Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Children and Family Services providing a summary of the House of Commons Education Committee report on the Forgotten Children: alternative provision and the scandal of ever increasing inclusions, along with key recommendations.  The report also detailed the position of the Leicestershire Children and Families Service in relation to the findings and recommendations and the department’s developments from September 2018.  A copy of the report marked ‘Agenda Item 10’ is filed with these minutes.

Arising from the discussion, the following comments were raised:

i)             It was noted that the County Council now had a formal link with secondary schools around alternative provision.  As a result of the review of the Education and Quality Team, the Education Effectiveness Team would now be the first point of contact for all schools, and held the data sets for schools around pupils who were electively home educated, referrals to secondary partnerships and young people who had been taken off roll or had moved to another school.  Discussions were now taking place with schools when a child had become electively home educated to ensure that this was the most appropriate outcome for the child.

ii)            Until 31 October 2018, the department had commissioned services to complete visits and monitor the educational attainment of children who were electively home educated.  However, as an interim measure, this facility had been brought in-house whilst a review was undertaken of all the services relating to inclusion.  There was a statutory duty to undertake a visit once a child became home educated and, although officers had no formal authority to enter the house, they sought to be actively engaged with families where children were home educated.

iii)           Concern was raised by a member that some children were missing education due to them being unable to travel to the school they had been allocated.  As a result, their parents were withdrawing them from school.  In response to a query around how this situation could be improved, it was recognised that there were parts of Leicestershire where children were expected to travel further to school as a result of over-subscription at their local school.  However, these children were on the roll of a school and would therefore not be categorised as a child missing education.

iv)           Leicestershire County Council was fully aware of the children who were on the roll of a school but were not attending, those who were contesting the allocation of places, and those who had been taken off the roll of a school by parents as a result of the school being too far away.  The local authority had a duty to ensure that there were sufficient school places for children within its area, and this was the case in Leicestershire.

v)            In relation to a query around why children in poverty were more likely to be excluded, it was felt that this could be as a result of a number of issues.  Assurance was given that the report did not imply that children would be excluded as a result of poverty, but it was known that children living in poverty were often more vulnerable to a variety of outcomes, one of which was exclusion.  Leicestershire had relatively low exclusion rates, but the local data had not yet been broken down to see whether there was a prevalence of children living in poverty being excluded.

vi)           The length of time a child spent in alternative provision was dependent on the individual’s case.  Education in alternative provision was mostly brokered through the secondary partnerships, although consideration was being given to using alternative provision less and to build capacity into the mainstream school system.  A large piece of work was currently being undertaken around inclusion, and this included work on alternative provision.  It was agreed that it would be useful to present a report on the outcome of this work to the Committee in a year’s time.

vii)         The numbers around how many children in Leicestershire were possibly not receiving education, and how many fewer hours education a child in alternative provision was receiving were very variable, and it was therefore agreed to present a more detailed report to the Committee in six months on the data in relation to those who were missing education, electively home educated children and exclusions. 

viii)        The Lead Member for Children and Families stated that Leicestershire had already implemented a number of the recommendations from the House of Commons report.  He acknowledged that there were some issues where the local authority had no power to do anything, but felt that this needed to change.  An area of particular interest was how many children off the roll of a school came into care and this would be looked into. 

RESOLVED:

(a)  That the report be noted;

(b)  That a report be presented to the Committee in six months on the current figures in relation to those missing education, electively home educated children and exclusions;

(c)  That a more detailed report, focussing on Inclusion, be presented to the Committee in a year’s time;

(d)  That data be provided to the Committee on how many excluded children become children in care.