What consideration has the Cabinet Secretary given to expanding section 32 of the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill to enable Ministers to impose a local strategic plan on a local authority if Ministers believe that an authority is unlikely to achieve a target, even after following the process in 32(3)-(5) of the Bill?
The Bill sets out a clear line of accountability between the National Framework, the Local Welsh in Education Strategic Plans and the Welsh Language Education Delivery Plans for schools. The plan is to put in place a system that will enable the different tiers to work together to meet the targets imposed on local authorities in the National Framework. Local authorities must take all reasonable steps to achieve the targets imposed by Welsh Ministers in the National Framework.
Section 48 of the Bill adds Part 3 (Welsh Language Education) and Part 4 (Planning Welsh Language Education and Learning) of the Bill to the list of Education Acts set out in section 578 of the Education Act 1996. This is a way of co-ordinating legislation on the subject of education, and its main effect here is to give Welsh Ministers powers to intervene if the governing body of a maintained school or local authority fails to comply with duties under the Bill, or exercises functions under the Bill in an unreasonable way. These powers are in Part 2 of the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 and (more generally) enable Welsh Ministers to intervene, when appropriate, and in the way in which a local authority exercises its education functions.