Privacy, the Children Not in School Register, and Domestic-Abuse Safety in Wales

Published 17 May 2026

Part 4 of our series on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 and what it may mean for ALN and home-educating families in Wales.

One of the most sensitive parts of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 is the new framework around children not in school registers, information-sharing and local authority oversight.

For many families, especially families of children with Additional Learning Needs (ALN), trauma histories, school-placement breakdowns, safeguarding concerns or domestic-abuse experiences, the issue is not simply:

“Should local authorities know which children are not in school?”

The deeper concern is:

How will information be collected, interpreted, stored, shared and acted upon in practice?

This matters because systems designed to improve safeguarding and visibility can still create unintended harm if implementation becomes overly procedural, disproportionate, insufficiently trauma-aware, or lacking in disability literacy.

For some families, practical concerns may include:

who will hold our data;
who can access it;
how secure it is;
how professionals will interpret our situation;
what happens if information is misunderstood;
how disabled children and complex family situations will be distinguished from genuine safeguarding risk;
and how vulnerable children can be protected while also protecting family privacy and safety.

These are not irrational questions.

They are implementation questions.

This article looks at what the law currently says, what Welsh Government guidance already requires, what remains unclear in Wales, and where there may be issues that families, professionals, policymakers and services will need to work through together over the coming years.

This article provides general information only and is not legal advice. Families involved in active safeguarding investigations, domestic-abuse proceedings or legal disputes should seek appropriately qualified advice.

What has changed?

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 introduces a more formal legal framework around children who are not registered at school.

In Wales, Welsh Government requested selected provisions from the legislation, including the framework relating to children not in school. Welsh Government’s Wales-specific guidance explains that the wider Act contains many provisions applying to England only, but that Wales sought selected provisions including children not in school, child employment, ill-treatment and wilful neglect of children under 18, children in temporary accommodation, and Healthcare Inspectorate Wales notifications.[1]

The children not in school framework includes children who are:

electively home educated (EHE);
under flexi-schooling arrangements;
or receiving Education Otherwise Than At School (EOTAS).

The legislation introduces:

local authority registers;
duties on parents to provide information;
powers to request information from some out-of-school settings;
powers linked to meetings;
and powers linked to seeing and speaking with the child.

However, Welsh operational detail is still developing.

Welsh Government has said that the relevant children not in school measures will not come into force immediately in Wales and that there will be consultation before implementation.[1]

That distinction matters because some public discussion has treated the system as though every practical detail has already been finalised.

It has not.

What has not changed?

The Act does not ban home education in Wales.

Welsh Government has stated that home-educated children are not required to follow the Curriculum for Wales or recreate school-style timetables or environments at home.[1]

Existing Welsh elective home education guidance continues to recognise that education is compulsory, but school attendance is not.[2]

This distinction remains important.

The practical debate is therefore not really about whether elective home education still exists in Wales.

It does.

The practical debate is about:

visibility;
information-sharing;
oversight;
safeguarding interpretation;
suitability assessments;
and how local systems exercise their powers.

For families of disabled children, this matters because many children outside school are not outside school for simple reasons.

Some children may have:

placement breakdown histories;
severe anxiety;
sensory-processing differences;
trauma;
communication differences;
neurodevelopmental conditions;
chronic health needs;
emotionally based school avoidance;
or unresolved disputes around provision.

These situations can look very different depending on how much context professionals hold.

Welsh ALN rights still matter

One of the most important points for families to understand is that Welsh ALN duties continue to exist.

The March 2026 Welsh Government guidance on ALN and elective home education states that where a local authority becomes aware that a home-educated child may have ALN, it must decide whether the child has ALN and, where required, prepare and maintain an Individual Development Plan (IDP) and secure the Additional Learning Provision (ALP) specified within it.[3]

That is a significant point.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act does not automatically remove ALN rights simply because a child is not attending school.

Welsh Government has also published separate March 2026 guidance on ALN and Education Otherwise Than At School, which explains how the ALN Act and ALN Code apply to learners receiving EOTAS.[4]

However, the practical challenge may increasingly become:

how suitability is assessed;
how needs are interpreted;
how provision is monitored;
and how professionals distinguish between very different circumstances.

