupil and Parent Guarantees and seeks views on whether the requirements for pupils, parents, schools and Local Authorities are clear and understandable, whether all the ‘musts' and ‘shoulds' detailed in the guarantees are correct and whether the responsibilities and entitlements for schools, pupils and parents are correctly balanced.
Launch Date: Monday 11 January 2010
Closing Date: Tuesday 6 April 2010
This consultation seeks opinions on new regulations that will set out the minimum set of matters on which governing bodies of maintained schools must invite and consider their pupils views. This relates to a new duty on maintained schools to invite and consider pupils' views on matters to be prescribed in regulations.
Launch Date: Monday 11 January 2010
Closing Date: Monday 29 March 2010
In The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report Lord Laming made a number of recommendations which the Government has proposed to address through the revision of Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance. This revised draft guidance addresses 17 of Lord Laming's recommendations, as indicated in the National Safeguarding Delivery Unit's earlier pre-consultation. The revised draft also updates the guidance to reflect changes to the policy and legislative landscape since Working Together was last published in 2006.
Launch Date: Friday 18 December 2009
Closing Date: Thursday 11 February 2010
On 22 October 2009, the Department for Children Schools and Families noted in the LA email that it would be launching a consultation on the revised statutory Childcare Sufficiency and Assessment Guidance to inform the 2010-11 assessment and action planning process. The guidance builds on the existing guidance included in Securing Sufficient Childcare and the Childcare Sufficiency Assessment Guidance (both published in 2007) and is intended to assist LAs in their assessment of sufficiency and action planning. The primary purpose of this consultation is to seek LAs' views on the structure and content of the draft guidance.
Launch Date: Friday 18 December 2009
Closing Date: Friday 26 February 2010
Section 154 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 gives school governing bodies the power to require a pupil to attend premises outside the school for the purpose of improving behaviour. It also gives the Secretary of State powers to make regulations to impose restrictions in relation to governing bodies’ exercise of this power. This is a consultation on these regulations and on the accompanying guidance.
Launch Date: Thursday 10 December 2009
Closing Date: Thursday 4 March 2010
The White Paper, Back on Track, announced plans to introduce information passports, personalised learning plans and a core entitlement for all pupils in alternative provision. The core entitlement includes the curriculum, the number of hours provision pupils should have per week and the maximum waiting times for placement in alternative provision and for the engagement of support services. The statutory guidance, for consultation, sets out the Government's expectations in these key areas.
Launch Date: Thursday 10 December 2009
Closing Date: Thursday 4 March 2010
The purpose of this consultation document is to gather the views of a wide range of stakeholders who work with local authorities, school staff and children and young people on bullying and staff grievance issues, on the scope of these new duties, and how best to support schools in implementing them. We want to ensure that the new duties meet our central policy objective which is to keep school staff and pupils safe from bullying and harassment, while at the same time keeping any additional bureaucratic burdens on schools to a minimum.
This policy highlighted in the document only applies to England. The policy highlighted in the document is devolved, in differing settlements, to the administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It is the benefit of devolution that the Devolved Administrations can tailor their policies and thus deliver public services to meet the specific needs of their countries.
Government and the Devolved Administrations will continue to work closely together to build a more prosperous, stronger, fairer UK, whilst recognising their particular and varying responsibilities.
Launch Date: Thursday 10 December 2009
Closing Date: Thursday 4 March 2010
The purpose of this consultation is to gather views on revised regulations covering the registration arrangements for children's homes, fostering agencies, independent adoption agencies, adoption support agencies and residential family centres. The current registration regulations for these establishments also cover adult and health settings. However, the Health and Social Care Act 2008 will remove adult and health settings from the Care Standards Act 2001. The revised regulations being consulted on here therefore only cover children's social settings.
Launch Date: Tuesday 8 December 2009
Closing Date: Tuesday 2 March 2010
This consultation seeks views on changed Regulations and National Minimum Standards (NMS) affecting the provision of education, care and information in independent schools, non-maintained special schools (NMSS) and in all schools providing boarding/residential accommodation.
NMSS regulations are being consolidated to bring together the principal regulations and all amendments, and to take account of new requirements.
The regulations governing the standards for, and the provision of information by, independent schools are also being amended to take account of new requirements.
The National Minimum Standards for Boarding Schools and Residential Special Schools consolidate two existing sets of National Minimum standards to create common standards across both settings. In addition, all the documents respond to certain of Sir Roger Singleton's recommendations in his review of safeguarding arrangements;Keeping our School Safe'.
The consultation covers 4 separate documents, and respondents are invited to comment on whichever element(s) relate(s) to their area of interest or expertise.
Intended Audience
The consultation is aimed at all stakeholders with an interest in residential school provision; it relates specifically to any school in the maintained, independent or non-maintained special school sectors that provides residential provision for less than 295 days. It is also aimed at stakeholders interested in the Regulations that apply to independent schools and non-maintained schools.
Launch Date: Thursday 3 December 2009
Closing Date: Thursday 11 March 2010
This consultation is about the setting of annual fees for inspection of children's social care settings, adoption and fostering agencies, local authority adoption and fostering functions, boarding schools, residential further education colleges, residential special schools and residential family centres. Our aim is to put in place a more transparent approach to the setting of fees, and move towards full cost recovery for inspection over time.
Launch Date: Wednesday 18 November 2009
Closing Date: Thursday 11 February 2010
The purpose of this consultation is to gather views on the draft document, Drugs: Guidance for Schools. This document provides guidance to maintained primary, secondary, special schools and pupil referral units (PRUs) in England on all matter relating to drug education and the management of drugs within the school community. It is relevant to all staff, particularly senior managers and those responsible for co-ordinating, teaching and supporting the delivery of drug education.
Launch Date: Friday 13 November 2009
Closing Date: Monday 15 February 2010
We are revising the entire suite of Children Act 1989 Regulations and guidance, including Guidance on the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, to meet the new duties inserted into the Children Act 1989 by the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 and respond to the commitments to transform outcomes for looked after children and care leavers set out in the White Paper "Care Matters". This consultation aims to review these changes in policy with the public, and solicit your opinions and ideas.
Joint consultation with the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services
We are undertaking a joint consultation with the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services on the new role for School Improvement Partners (SIPs) following the publication of the white paper, Your child, your school, our future: building a 21st century schools system. As part of this consultation, we invite you to complete an online questionnaire. (click here) The questionnaire will be open from 11 January 2010 until 9 April 2010.
Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (SASE)
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) ran a consultation on the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (SASE) from 23 February 2009 to 29 May 2009.
This consultation sought views on the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (SASE). The SASE set out the requirements with which each recognised Apprenticeship framework in England must comply.
To access the original consultation and the Government response please click here.
To download the SASE from the BIS website please click here.
