Background and Summary
3.The Act contains provisions on a range of policies which span the responsibilities of the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
4.The Act contains provisions to give effect to aspects of the White Paper Your Child, Your School, Our future: building a 21st Century Schools system (Cmd 7588), to make changes to the way schools operate together.
5.The Act also contains provision following the White Paper Back on Track: A strategy for modernising alternative provision for young people (published 20 May 2008).
6.The Act makes provision permitting the media greater access in Family Court proceedings, and increasing the ability of the media to publish reports of those proceedings, and information released during hearings. On 16 December 2008 the Secretary of State for Justice laid the report Family Justice in View before Parliament. In his accompanying statement to the House he set out his intention to provide greater transparency of family courts.
7.Further background is included on these and the other elements of the Act in the “Overall Structure of the Act” section.
8.A glossary of terms and abbreviations used in these Explanatory Notes is included at the end of these Notes.