Memorandum submitted by Dr
Andrew and Mrs H A Bettany
1. Introduction
We are submitting our response to the
recent review of EHE in our capacity as parents who have been home-educating
one or more of our children over the past 11 years. Two of our three children
have SEN. Our children have experienced a wide variety of educational settings.
· full-time mainstream school
· flexi-schooling mainstream
· full-time specialised language unit
attached to mainstream school
· flexi-schooling with language unit
· full-time home-education
· full-time home-education with the LEA
buying in specialist support from a special school.
2. Conduct of the
review
2.1 The fact that
Mr Badman is asking for more evidence
The letter from Mr Badman to the Directors
of Children's Services, dated 17th September, appealed for
assistance for further evidence to back up his review. He acknowledges that his
28 recommendations were based 'on a small sample' that did not provide
satisfactory 'statistically rigorous information'. Mr Badman's recommendations
regarding 'Safeguarding' were partly based on the evidence that 'the number of
children known to children's social care in some local authorities is
disproportionately high relative to the size of their home education
population.' Two points are raised by
this:
· Children with SEN are known to social services by virtue of having a
disability. Including such children in the statistics would lead to biased
representation.
· Section 3.7 of the review states that local authorities have, 'no
means of determining the number of children who are being EHE in their area'.
In asking the LEA to provide a figure for the number of EHE children who were
the subject of a child protection plan as a proportion of the total number of
EHE in the local authority, he is asking them to compare a known variable with
an unknown one. Section 1.3 states that the estimate of the number of children
in EHE is likely to be greatly underestimated. Therefore, the true number of
children subject of a child protection plan in relation to the general EHE
numbers is likely to be significantly lower than reported.
2.2 Concern about how the review seems to be
shrouded in secrecy and being rushed through.
Even MPs are unable to access all the
relevant material. Lord Lucas asked the Government to place a copy of the
impact assessment to accompany the "Registration and Monitoring Proposals"
consultation in the Library of the House but Baroness Morgan stated that 'An
impact assessment is not required for the consultation at this stage as the
proposals are still at an early stage of development." (House of Commons
Debate, 29th June 2009 c6W) However, The Rt. Hon. Ed Balls stated in
his letter to Mr Badman that, 'We are acting immediately to address the
review's recommendation on safeguarding by issuing a consultation on new
statutory arrangements today.' Such radical proposals, which fundamentally
change the rights of parents to choose how they educate their children, should
be subject to vigorous debate by all interested parties and given time to consider
the impact of such proposals.
2.3 Mr Badman has
made various proposals about how the LEA should further support EHE but has not
included any costing for these recommendations.
In fact, Baroness Morgan, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary for Children, Young People and Families, stated that, 'We do
not expect them (the proposals) to place any significant additional burdens on
local authorities'. (House of Commons Debate, 29th June 2009
c6W)
3. The recommendations
3.1 The
current recommendation of compulsory annual registration and right of access to
people's homes for local authority officials is disproportionate to the
reported problems.
3.2 We
acknowledge that, at present, it is difficult for local authorities to fulfil
their obligations when they do not know how many EHE live in their region. The
Government needs to address the reasons why many EHE choose not to register.
Rather than assuming EHEs have something
to hide, they should consider the attitudes of those in LEA that lead to a
reluctance to register. They have to accept that many in the education
profession (section 4.7 of the review), have a fundamental opposition to the
whole basis of EHE. This is not a good basis for mutual respect and cooperation
between interested parties.
3.3 We
are extremely concerned about the linking of education issues and welfare
concerns.
September
2009
