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Education and Skills Bill

Perhaps I may ask a question about Clause 14. My understanding is that when a local education authority wants to know what courses a child is doing and whether they are attending them, the source of that information will be the educational institution, and the power to get that information will be under Clause 14(3)(c), a provision under which the child can refuse to allow information to be distributed. So, if a child has exercised that right, the local education authority will know that they are registered with a particular institution but will have no information about what they are doing there. How does that interact with Clause 39(1), on the conditions under which a local authority can take steps to issue an attendance notice? If lawyers were physicists, they would understand that, as with Schrödinger’s cat, where there is uncertainty it is not a question of knowing or not knowing, but a question of knowing that it is both. They could therefore take action under this clause. I rather suspect that lawyers are not physicists, and would say that where it is not known whether a student is fulfilling a duty, the power in Clause 39(1) would not apply.