Policy background
The Act takes forward a range of Government commitments which are intended to improve education for all children and adoption services for some of the most vulnerable children in England.
	The measures in the Act will enable the Government to intervene more swiftly in failing schools. It also ensures that intervention is possible in a new category of schools, labelled 'coasting schools', where such intervention is deemed necessary.
	The measures in the Act would enable directions to be given requiring local authorities to make arrangements for their adoption functions to be carried out by another adoption agency. This will result in adoption functions being carried out on a larger scale by fewer individual agencies, and consequently, will result in a greater pool of approved adopters with whom to match vulnerable children.