Posted By : Sue Gerrard

I’d like to draw your attention to proposals for changes in legislation relating to elective home education. It is proposed that local authority officers be given the right to enter the home and to interview the child alone in order to ascertain that the child is safe and well and being suitably educated. On the face of it, this sounds reasonable, but right of entry will be routine and will not require evidence to suggest that the child is at risk or not receiving a suitable education (ie that the parent is in breach of the law). I understand there are protocols in place in relation to interviewing child witnesses in criminal proceedings; there is no suggestion that these will be implemented in the case of home educated children, even though the child’s testimony could result in him or her being removed from the family home or the parent facing prosecution.

I am concerned that the proposals are being made in the absence of reliable data on home-educated children, and when many social services departments are already overstretched. Local authority resources will be diverted into the monitoring of families whose children are safe and well, and away from children already known to be at risk. The proposals effectively give local authorities a parenting role. I fear that once local authorities have the power of entry to the home to see home-educated children, it will be a short step to rolling out this power to include all children, and then the police might like to use it for their investigations.

I should be most grateful if you could follow the progress of this proposed legislation in the forthcoming Improving Schools and Safeguarding Children Bill - home education is an esoteric area and one which is beneath the radar of most MPs. It provides an opportunity for a dangerous precedent to be set which could prove to have significant repercussions for the constitutional role of local government. More information can be found at

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/ete/independentreviewofhomeeducation/irhomeeducation/
and

http://www.freedomforchildrentogrow.org/