Parliamentary Search

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 subject to child protection plans, (b) how many home-educated children have been taken into care or placed with a foster family, (c) what is the total number of home-educated children, and (d) how many of the home-educated children in each local authority who have been taken into care or are subject to a child protection plan(1) are from traveller families, and (2) are children who first became home-educated in years 10 or 11 with a previous history of irregular attendance.
Answer

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 74 local authorities identified a total of 51 home-educated children that were subject to child protection plans 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. However, the department has provided a histogram setting out the spread of child protection plans by local authority and this can be found at (http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/ete/independentreviewofhomeeducation/irhome education/). We have not collected information about the number of home-educated children taken into care or placed with a foster family, neither have we collected any information about the number of home educated children subject to care orders who are from a traveller background, or who are in years 10 and 11. 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. However, neither we nor local authorities know how many children are being home educated as there is currently no requirement for home educators to notify local authorities or any other public bodies that their children are home-educated.

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 numbers < than 10 per LA"

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
410; 715 c207-9WA
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
Children Care proceedings Foster care Home education Protection Travellers
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk