In 2018 the Education Minister of the time, Kirsty Williams, had no hesitation in saying that the proposals to create Children Missing Education databases were an integral part of the Welsh Government’s intention “to identify who is home educated, and to assess if they are receiving suitable education.” Two years later, she insisted that “the database regulations do not interfere with the parental choice to home educate.” Her ministerial successor, Jeremy Miles, continued this latter narrative, and this is now being echoed by Lynne Neagle, the current post-holder.
This ‘long read’ looks back at William’s original statement, and what happened in the intervening months to give her space to adapt her messaging.
To help readers who are unfamiliar with the timetable of these proposals, this graphic outlines the intervening events; it can also be downloaded as a PDF.
In a written statement published on 11 September, Lynne Neagle, Cabinet Secretary for Education, announced the Welsh Government’s decision to press ahead with trials of the proposed Children Missing Education local authority databases. This despite the majority of respondents to the most recent consultation on these proposals being opposed to them. At the same time, a Summary of Responses was published on the consultation‘s web page.
This Summary is not a topic for this article, apart from noting that the overall number of responses received was 337, and that the majority of individual responses were from home educators opposed to the proposals.
In her statement, Neagle referred three times to ‘stakeholders.’ On the first occasion, she distinguished them from “members of the public.”
“The consultation provided stakeholders and members of the public with an opportunity to have their say on the ‘Children Act 2004 Children Missing Education Database (Wales) Regulations’.”
Give that most parents consider themselves to be members of the public, they are seemingly not considered to be stakeholders in their children’s futures. The institutional ‘stakeholders’ referred to are defined in the summary document as Local authorities, Local health boards, General medical services contractors, Education stakeholders and Children and family stakeholders. This distinction underlines the prevailing political mindset that the state believes itself to have a stake, a claim, an investment in every child. It should therefore be asked if the desire to interfere in their lives is in order to protect the interests of each child, or those of the state,
It is important, however, to examine the Cabinet Secretary’s assertion that the consultation does not concern home educating families:
“I would like to be clear that these proposals are not about elective home education; the regulations are aligned with the ‘children missing education’ statutory guidance and aim to provide a mechanism for local authorities to identify children who are missing education.” [emphasis in quotations added throughout unless otherwise stated]
Is this claim fact or fiction?
Earlier Neagle had correctly recounted the history of these proposals, stating:
“I am mindful that discussions about these policy proposals have been ongoing for some time and have been subject to extensive consultation and development. This is a second consultation in relation to local authority education databases. The first, held in 2020, resulted in significant revisions to the initial proposals to address concerns raised by some stakeholders, and home educating parents and carers in relation to proportionality and scope.”
Without being distracted by her clear distinction between ‘stakeholders’ and parents, she is correct to point back to the 2020 consultation, but that far from supports her argument that the “proposals are not about elective home education.” In the Introduction to the Summary of Responses, the following point is made:
“1.5 Using the powers afforded by the Children Act 2004, the then Minister for Education Kirsty Williams AM proposed to introduce regulations that would require local authorities to establish and maintain a database of all children of compulsory school age, as a means of identifying children who are missing education. It was also proposed that local health boards as well as independent schools would disclose basic information about children with the relevant local authority.” [link added]
No links are provided to Williams’ statements concerning these databases, but it is worthwhile examining what she said. She first set them out in a Senedd Plenary session on 30 January, 2018, (video) which was introduced by the Deputy Presiding Officer of the time, Ann Jones MS, as being about “securing the right to a suitable education for all children.” Williams opened her statement thus:
“Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This Government is committed to ensuring that every child and young person receives an education that inspires, motivates and equips them with the skills and knowledge necessary to fulfil their potential. In Wales, we have an education system that partners equity with excellence. Our system provides a range of choices to meet the different needs and abilities of learners of all ages and abilities. While most parents choose to have their children educated in school, there is a proportion of parents who decide to educate their children at home. Members will know that this is known as elective home education.
Local authorities are under a duty to make arrangements to establish the identities of children who are of compulsory school age and not receiving a suitable education. They currently have powers in relation to school attendance, but there is a challenge for them being able to identify children not registered at a school or receiving a suitable education otherwise than at school. We are in a situation where, frankly, the Welsh Government is unable to provide reliable figures on how many children are educated at home, and that is simply not acceptable.
I have given careful consideration to the need to strengthen the policy and legislative framework around home education. In the course of developing this approach, we have looked at other international approaches, and I think, Deputy Presiding Officer, it is fair to say that home education legislation in Wales is one of the most light touch in Europe. By comparison, a number of European neighbours have had systems of registration in place for some time.
Today, I’m announcing my intention to assist local authorities in meeting their existing duties to identify children not receiving a suitable education. I intend to consult on using existing powers found in section 29 of the Children Act 2004 to require local authorities to establish a database to assist them in identifying children not receiving suitable education. The consultation will also consider which partners will be able to provide the most complete database, such as local health boards.”
It’s really not difficult to join the dots between the first three paragraphs and the fourth.
- The problem? Parents who home educate their children.
- The solution? “…to require local authorities to establish a database to assist them in identifying children not receiving suitable education.”
