The Education Act 2011 (c. 21) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was the first major piece of education legislation to be introduced by the coalition government, and makes changes to many areas of educational policy, including the power of school staff to discipline students, the manner in which newly trained teachers are supervised, the regulation of qualifications, the administration of local authority maintained schools, academies, the provision of post-16 education, including vocational apprenticeships, and student finance for higher education.
The act also brought about the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency and the Training and Development Agency for Schools, amongst other bodies.
The act is divided into ten parts, and comprises 83 Sections and 18 Schedules.
Parliamentary passage The Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, introduced the Education Bill to the House of Commons on 26 January 2011 when it also received its first reading. Two weeks later, on 8 February 2011, the Commons debated the general principles of the Bill before passing it at second reading, before committing it to a public bill committee to be scrutinised in depth by a select, cross party group of MPs. The committee stage lasted 11 days throughout March and the beginning of April, before returning to the main floor of the Commons on 11 May 2011, where consideration at report stage was completed alongside its third reading, thus completing its passage through the lower house.
The bill as passed by the Commons was introduced to the House of Lords the following day, before receiving its second reading following a debate on 14 June. It was sent to a grand committee of all peers for detailed scrutiny, which sat for eight days before the summer recess of Parliament, and for three days afterwards, before returning for four days of report stage scrutiny in the Lords chamber. It passed its third reading, and thus passed the House of Lords, on 9 November, when it was returned to the Commons to obtain agreement to the various amendments to the bill made during its passage through the upper house. The Commons accepted all of the Lords' amendments without further amendment after debate on 14 November, allowing it to receive royal assent and become an Act of Parliament the following day.
Provisions The act is divided into 10 distinct parts, each of which are summarised below.
Part 1 - Early years provision Part 1 makes provision for the organisation and supply of early years learning by amending the Childcare Act 2006 to extend the duty on all English local authorities that requires them to provide 15 hours of early years education free of charge for all three- and four-year-olds and to all two-year-olds identified as disadvantaged. The Secretary of State and local authorities will determine those who fall into such a category through the tax credit information held by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and tax information held by the Department for Work and Pensions, which the Secretary of State is authorised to receive by virtue of Section 1(3) of the act, which also makes it a criminal offence for anyone to disclose such information without authorisation.
Part 2 - Discipline Part 2 extends the power given to school staff in Section 550ZA of the Education Act 1996 to search a pupil or their possessions if they believe them to be carrying certain items to include power to search if the member of staff believes one or more of the possessions have been, or may be used, to commit a criminal offence, cause personal injury or damage property. Staff are also given the power to search a student even if they are under the age of criminal responsibility, and for staff of the opposite sex to the student to search said student if they believe the risk is so great that serious harm would be caused if they waited or attempted to find a member of staff who is the same sex as the student to be searched. Clarification is also provided as to when "reasonable force" can be used by staff to confiscate items, as well as setting out the process to be followed if specified items are found. Teachers are also given the power to examine data files on electronic devices and delete them if they believe there is good reason to do so.
Part 2 also, through Section 4, gives headteachers of maintained schools and lead teachers of pupil referral units in England the power to exclude a pupil either permanently or for a fixed-term for disciplinary reasons. The section also gives the excluded party the power to appeal to a "review panel" if the headteacher or lead teacher has decided not to reinstate a pupil, who may uphold the exclusion, recommend a review of the exclusion by the headteacher or lead teacher, or quash the exclusion and force the headteacher to reconsider the exclusion.
Section 5 of Part 2 removes the requirement on a school to provide a student's parent, guardian or carer with 24 hours' written notice of an out of school detention, whilst Section 6 removes the duty imposed on schools by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 to enter into behaviour and attendance partnerships with other authorities in a local area.
Part 3 - School workforce Part 3 abolishes the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE), and transfers the majority of its functions to the Secretary of State, including the power to investigate disciplinary cases, issue prohibition orders to bar a person from teaching and maintain a register of those barred from teaching. The abolition of the GTCE does not affect the General Teaching Council for Wales, which continues to exist with all of the powers it currently holds.
