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Education and Skills Bill

I understand the noble Baroness's confusion. Like me, as a non-lawyer she might have thought that ““service provider”” in Clause 17(2)(b) might refer to a school. It does not. A ““service provider”” is defined in Clause 17(7), a huge subsection, which states: "““‘service provider’, in relation to a local education authority in England, means … where the authority itself provides services””—" we are talking about Connexions services in this regard— "““in exercise of its functions””," or where, "““in exercise of its functions … the authority makes arrangements for the provision of services””;" that is, by others providing those Connexions services on contract. In neither of those cases would it be a governing body of a school or a school itself. Those would not be a service provider for the purposes of providing the Connexions services in question under this clause.