Last week the new Labour government set out their plans for a ‘Children’s Wellbeing Bill’ in the King’s Speech.
The bill contained many high-level proposals including plans for free breakfast clubs, creating a duty for registers of children not in school and bringing multi-academy trusts into the inspection system.
However, one proposal that garnered less attention was the intent to extend the remit of the Teaching Regulation Agency to: ‘enable serious teacher misconduct to be investigated, regardless of when the misconduct occurred, the setting the teacher is employed in and how the misconduct is uncovered’.
In broadening the scope of investigation for serious teacher misconduct, the government claims that the bill will ‘protect and safeguard more children’.
New powers
Under the current regulatory regime - which is set out under the Teacher’s Disciplinary (England) Regulations 2012 - the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) can investigate teacher misconduct provided that:
- The individual is undertaking teaching work in schools (including academies, free schools, local authority maintained schools, non-maintained special schools); 16-19 academies; sixth form colleges; relevant youth accommodation and children’s homes.
- The misconduct is of a serious nature that requires a decision to be made in relation to whether the individual should be prohibited from teaching work.
Currently, if, following an investigation, the teacher is found to be guilty of unacceptable professional conduct, the TRA can prohibit the individual from teaching and their details will be added to the list of prohibited teachers.
However, under the proposed new regulatory regime, the powers of the TRA will extend considerably to encompass serious misconduct that may have occurred when an individual was not employed in a teaching role and/or serious misconduct that occurred a number of years ago.
This would allow the TRA to investigate historic allegations as well as those outside of a teaching setting.
If this sounds vaguely familiar it’s because, in 2022, the previous government announced similar plans as part of their ‘Schools Bill’ which intended to ‘broaden the scope of the regime to include persons who commit misconduct when not employed as a teacher, but who have at any time carried out teaching work’.
A welcome move
Given that the bill was only introduced in brief earlier this week, specifics as to the exact remit of the broadening of the provisions have yet to be announced.
Despite this, there is good reason to welcome the introduction of the bill and to be optimistic as to its potential to improve safeguarding.
In its existing form, the Teaching Regulation Agency is a robust mechanism. It functions well and is key to ensuring individuals who could be a danger to children are prohibited from teaching roles.
But, if there are instances whereby individuals who are in teaching roles have committed serious misconduct but such misconduct does not fall within the current scope, from a safeguarding perspective this is a serious and material concern.
In turn, widening of the scope of investigations to include these individuals is logical and makes good sense.
On the face of it, the proposed provisions should protect and safeguard more children by way of closing any gaps that the current regime has.
Dr Alice King is a lawyer in the safeguarding unit at Farrer & Co
For the latest education news and analysis delivered directly to your inbox every weekday morning, sign up to the Tes Daily newsletter