Section 9 legislates for all new teachers in England to be required to serve an induction period, a practice that already currently exists but is administered by the GTCE, whose abolition requires the Secretary of State to take on the responsibility for the procedure, as this section sets out.
Part 3, through Section 13, also introduces restrictions on the reporting of allegations made against teachers by students, including the reporting of information through which a teacher against whom an allegation has been made could be identified. Such restrictions would only be lifted once a teacher is charged with a criminal offence, or when the Secretary of State publishes certain information. The act makes it a criminal offence to breach these restrictions, including through reporting on the internet.
Sections 14 to 17 abolish the Training and Development Agency for Schools, and transfers its functions to the Secretary of State, who is in turn given power to delegate Welsh responsibilities of the TDA on Welsh Ministers. Section 18 authorises the abolition of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, whilst Section 19 makes minor amendments to preceding legislation regarding school budgets.
Part 4 - Qualifications and the Curriculum In Part 4, Clause 20 gives the Secretary of State the power to direct the governing bodies of schools to participate in certain international education surveys.
Part 4 also makes changes to the operation and management of Ofqual, the government's qualifications regulator. It changes the title of the Chief Executive of Ofqual to 'Chief Regulator' who will now be appointed by The Queen through an order in council, whilst the Chairman of Ofqual, who was previously known as the 'Chief Regulator' and appointed by the Queen, will now simply be the Chairman, and appointed directly by the Secretary of State. Provisions are also made about how Chairman and Chief Regulator will be appointed, the length of their terms of office, their salaries and pensions. Section 22 provides a definition of what Ofqual's objectives are in relation to the standard of qualifications offered. Section 23 gives Ofqual the power to impose financial penalties on qualification awarding bodies if they have failed to comply with a condition of their recognition, and sets out detailed conditions as to how such penalties are to be administered, whilst Section 24 provides Welsh Ministers with similar powers to those granted to Ofqual through Section 23.
The Qualification and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) is abolished by Sections 25-27, and its powers and functions transferred to the Secretary of State, who is also given power to introduce a scheme to transfer the staff, properties and liabilities of the QCDA to the Secretary of State and Department for Education.
Section 28 removes the Secretary of State's powers to give directions to local authorities regarding the provision of careers and post-16 education advice, and the requirement that schools must provide people involved in careers advice access to both students and school facilities. Section 29 legislates that all schools must continually provide students aged between 14-16 careers advice that is completely independent and that provides impartial information about all post-16 training options, including apprenticeships.
Sections 30 and 31 repeal unenacted provisions from the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 relating to diploma entitlements.
Part 5 - Educational institutions: other provisions Part 5 removes the need for school governing bodies to publish a 'school profile', and for the local authority to appoint 'school improvement partners'. Section 34 of Part 5 removes a local authority's need to set up 'admission forums', as well as making slight alterations to the powers of the schools adjudicator in relation to school admissions. Section 35 imposes a cap on the charge that can be made for providing milk, school meals and other refreshments to pupils, preventing any charge being higher than the cost of providing such a service, whilst also giving schools the power to charge different prices for the same item.
Section 37 enacts Schedule 11 of the act which makes provision about the creation of new schools. It requires that when a local authority is of the opinion that a new school is required, it must seek proposals for such a school to be created through the creation of a new academy school, and that no competition for the creation of a new school may begin without the local authority obtaining the consent of the Secretary of State. The Schedule sets out the various bureaucratic processes that must be conducted by both the local authority and Secretary of State when the local authority decides that a new school is needed. The interpretation of this section of the act was tested by a judicial review in November 2012, when the court upheld the decision of Richmond Local Authority to establish Voluntary Aided schools, St. Richard Reynolds Catholic College, without first seeking proposals for an Academy.
Section 38 reduces the number of different categories of governors that must be elected or appointed to a school's governing body, whilst Section 39 makes provision for the procedure to dissolve the governing body of a single school within a wider federation of schools should the school wish to leave the federation in order to convert to academy status.