HomeSchooler.org.uk

"Thank you for your letter of 3 August, on behalf of your constituent, Ms ******** of ******** about the Home Education Review.

First of all I should reiterate that the government supports the right of parents to home educate their children, and that the Badman report does nothing to change that position. It considers carefully the way that government should balance the rights of a child to receive a suitable education, and the subsidiary right of parents to educate children in accordance with their beliefs and philosophies. You will appreciate that this is a difficult balance to achieve, as local authorities have a duty to ensure that no child should miss out on education.

The Badman report has been misrepresented as being mainly about safeguarding. This is entirely wrong, as the main thrust is about ensuring all children receive a suitable education, and the report includes a number of recommendations which will bring about major improvements the way local authorities support home educators in accessing education services. Indeed, the main purpose of home visits is to ensure that children are receiving a suitable education in a suitable environment. There is no question of social workers makig routine visits: monitoring will be carried out by people whose role is primarily to check the provision of education. If child protection concerns were identified during the routine educational visits, things will proceed under child protection legislation as in any other case where there were child protection issues, irrespective of the education setting.

The report make it clear that all local authority officers and others engaged in the monitoring and support of elective home education must be suitably trained. This training must include awareness of safeguarding issues and a full understanding of the essential difference, variation and diversity in home education practice, as compared to schools.

Local authorities already have a duty to identify children not receiving a suitable education, and a duty to promote the safety and welfare of all children in their area. They also have a duty to intervene where they have concerns about the education or safety and welfare of a child in their area. Whilst local authority officers will be trained in the awareness of safeguarding issues, it is not intended that this training will replace the repsonsibility or work that social workers carry out.

On safeguarding, the review collected evidence, including evidence from serious case reviews, from local authorities about home educating children known to them, which provided a factual basis for the statement 'the number of children know to children's social care in some local authorities is disproportionaley high'.

I am sure you will appreciate that we cannot release data that could lead to individual children being identified. I attach a copy of a working paper 'Independent Review of Home Education - safeguarding evidence' which we have already released under an earlier Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

This document was a background analysis of information provided by local authorities. The conclusions of the Review did not depend on this evidence, and it was therefore not published as part of the Review. As I am sure you will appreciate not all information gathered, or analyses carried out, to inform review of this kind are routinely published, particularly where they are not relevant to published recommendations. In this case the Department has been happy to release the information in response to an FOI request, in the raw unedited form in which it is held. The only information which the Department would not release is information which is out of scope of FOI requests, or which engates exemptions uner the FOI Act.

The report acknowledges the very difficult circumstances in which many families are home educating. We agree with the recommendations in the report but the sector is hugely diverse. This area neds fresh thinging and we need to work with all concerned to make sure that teh right support is available to help home educating parents meet their needs and that it is affortable.

Local authorities already have a duty to identify children not receiving a suitable education, and a duty to promote the safety and welfare of all children in their area. They also have a duty to intervene where they have concerns about the education or safety and welfare of a child in there area. The proposals we are consulting on for a system of registration and monitoring fit squarely with those existing duties and will make it easier for local authorities to take action where they need todo so. We will be working with local authorities to identify any significant additional costs they expect to incur.

Some things can be done quickly but others are subject to outcomes of additional work we will do on costs and deliver mechanisms. Ministers will set out in autumn how we intend to take the remaining recommenndations forward."