For example:

a child whose parent has freely chosen elective home education;
a child receiving LA-arranged EOTAS;
and a child at home because suitable provision has broken down;

may all appear within “children not in school” systems while having very different legal and practical contexts.

Poor distinction between those scenarios could create misunderstanding.

Why privacy concerns are not irrational

Some public discussion has framed privacy concerns as if parents are simply resisting oversight.

That is too simplistic.

Privacy concerns can arise for many legitimate reasons, including:

domestic abuse;
stalking risks;
coercive control;
previous unsafe data-sharing;
disability discrimination;
previous traumatic professional involvement;
safeguarding misunderstandings;
community hostility;
racism, faith-based prejudice or other forms of discrimination;
or fear of escalation following placement breakdown.

For some families, the issue is not secrecy.

The issue is safety.

Others may fear that incomplete or context-poor information could trigger assumptions around:

neglect;
“failure to engage”;
attendance;
parenting;
emotional regulation;
safeguarding;
or school refusal.

Those concerns are not automatically evidence that authorities are acting unlawfully.

But they are legitimate implementation concerns that deserve serious consideration.

Article 8: privacy and family life

The legal framework around children not in school engages Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Article 8 protects the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence.[5]

This does not mean public bodies can never collect or share information.

Public authorities can interfere with Article 8 rights where the interference is lawful, necessary, proportionate and linked to legitimate aims such as safeguarding or protecting children.

The key questions therefore become:

Is the information collection lawful?
Is it necessary?
Is it proportionate?
Is only necessary information being collected?
Is the data secure?
Who has access to it?
How long is it retained?
Are vulnerable families protected from accidental disclosure?
Are domestic-abuse and safeguarding risks being considered properly?

The UK Parliament’s ECHR Memorandum for the legislation explicitly acknowledges that Article 8 rights are engaged by the children not in school framework.[5]

That matters because it confirms these concerns are legally recognised issues, not fringe objections.

Domestic abuse and safe-contact concerns

One of the most sensitive implementation areas is how systems manage families affected by domestic abuse.

It would be inaccurate and irresponsible to claim that the Act automatically places survivors at risk.

But it would also be unrealistic to pretend information-sharing systems carry no implementation risk at all.

Families with abuse histories may reasonably wish to ask:

who can access our address;
what confidentiality safeguards exist;
whether safe-contact preferences can be recorded;
what protections exist around accidental disclosure;
how protective orders are handled;
how high-risk family situations are flagged safely;
and how information-sharing is monitored.

These are safeguarding questions, not anti-safeguarding questions.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) stresses that data-sharing involving children must remain lawful, necessary, proportionate and limited to what is needed.[6]

The ICO’s data-sharing code also emphasises fairness, transparency, accountability and the need to consider children’s rights and best interests when sharing children’s data.[7]

For some survivors, unsafe information-sharing is not theoretical. It may already have happened before.

This is one reason implementation quality matters so much.

Why ALN families may fear misunderstanding

Families of children with ALN often already operate under high levels of scrutiny and stress.

Their child may:

present differently across settings;
mask distress in school;
experience severe sensory dysregulation;
struggle with attendance;
have trauma-linked anxiety;
communicate differently;
or have needs which are still emerging and not yet fully understood.

Without context, these situations can be misread.

A child at home because a placement has broken down is not necessarily equivalent to:

a child receiving no education because the parent is refusing engagement.

Likewise:

sensory dysregulation may be mistaken for behaviour;
trauma responses may be misread as defiance;
exhaustion may appear as disengagement;
and communication differences may affect how children respond to professionals.

This is why disability literacy, relational practice and contextual understanding matter so much.

The risk is not necessarily the existence of a register alone.

The risk is poor interpretation.

Why partnership and trust matter

Learn Without Limits CIC believes good outcomes for children usually depend on strong partnership working between:

families;
schools;
local authorities;
health services;
safeguarding professionals;
and wider support systems.

Most professionals enter these roles because they genuinely want children to be safe and supported.

But partnership only works properly when families feel able to:

raise concerns safely;
query misunderstandings;
explain context;
advocate for their child’s needs;
challenge inaccurate assumptions;
and participate meaningfully in decisions affecting their child.

This matters especially where children have:

complex or emerging needs;
trauma histories;
sensory differences;
neurodevelopmental conditions;
communication differences;
emotionally based school avoidance;
or placement breakdown histories.

In these situations, the issue is often not whether professionals care.

The issue is whether systems leave enough room for nuance, context, collaborative problem-solving and genuine dialogue.

Where families feel frightened to speak openly, worried that disagreement may be interpreted negatively, or unable to question assumptions safely, important information can be lost.

The goal should not be compliance for the sake of compliance.

The goal should be understanding the child well enough to make safe, proportionate and sustainable decisions.

Trauma, communication and community support

At Learn Without Limits CIC, we recognise that communication between families and professionals can become strained very easily once fear, exhaustion, safeguarding anxiety or previous negative experiences enter the room.

One of the practical ways our peer-support community helps families is by supporting parents to frame questions, concerns and requests in ways that reduce unnecessary defensiveness and help keep conversations focused on the child’s needs and long-term outcomes.

That does not mean parents should avoid raising concerns.

It means constructive communication and collaborative problem-solving often achieve better long-term outcomes than escalation alone.

At the same time, professionals also need to recognise that some parents may carry significant trauma burdens of their own.

This may include:

care experience;
disability;
poverty;
racism;
faith-based prejudice;
other forms of discrimination;
domestic abuse;
previous safeguarding trauma;
or years of chronic stress linked to trying to secure support for a disabled child.

These experiences can affect:

how safe a parent feels in meetings;
how they communicate under pressure;
how quickly they become overwhelmed;
or how strongly they react when they believe their child is misunderstood or unsafe.

That does not mean professional concerns should be ignored.

It means relational practice matters.

Many children within our community have:

overlapping neurodevelopmental differences;
trauma histories;
complex presentations;
sensory-regulation difficulties;
communication differences;
or needs that do not fit neatly into simple categories.

Supporting these children well can require more listening, more flexibility, more collaboration and more patience from everyone involved.

But we strongly believe this effort matters.

The aim should not simply be administrative convenience or defensible process.

The aim should be to give every child in Wales the best possible chance to grow towards their safest, healthiest and most sustainable outcomes.

Wales’ existing well-being duties still matter

Wales already has its own statutory frameworks around well-being, participation, prevention and person-centred practice.

These include:

the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014;[8]
the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018;[9]
and the Welsh ALN Code framework.[10]

These laws and guidance already place duties around:

voice and participation;
proportionality;
well-being;
early intervention;
and collaborative planning.

Implementation of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act in Wales therefore cannot realistically happen in isolation from those existing Welsh duties.

One of the major challenges over the coming years will be ensuring that:

safeguarding remains strong;
visibility systems remain lawful and proportionate;
family trust is not unnecessarily damaged;
and disability-aware, trauma-aware practice remains central.

Those are not easy balances to achieve.

But they are important ones.

The risk of unintended consequences

This is where Wales will need to be especially careful.

A system can be well-intentioned and still create avoidable harm if it rewards process over understanding.

As we explored in our earlier article, “When Everyone Is Acting Rationally, and Children Are Still Harmed”, unintended harm can occur when systems become overly procedural, overly risk-focused, or driven more by defensible process than by relational understanding close to the child.

That concern is directly relevant here.

If the children not in school framework is implemented well, it could improve visibility, strengthen safeguarding and help local authorities understand where children may need support.

If implemented poorly, it could also increase:

mistrust;
defensive communication;
unnecessary escalation;
inaccurate assumptions;
pressure on families already managing complex needs;
and confusion between elective home education, EOTAS and placement breakdown.

The question is not whether safeguarding matters.

It does.

The question is whether Wales can build a system that improves safeguarding without flattening complex family realities into tick-box risk categories.

That will require careful design, good training, strong data governance, disability literacy, trauma awareness and meaningful dialogue with families.

A challenge Wales will need to work through together

Some families support stronger visibility systems because they are concerned about exploitation, abuse, children missing education, unsafe online environments and children who may fall entirely out of sight.

