Annex B
Letter from Christine Gilbert, Her Majesty's
Chief Inspector Ofsted
LOCAL AUTHORITY
DUTY TO
ESTABLISH IDENTITIES
OF CHILDREN
NOT RECEIVING
A SUITABLE
EDUCATION
Thank you for your letter of 11 March
2008, in which you express interest in Ofsted's view on how well
local authorities are implementing their duty to establish the
identities of children not receiving a suitable education in line
with the statutory guidance issued in February 2007.
The framework for the inspection of local
authorities requires inspectors to examine and report on this
aspect of provision in the safeguarding section of the report.
We have reviewed all the joint area review
reports for those local authorities inspected since April 2007.
Our findings show that the majority of the local authorities inspected
during this period have good procedures in place for tracking
children and young people missing from education and/or care.
Many local authorities work well in partnership across agencies
and with organisations such as the police and Barnardos to provide
dedicated services aimed at young people who go missing. Some
local authorities have well established cross-border protocols
with neighbouring authorities to enable them to share information
about missing children and young people to track them more effectively.
However, in a few areas there is a lack
of over-arching co-ordinated approach to collecting and recording
the data related to missing children and young people, which makes
it difficult to establish their whereabouts. In other authorities
links with the police, health and voluntary organisations are
not sufficiently established.
It is clear from our findings that the
best practice involves local authorities establishing good links
with schools, collecting and monitoring the attendance data regularly
and working closely with other agencies.
We have issued clear guidance to our
inspectors involved in current and forthcoming joint area reviews
to give particular attention to this specific issue during their
inspections.
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