Claim: The Children Missing Education Database will allow pupil information to be shared with the UK government as part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
This claim is untrue.
The Children Missing Education (CME) Database is not about elective home education and is not a register. It is also completely separate from the proposed ‘children not in school’ provisions in the UK government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
It will require local health boards to share very limited, non-clinical information about children of compulsory school age, with the child’s home local authority only.
It will only include information about children who are known to their health board but their local authority does not have a record of how or where they are receiving their education. Once the local authority is assured that a child on the CME database is receiving a suitable education, the child’s name will be removed from the database. Information about the database pilot is available here: Children missing education database | GOV.WALES