The passing of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 marks an important moment. It brings forward several changes that reflect issues children and young people and those working alongside them have been raising for years.
But taken as a whole, the Act stops short of delivering the transformational change that children and young people so desperately need. While progress has been made in some areas, significant gaps remain, and these omissions will be most keenly felt by those who are already most at risk. What emerges is not a consistently strengthened children’s social care system, but one where protections and entitlements can still depend on how and where a child is placed and their care status, rather than on their needs.
Safeguards and unequal protection
This is most visible in the continued exclusion of some children from safeguards that should be fundamental. Children who are denied looked after status, or placed in supported or illegal accommodation, remain exposed to weaker protections and increased risk of harm.
While the introduction of powers to limit profit-making in children’s homes is welcome, the decision not to extend these measures to supported accommodation leaves a significant and growing part of the system untouched.
Children’s voice and access to advocacy
Children’s voices must be both heard and acted upon in decisions about their lives. We were glad to see this recognised in the introduction of a duty to consider children’s wishes and feelings in family group decision making. Across the Act, the success of multiple new provisions will depend on children’s views being understood and acted on. The question is whether children will be supported to express those views, and whether the systems around them will respond meaningfully.
This is where independent advocacy becomes critical. The implications of the Act point to a clear and growing need for children to have access to independent support to understand and exercise their rights across a range of situations, including care planning, leaving care arrangements, and deprivation of liberty.
The revised National Standards for the Provision of Children and Young People’s Advocacy Services were due to set clear expectations about when advocacy should be proactively offered, including in many of the circumstances affected by this legislation. The ongoing delay in their publication is of great concern. Their publication, alongside sufficient investment in advocacy provision, will be essential if the rights set out in the Act are to be realised in practice.
Deprivation of liberty and ‘relevant accommodation’
Nowhere is the need for stronger safeguards more apparent than in the Act’s approach to deprivation of liberty. The current landscape, where increasing numbers of children are subject to Deprivation of Liberty orders (DoLs) and held in entirely inappropriate settings, is deeply concerning and represents one of the most serious and unresolved issues within the system.
Efforts to bring greater structure and oversight to these arrangements are, in principle, welcome. But the introduction of new forms of ‘relevant accommodation’, without clear definition, leaves fundamental questions unanswered about oversight, accountability, and the care and treatment that children in these settings will receive.
A decision to deprive a child of their liberty under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 is a recognition that a child is extremely vulnerable and at risk. That these children may now be confined in settings other than secure children’s homes, including in privately run for-profit provision, represents a significant and troubling shift.
Crucially, this is not a gap in the system that requires a new model of provision. Secure children’s homes are specifically designed, regulated and staffed to meet the needs of children at the highest level of risk. Introducing ‘relevant accommodation’ risks undermining this established framework and legitimising the use of inappropriate placements, rather than addressing the underlying need for greater investment in specialist secure provision.
What happens next
If this Act is to lead to meaningful change, the focus must now turn to how it is implemented. This includes ensuring that children are supported to understand and exercise their rights, that advocacy is available with appropriate funding and resources, and that new forms of provision do not lead to a further dilution of safeguards.
Children’s rights cannot depend on a placement lottery. What matters now is whether this legislation becomes a foundation for meaningful change or another moment where the system moves forward, but not far enough for the children who need it most, particularly those in institutional settings who are so often overlooked.
