Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 3:15 pm ar 28 Ionawr 2025.
Stephen Morgan
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education
Clause 17 enables information sharing between Ofsted and my Department to ensure the effective functioning of the financial oversight scheme and profit cap regime. Sharing relevant information also supports Ofsted’s functions under part 2 of the Care Standards Act 2000.
For the purposes of a financial oversight scheme, effective information and the sharing agreements that are in place between my Department and Ofsted are crucial, and they will enable us to bring together financial corporate performance and quality indicators about individual providers to inform decision making. This clause does not authorise the processing of data, which would contravene data protection legislation.
Neil O'Brien
Shadow Minister (Education)
I have a brief question. I understand what the Minister is trying to do here; the Secretary of State is taking powers to require the Ofsted chief inspector to share information with them in connection with the functions under this part. Can the Minister explain how that differs from the current ability of His Majesty’s chief inspector to share information with the Secretary of State? As the Minister just said, proposed new section 30ZO(8) is clear that it cannot contravene the GDPR legislation anyway, so I am trying to understand what gap this Clause is trying to fix.
Stephen Morgan
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education
I thank the Shadow Minister for that. Data will be shared to other parties as part of the financial oversight scheme. It is worth saying that the Department will share with local authorities which providers meet the financial oversight conditions and are subject to the financial oversight scheme. That is to support their local sufficiency and contingency planning.
To ensure that commercially sensitive information is kept confidential, we will not share any provider information submitted as part of this scheme with local authorities or the sector. The Department will use this information to make an assessment of financial risk and issue an advance warning notice to local authorities where there is a real possibility that financial risk could lead a provider to cease operating.
Finally, where providers or their corporate owners, as I mentioned earlier, breach the requirements of this scheme, the Department will publish information on civil monetary penalties imposed. That is to be transparent about providers who fail to comply with the scheme.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The shadow cabinet is the name given to the group of senior members from the chief opposition party who would form the cabinet if they were to come to power after a General Election. Each member of the shadow cabinet is allocated responsibility for `shadowing' the work of one of the members of the real cabinet.
The Party Leader assigns specific portfolios according to the ability, seniority and popularity of the shadow cabinet's members.
