Section 61: Children's Commissioner for Wales: powers of entry

250.     Section 61 gives the Children's Commissioner for Wales the power to enter premises, other than private homes, to interview children when reviewing and monitoring the functions of and arrangements made by the Assembly and other specified persons. The power does not apply to the Commissioner in the discharge of his function of conducting examinations or considering and making representations on any matter, under sections 74 and 75A of the Care Standards Act 2000.

Section 62: Publication of material relating to legal proceedings

251.     Section 62(1) amends section 97 of the Children Act 1989 to make clear that the publication of material from family proceedings which is intended, or likely, to identify any child as being involved in such proceedings (or the address or school of such a child) is only prohibited in relation to publication of information to the public or any section of the public. This section will make the effect of section 97 less prohibitive by allowing disclosure of such information in certain circumstances. In effect, this means that passing on information identifying, or likely to identify, a child (his school or his address) as being involved in court proceedings to an individual or a number of individuals would not generally be a criminal offence.

252.     It is envisaged that rules of court will set out the cases in which publication of information relating to children is authorised. Being authorised by rules of court, such publication will not constitute contempt. Subsection (2) amends section 12 of the Administration of the Justice Act 1960 to make it clear that the reference in subsection (4) to publication which does not constitute contempt includes cases where the publication is expressly authorised by rules of court.

253.     The remaining subsections amend rule-making powers to enable the rules to be made.

Section 63: Disclosure of information by Inland Revenue

254.     Section 63 amends Schedule 5 of the Tax Credits Act 2002 to enable the Inland Revenue to share Tax Credit, Child Benefit or Guardian's Allowance information (except where it relates to a person's income) with local authorities (or, in Northern Ireland, Health and Social Services Boards) for the purposes of enquiries and investigations relating to the welfare of a child under the legislation specified in subsection (2).

255.     Subsection (3) enables those authorities to pass this information on to other people or bodies (e.g. the police) for the purpose of such enquiries or investigations without the consent of the Inland Revenue. It also enables authorities to pass information from the Revenue to others for the purposes of civil or criminal proceedings or where the Revenue would have had the legal power to do this themselves. However, subsection (4) provides that, in these circumstances, authorities are required to seek permission from the Revenue beforehand.

256.     In any other cases, subsection (5) makes it an offence for a staff member of an authority to disclose information provided to him/her under subsection (1) unless the disclosure is made:

• in accordance with an enactment or order of court,

• with the consent of person to whom the information relates, or

• in a way that prevents identification of the person to whom the information relates.

257.     This places a criminal sanction against unauthorised disclosure by the authority's staff, which reflects the existing Inland Revenue criminal sanction against unauthorised disclosure of information by Revenue staff. Subsection (6) provides that a person charged with this offence has the defence that he/she reasonably believed that his/her disclosure was lawful. In practice this means that the onus of proof is on the defendant. If found guilty, subsection (7) would mean that a person is liable to a maximum of two years imprisonment.

258.     Section 67(7)(k) provides that section 63 took effect on the day on which the Children Act 2004 received Royal Assent.

Section 67: Commencement

259.     Part 1, which establishes the Children's Commissioner, section 59, the power to give financial assistance, and section 63, which allows disclosure of information by the Inland Revenue will come into force on Royal Assent.

260.     Sections 45 to 47, which create the power to establish by regulations a registration scheme for private foster carers in England and Wales, section 49 which creates the power by order to make provision on payments to foster carers, and section 58 which restricts the use of the defence of reasonable chastisement, will come into force two months after Royal Assent.

261.     The rest of the Act's provisions will be brought into force on dates appointed by the Secretary of State or, where specified, by the National Assembly for Wales by commencement order. In particular:

• Sections 25 and 31 will be commenced by the National Assembly for Wales except where their provisions relate to non-devolved bodies in which case they may only be commenced with the consent of the Secretary of State.

• Section 28 will be commenced by the National Assembly for Wales insofar as its provisions relate to devolved bodies. Provisions relating to non-devolved bodies will be commenced by the Secretary of State after consulting the National Assembly for Wales.

Hansard References

262.     The following table sets out the dates and Hansard references for each stage of this Act's passage through Parliament.

Royal Assent -- 15 November 2004     House of Lords Hansard Vol. 666, Col. 1185

                         House of Commons Hansard Vol. 426, Col. 1009