The Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 26 May 2026, after the Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 24 March 2026. The legislation creates a dedicated statutory framework for how restraint and seclusion are defined, governed and monitored in Scottish schools. Until now, practice in this area has depended heavily on local policies, wider safeguarding duties and non-statutory guidance. The Act moves the subject onto a clearer legal basis and gives education providers, parents, regulators and advocacy organisations a single reference point for duties, consultation requirements and reporting arrangements.
The starting point is the Act's definitions. 'Restraint' means physical contact by a member of staff of an education provider that is intended to significantly restrict a pupil's physical movement, including freedom of movement or the ability to move independently. 'Seclusion' means anything done by a member of staff with the intention of isolating a pupil from other pupils and preventing the pupil from leaving the place of isolation. The legislation also makes clear that staff includes anyone acting under an education provider's authority, not only directly employed school staff. Scottish Ministers are given a regulation-making power to adjust the definitions after consultation if they consider that the wording either captures actions that do not carry a significant risk of harm or fails to capture additional actions that do.
A central duty in the Act is the requirement for Scottish Ministers to issue guidance to education providers on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools. The guidance must address what counts as significant restriction of movement, which forms of restraint or seclusion are appropriate or inappropriate, alternatives to their use, steps to prevent or minimise incidents, safeguarding considerations, relevant legal requirements, post-incident action, recording and monitoring, inspection, staff training, complaints handling and the action needed to resolve complaints. That guidance can elaborate on the statutory definitions and can make different provision for different schools or different kinds of provider. Before issuing or revising it, Ministers must consult education providers, representatives of parents, school staff unions, children and young people, the Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland, and voluntary bodies or others they consider appropriate. Once published, education providers must have regard to it. The Act also allows consultation on the first round of guidance to take place before the section formally comes into force.
The Act creates a direct notification duty where a pupil is subject to restraint or seclusion in school. The responsible person must tell the parent both that the incident occurred and the details of the incident as soon as possible, and no later than the end of the school day. Where that is not reasonably practicable, the deadline becomes 24 hours after the incident. For schools managed by an education authority, the responsible person is the headteacher or another member of staff authorised by the headteacher. In an independent school it is the proprietor, and in a grant-aided school it is the managers. If a parent has asked for another person to receive such information, the school may notify that person instead. Ministers may later exempt specified types of restraint or seclusion from this duty through regulations.
Beyond individual notification, the Act puts record-keeping and national oversight into law. Every education provider must record all incidents of restraint or seclusion in its schools. Education authorities must provide Ministers with the number of incidents in schools under their management, while the proprietor of an independent school and the managers of a grant-aided school must do the same for their own institutions. Scottish Ministers may go further by regulations and require incidents to be reported to another specified person, with rules on timescales, form and content. The legislation also requires Ministers to prepare an annual report setting out the number of incidents in schools across Scotland and to lay that report before the Scottish Parliament as soon as practicable after the end of each reporting year. The first reporting period runs from commencement to the following 31 July, with later years running from 1 August to 31 July.
The reporting system is not entirely fixed on the face of the Act. Ministers may by regulations specify types of restraint or seclusion that do not need to be recorded, reported or, by cross-reference, notified to parents under the notification section. Those regulations must be consulted on before they are laid, giving providers, parent bodies and advocacy organisations a formal opportunity to comment. In practice, the overall shape of the regime will depend partly on how these delegated powers are used. Decisions on exclusions from records, reporting formats, timescales and any future adjustment of the statutory definitions will affect how visible school practice becomes to families, inspectors and Parliament.
Training is treated as a separate policy area. The Act allows Scottish Ministers to develop standards for training on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools and to maintain a list of people who meet those standards. Ministers may also recognise standards developed by other bodies and keep a published list of persons who meet those external standards. That approach does not, by itself, impose an immediate duty on schools to use a particular training provider. It does, however, give Ministers a way to shape expectations around procurement, workforce development and inspection. For providers, the likely effect is that training choices will become easier to compare and easier to scrutinise.
The Act applies across school settings within three categories of education provider: education authorities, proprietors of independent schools and managers of grant-aided schools. It adopts key definitions from the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 for terms such as parent, pupil and school, but it expressly excludes nursery schools and nursery classes from the meaning of school for the purposes of this legislation. The regulation-making powers are wide. Ministers may make different provision for different purposes or areas, and most regulations under the Act are subject to the affirmative procedure, requiring approval by the Scottish Parliament before they take effect. A separate power allows incidental, supplementary, consequential, transitional or saving provision, including amendments to other enactments. Where that power amends primary legislation, affirmative procedure applies; otherwise the negative procedure is used.
Not all of the new framework takes effect at once. The interpretation, regulation-making, ancillary and short title provisions came into force on 27 May 2026, the day after Royal Assent. The substantive sections dealing with definitions, guidance, parental notification, recording, reporting and training standards will come into force on dates appointed by Scottish Ministers, and those commencement regulations must be made no later than 31 July 2028. That staging gives Ministers time to consult on guidance and secondary legislation, and it gives schools time to review behaviour policies, incident recording systems, family communication arrangements, staff authorisations and complaints routes. For parents and advocacy groups, the Act is significant not only because it creates new duties, but because it opens formal consultation points and annual reporting channels that should make practice easier to examine at a national level.