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Written question asked by Lord Lucas (Conservative), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour) on Tuesday, 15 December 2009.

Education: Home Schooling

Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government for each local authority for which they have data, (a) how many home-educated children are considered not to be receiving a suitable education, (b) what is the total number of home-educated children, and (c) how many of the home-educated children considered not to be receiving a suitable education (1) are from traveller families, (2) are children who first became home-educated in years 10 or 11 with a previous history of irregular attendance, (3) are children whose parents have not provided the local authority with the datawhich they have asked for, (4) are children whose parents have refused to allow the local authority to interview their children, and (5) are children who have not been assessed by the local authority.
Answer

I attach a table showing the number of electively home-educated children in each local authority that responded to the questionnaire on home education distributed in September. The department's policy is not to release any information that might lead to individual children being identified where data released could be combined with other data. As 69 local authorities identified a total of 609 home-educated children that they assessed as receiving education but not full-time or suitable education, we are not able to release a breakdown of this data by local authority, as the numbers for each individual authority would be very small and individual children might be identified. We did not collect information on the ethnic or cultural background of home-educated children receiving no education, nor their age, so we are unable to provide information on the number from a traveller background, or the number that are in years 10 or 11. In respect of the children in his categories 3 and 4, local authorities were asked separately for information about children where there was a lack of cooperation with monitoring. The document published at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/publications/documents/laeelective homeeducation/) includes the questionnaire that was sent to local authorities which set out the different categories of information that were sought.

Local Authority Total Elective Home Educated (EHE) population
Bath and North East Somerset 50
Bedfordshire 70
Bolton 81
Bradford 132
Brighton and Hove 157
Buckinghamshire 185
Calderdale 38
Cambridgeshire 200
Cheshire East 127
City of London *
Cornwall 311
Coventry 60
Cumbria 261
Darlington 97
Derby 79
Devon 674
Dorset 157
Dudley 156
Durham 110
East Riding of Yorkshire 139
Essex 733
Gateshead 29
Gloucestershire 224
Greenwich 96
Halton 28
Hampshire 372
Isle of Wight 141
Isles of Scilly 0
Kent 673
Kingston upon Hull 84
Kingston upon Thames 44
Kirklees 67
Lancashire 465
Leeds 140
Lewisham 123
Lincolnshire 411
Liverpool 57
Manchester 91
Medway 195
Milton Keynes 96
Newcastle upon Tyne 52
Norfolk 375
North East Lincolnshire 49
North Somerset 121
Northamptonshire 183
Northumberland 46
Nottingham City 96
Nottinghamshire 238
Oxfordshire 329
Plymouth 135
Reading 50
Redbridge 55
Redcar and Cleveland 27
Rotherham 70
Sefton 58
Somerset 249
South Gloucestershire 108
Southampton 82
St Helens 33
Staffordshire 244
Stockton on Tees 31
Sunderland 66
Surrey 695
Torbay 91
Trafford 35
Wandsworth 47
Warrington 39
Warwickshire 123
West Sussex 407
Wigan 72
Wiltshire 148
Windsor and Maidenhead *
Wirral 35
Wolverhampton 141
Total 11,6**

"* indicates number < than 10 per LA"

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
408; 715 c205-7WA
Session
2009-10
Related items
Education: Home Schooling
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Written questions
House of Lords
Education: Home Schooling
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Written questions
House of Lords
Subjects
Home education Standards Travellers
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk