1.These Explanatory Notes relate to the Education (Wales) Measure 2011 as passed by the National Assembly for Wales on 29 March 2011 and approved by Her Majesty in Council on 10 May 2011.
2.The Welsh Assembly Government’s Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills has prepared them in order to assist the reader of the Measure. They do not form part of the Measure and have not been endorsed by the National Assembly for Wales.
3.The Explanatory Notes should be read in conjunction with the Measure. They are not, and are not meant to be, a comprehensive description of the Measure. So where a section or part of a section is self-explanatory, no further explanation or comment is provided.
4.The Measure makes provision about:
collaboration between local authorities, governing bodies of maintained schools and Further Education Institutions (“FEIs”);
giving local authorities a power to establish a federation of schools;
the training of school governors and improvements to the clerking of governing bodies;
preventing schools in the future from changing category so as to become foundation schools and to prevent new foundation schools being established.
5.In respect of powers to require collaboration between local authorities, school governing bodies and governing bodies of FEIs, the National Assembly for Wales (“the Assembly”) has the competence under Matters 5.2B, 5.2C, 5.12 and 5.13 contained in Field 6 of Part 1 of Schedule 5 to the Government of Wales Act 2006. For school governance, competence is under Matter 5.2A. In respect of the provisions preventing maintained schools changing category to become foundation schools and preventing the establishment of new foundation schools, the Assembly has the competence to make a Measure that would allow provisions around the category of 'foundation schools' under matters 5.1 and 5.2.