Schools White Paper

They will get a better deal and—to take an example—we are just about to lay the regulations on looked-after children, which will mean that looked-after children are top of the list of the admissions criteria for schools. So all schools will have to look at those children first—[Interruption.] Yes. By 2007, hard-to-place pupils will also have to get priority in the queue, as it were. If schools need to deal with those pupils by having extra off-site provision, because that is the way those children will benefit most, that is the way they should go, and they should plan that provision between themselves. But schools will have the incentive to plan good provision, because those children will be on their rolls, unless they have been excluded from school. So those children will be some of the first to benefit from these proposals.