A 鈥渨ell overdue鈥 update on school fire safety advice proposed in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster is one of seven forgotten policies, a Schools Week investigation has found. Campaigners also fear consultations on the regulation of unregistered alternative provision and on new guidance on home education, both of which had fairly broad support, have fallen by the wayside. It comes as the Labour government embarks on major new reforms, including on Ofsted, the curriculum and SEND. But Schools Week analysis of consultations conducted over the past five years found seven with a response overdue. Departments are supposed to publish consultation responses within 12 weeks. However, a 2021 consultation on 鈥楤uilding Bulletin 100鈥 guidance, which governs fire safety design in schools, is still awaiting a response. The That consultation followed a call for evidence on the guidance in 2019, commissioned in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Fire compliance ‘difficult issue’ for schools Tim Warneford, a school buildings and funding expert, warned that an update was 鈥渨ell overdue鈥, but guidance around fire safety 鈥渋s a very sticky subject that no body, party or agency is particularly willing to stick their heads above the parapet for鈥. Fire compliance was a 鈥渄ifficult issue to define for schools鈥, he added. For example, insurance policies can insist on different levels of protection 鈥 those that prevent the spread of fire, or those that also detect and extinguish fire. 鈥淭he enormous risk that stems from the above confusion is that too many schools undertake their own in-house fire risk assessments via some template they have downloaded as a means of saving money,鈥 Warneford said. 鈥淭hey thus run the considerable risk of thinking of themselves as compliant.鈥 Calls for DfE to revive unregistered AP reforms A government response is also outstanding for a consultation launched last May which set out plans to clamp down on unregistered alternative provision. The proposals would have time-limited the use of unregistered AP, require settings to comply with national standards and have councils maintain lists of 鈥渁pproved鈥 provision for schools to use. Kiran Gill Kiran Gill, founder and CEO of AP charity The Difference, said the original consultation was 鈥渋tself long overdue鈥. 鈥淐urrently far too many vulnerable children are placed with providers that operate without adequate oversight鈥 far too many are unsafe environments where staff are not required to undergo criminal record checks, and where the quality of education is not routinely evaluated. 鈥淭he department need to respond urgently to show they are taking this critical safeguarding issue seriously. Our children deserve better.鈥 Home ed guidance proposed ‘more positive relationships’ Another response well overdue relates to a consultation launched in October 2023 on draft new elective home education guidance. It proposed voluntary registers of children in home education and information-sharing agreements with GPs and police. Many of these proposals have been superseded by the Children鈥檚 Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which proposes compulsory registers, checks on the suitability of the home learning environment and a council veto for some pupils. But the proposed guidance also aimed to 鈥減romote a more positive relationship between local authorities and home educators鈥, a message that Wendy Charles-Warner, from Education Otherwise, fears has been lost under the new government. Of the remaining four overdue consultations, one relates to a proposed update to GCSE computer science content, which ran last summer. Another proposing the removal of an expectation that students engage with unfamiliar and abstract material in language GCSEs ran in 2022. The other two relate to the last government鈥檚 proposed update to relationships, sex and health education guidance and its new guidance on how schools should support gender-questioning children. Both were controversial and the new government has said both are being reviewed. Consultations ‘aren’t free to do’ The DfE said it had no further update on overdue responses. As policies were launched under the previous government, they are being reviewed. Jonathan Simons, partner at Public First and a former Downing Street education adviser, pointed out that consultations 鈥渁ren鈥檛 free to do鈥. 鈥淓ven a small team of officials working on writing the document, sorting and reading all the responses, coming to conclusions and sending those up to ministers for a view takes time 鈥 often weeks or months,鈥 he said. 鈥淎nd of course, on the other side, policy teams in charities and companies, and educationalists and MATs and others spend time writing replies to the questions that government is asking.鈥 He said it was 鈥渇ine for priorities to shift 鈥 especially when governments change colour 鈥 but to just leave consultations hanging is verging on rude鈥.