APPENDIX 66
Letter from Kevin Brennan MP, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for the Department for Children, Schools
and Families
I am writing with further information
requested by the Committee from its session on4 March. The Annex
to this letter summarises the relevant legislative underpinning
for safeguarding children and young people and sets out recent
and planned work of the Department for Children, Schools and Families
in this area. It then addresses the Committee's specific questions.
As this is a good deal of information I thought it would be helpful
for me to summarise the key points.
Keeping children and young people safe
is a top priority for this Government and my Department. We have
introduced new legislation, new guidance and new structures to
make children safer. And we're committed to doing even more as
set out most recently in the cross-Government Staying Safe: Action
Plan published last month.
Child abuse is completely unacceptable.
There are no excuses. I share the Committee's concern about the
abuse and harm to children caused by domestic violence and forced
marriage. I would like to make it absolutely clear that this Government
is committed to improving the safety and welfare of all children
and young people, whatever their background or circumstances.
I am determined that we will do all we can to make the existing
systems and guidance as effective as possible and to strengthen
them where needed.
Our responses to the Committee's questions
set out in some detail the specific guidance and other measures
this Department has put in place to ensure that schools and local
authorities understand their responsibilities in relation to children's
safety and are clear about the action they need to take. Ministers
intend to write to all schools and local authorities within the
next few weeks reinforcing these responsibilities and the related
guidance, highlighting good practice, and drawing attention to
the planned consultation on revised forced marriage guidelines
which we intend to place on a statutory footing this autumn.
The Annex provides the Committee with
qualitative and quantitative information collected, via regional
Government Offices, from 14 local authorities. There is some interesting
practice on raising awareness of forced marriage issues in schools
which I hope the Committee will find useful.
In relation to the quantitative data,
it is important to contextualise for the Committee the basis on
which this data has been collected by local authorities. In February
last year a new duty on local authorities came into force, backed
by statutory Government guidance, to identify children not receiving
suitable education. The Annex sets out more detail about what
the duty involves. The duty was intended to ensure that all local
authorities were focusing on and properly following up children
who were not being educated suitably and who might be at risk
in other ways. The statutory guidance provided to support local
authorities in their exercise of this duty sets out in some detail
the processes which authorities need to follow, including where
appropriate involving the police, It also includes a specific
reference to the forced marriage guidance.
Following last week's Select Committee
discussion, my officials requested quantitative data from 14 local
areas via the regional Government Offices. The overall figures
provided, which relate to the number of children under the school
leaving age not receiving a suitable education (as defined by
the duty referred to above) are set out in the Annex for 13 of
these authorities. In relation to Bradford, which was discussed
at the Select Committee session last week, I have asked my officials
to probe their figures more deeply and I will update you on what
we find as soon as possible.
It is important to clarify that the figures
for children not receiving a suitable education are made up of
children that have come to the local authority's attention in
different ways—for example, some are children who are not
at school because their parents have not yet taken up a school
place; some are children being educated at home where the local
authority is not satisfied with the standard of the education;
some are children notified to the local authority by schools because
the children have been continually absent from school. Of the
total some are "missing" in the sense that they are
not at their previously known address. This may be because the
family has moved without giving forward contact details, and their
previous school and authority have not yet found out where. The
volumes are very variable and I will ask Government Offices to
discuss the larger figures in particular with local authorities.
Many of the local authorities that replied
to us explained about cases that had been passed to the police,
and they explained about other ways in which they followed up
the cases of these children.
The statutory guidance on this duty has
now been in place for a year and I have written today to Her Majesty's
Chief Inspector to ask Ofsted to provide their view of how well
this new duty is being implemented. Following advice from Ofsted,
the Department will work with local authorities to share best
practice and lessons that can be learnt about putting in place
more effective mechanisms.
We are committed to working closely with
colleagues in the Home Office and the Forced Marriage Unit including
on the development of further materials tailored more specifically
to schools and young people.
I hope the information in this letter
will aid the Committee's Enquiry. I would of course be happy to
respond to any further requests the Committee may have. We are
already committed to reporting to Parliament later this month
on the action we intend to take to raise awareness and engagement
in schools on these important issues.
11 March 2008
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