Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government when regulations will next be made under sections 17 (Children and young people’s plans) and 66 (Regulations and Orders) of the Children Act 2004.

The department has no immediate plans to update regulations under sections 17 and 66 of the Children Act 2004. Safeguarding partners (police, health, local authorities) are under a duty to make arrangements to work together, and with other partners locally, including education providers and childcare settings, to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in their area. These responsibilities are set out in the 2023 statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’. The department will review the statutory guidance regularly to ensure that it continues to reflect evidence and learning from children’s social care reform and aligns with legislative changes.

In November, the department published its ambitious, wide-ranging plans for children’s social care in ‘Keeping children safe, helping families thrive’, setting the wheels in motion to break the cycle of crisis intervention and rebalance the system back towards earlier help for families. In December, the department introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This is a landmark piece of legislation, introducing a series of measures with a focus on delivering a joined-up system to stop vulnerable children falling through cracks in services.