Others fear that poorly implemented systems could unintentionally increase misunderstanding, conflict, mistrust or disproportionate pressure on already vulnerable families.

Both concerns can exist at the same time.

That is why Wales will need careful, balanced implementation over the coming years.

The challenge is not simply:

“Should children be visible to services?”

The harder question is:

“Can Wales build systems that improve safeguarding and visibility while still remaining relational, proportionate, trauma-aware and disability-aware?”

That is not a question government can answer alone.

It will require ongoing dialogue between:

Welsh Government;
local authorities;
schools;
safeguarding services;
health professionals;
parents;
disabled people;
advocacy groups;
and wider stakeholders.

Our position

Learn Without Limits CIC intends to work constructively with the incoming Welsh Government, families, professionals, safeguarding services, education settings, health services and wider stakeholders to help ensure that Wales becomes a place where collaboration leads to the best possible outcomes for all children and young people.

We believe safeguarding, well-being, education and family partnership should not be treated as competing goals.

Where systems are relational, proportionate, disability-aware, trauma-aware and open to genuine dialogue, children are more likely to receive the right support earlier. Families are more likely to engage safely and openly. Professionals are more likely to gain the contextual understanding needed to make good decisions.

Complexity should never become a reason to lower ambition for children.

Our position remains that Wales should strive to become a nation where:

families feel safe to ask questions;
professionals feel supported to think relationally and creatively;
disagreement does not automatically damage trust;
safeguarding remains strong and proportionate;
and children’s long-term well-being remains more important than short-term systemic convenience.

That is the direction we hope to contribute towards in the years ahead.

Developing our prevention model in public

As part of this work, Learn Without Limits CIC is developing its prevention model in line with the changing legal landscape in Wales. We hold a quarterly open-call briefing to share progress, surface emerging patterns from families, and invite constructive dialogue with parents, professionals, policymakers and stakeholders.

You can find our general events programme here: Learn Without Limits CIC events.

Our next quarterly briefing can be booked here: LWL Quarterly Briefing 3: Emerging Parent Insight and ALN System Navigation.

What families may wish to ask now

As Welsh implementation develops, families may find it useful to ask calm, practical questions in writing, such as:

What information will be recorded about my child and family?
Why is each piece of information needed?
Who will be able to access it?
How will my child’s ALN, disability, trauma history or placement-breakdown context be recorded accurately?
How will safe-contact arrangements be handled if there are domestic-abuse or safeguarding concerns?
How will the local authority distinguish between elective home education, EOTAS and a child being at home because suitable provision has broken down?
What is the process for correcting inaccurate information?
What privacy notice or data protection information applies?
Who can I contact if I believe information has been misunderstood or shared unsafely?

These questions are not about avoiding safeguarding.

They are about helping safeguarding, education and family partnership work better.

References

[1] Welsh Government, “Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and elective home education,” 26 Feb. 2026. Available: https://www.gov.wales/childrens-wellbeing-and-schools-bill-and-elective-home-education-html

[2] Welsh Government, “Elective home education guidance,” updated 11 Mar. 2025. Available: https://www.gov.wales/elective-home-education-guidance-html

[3] Welsh Government, “Additional learning needs (ALN) and elective home education,” 27 Mar. 2026. Available: https://www.gov.wales/additional-learning-needs-aln-and-elective-home-education-html

[4] Welsh Government, “Additional learning needs (ALN) and education otherwise than at school (EOTAS),” 27 Mar. 2026. Available: https://www.gov.wales/additional-learning-needs-aln-and-education-otherwise-school-eotas-html

[5] UK Parliament, “ECHR Memorandum for the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.” Available: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0151/echr_memo.pdf

[6] Information Commissioner’s Office, “A 10-step guide to sharing information to safeguard children.” Available: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/data-sharing/a-10-step-guide-to-sharing-information-to-safeguard-children/

[7] Information Commissioner’s Office, “Data sharing and children.” Available: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/data-sharing/data-sharing-a-code-of-practice/data-sharing-and-children/

[8] Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. Available: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2014/4/contents

[9] Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018. Available: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2018/2/contents

[10] Welsh Government, “Additional Learning Needs Code for Wales 2021.” Available: https://www.gov.wales/additional-learning-needs-code