Before moving on, it is helpful to note Williams’ further comments about HE. Her next paragraph addressed requiring “independent schools to inform local authorities of children in their care,” a proposal which has now been dropped. She then returned to the subject of the state’s supervision of HE children:
“The main focus of our approach will be to assist local authorities to identify who is home educated, and to assess if they are receiving suitable education. To support local authorities in the operation of the database and in the arrangements to assess the suitability of education to children on the database, I propose to consult on statutory guidance to be issued to local authorities under section 436A of the Education Act 1996. This approach presents us with an opportunity to consider how our universal services, programmes and initiatives are delivered to home-educated children. This means we will be better placed to deliver our aim, set out in ‘Prosperity for All’, to support all children and young people to have the very best start in life and to achieve their ambitions.
But let me be absolutely clear: we will not be compelling parents to register that their child is being home educated. Instead, it will enable the local authority to compile a database of children not on any local authority education or independent school register. This approach will allow us to test the limitation of existing legislation and we can commence work immediately on developing the regulations and the statutory guidance. It will ensure the level of engagement by local authorities will no longer be inconsistent.”
Williams then promised so-called ‘support’ for HE families to be provided by LAs, before brushing aside the matter of the right to a private life:
“Deputy Presiding Officer, I have weighed up what will be perceived by some home educators as a disproportionate intrusion into their family life against what I expect the wider benefits will be for all home-educated children in terms of their education and overall welfare.”
She concluded her statement with the familiar platitude of fully respecting “the choice of parents to home educate their children,” claiming that her proposals would not change that. Williams’ sentiments are echoed in Neagle’s recent statement:
“I fully acknowledge the decision of some parents to home educate if it is in the best interests of the child, but balanced against this is the need to ensure local authorities have the necessary information to be able to undertake their duties.”
Senedd’s record is therefore very clear; the current proposals for LA databases of children not in school, were birthed by the desire of the Welsh Government to trace, register and monitor HE children.
Readers will have noted that it was on the very same occasion that the then Minister announced the revision of the HE Guidance, thus further demonstrating the connection of these databases to monitoring electively home educated children.
A significant change
Given the provenance of these proposals, why then can the current Cabinet Secretary claim that “these proposals are not about elective home education”?
A year and a half after Williams’ statement, on 29 July 2019 the WG published a three month consultation on Home education: statutory guidance for local authorities and handbook for home educators. It was this exercise which paved the way for the updated Guidance published in May last year. There can be no argument that both focused on HE children. However, in the Foreword to the 2019 consultation, Williams stated, “We will consult separately on the draft [databases] regulations.” That consultation was expected before the end of the year.
In the end it was delayed until the new year, and on 30 January 2020, exactly two years after her initial statement, the Local authority education databases consultation was published. The consultation period was then extended due to lockdowns, and Williams finally announced in the June that because of the disruption caused by the response to Covid 19:
“It will not now be possible to complete the planned work on the home education statutory guidance and database regulations within this Government term.”
Thus the baton was left for the current Government to pick up, after the May 2021 election. They duly took it up, and this is their latest step towards achieving Williams’ objectives.
However, it’s important to note something significant about the Minister’s foreword to the 2020 Consultation document. References to home education are in short supply throughout the document, occurring in just one paragraph. In her introduction Williams shifted the emphasis away from her earlier stated objectives which were focused on HE children, as demonstrated above, by now explaining the purpose as:
“These Regulations will enable each local authority to compile a reasonably complete list of all children of compulsory school age in their area, to ensure they are receiving a suitable education regardless of where that takes place. This will be achieved through the crosscomparison of education data, local health board data and data from independent schools to produce a list of children within the local authority area.”
Concerning HE, she stated:
“This consultation follows on from the consultation on the statutory guidance for LAs on home education and the handbook for home educators that took place from 29 July to 25 October 2019. In that consultation we asked a specific question about the proposals for the database and the responses have helped inform this consultation on the draft regulations. But let me be clear, the database regulations do not interfere with the parental choice to home educate.“
Comparing the records of ministerial statements about the proposed databases makes clear that in the two years between first announcing them and launching the 2020 Consultation, Kirsty Williams made a decision to decouple the databases from the political narrative around elective home education. It is this new narrative which is now being advanced by the present administration.
Common roots?
Six days before Williams announced the Welsh Government’s plans for revised EHE Guidance and LA databases of all children, Westminster Education Minister Lord Agnew (Con) had participated in a short debate on 24 January 2018 on Children: School Attendance, initiated by Lord Storey (Lib Dem). In a response to a question from Lord Soley (Lab), whose Private Member‘s Bill had rejuvenated the campaign to undermine home education, Agnew responded:
“My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing his Bill and putting these issues before the House. I look forward to the debate when the Bill moves into Committee, which will give us an opportunity to discuss these matters in greater depth. I am aware that the number of children entering home education has increased. Following the Bill’s Second Reading we commissioned fresh legal advice, which we have just received.It indicates that local authorities’ powers in relation to home education often go further than is appreciated. We are updating our guidance to local authorities on home education, and will reflect this new advice in the guidance. We expect to produce these drafts for consultation in the next few weeks.”
On 10 April that year, the UK Government launched a consultation entitled Home education: call for evidence and revised DfE guidance. The draft Guidance for LAs contained a significant change of emphasis, which appears to have been built around a new interpretation of s.436A of the Education Act 1996.
Section 4 was headed “How do local authorities know that a child is being educated at home?” It contained this statement:
“4.2 Identification of children who have never attended school and may be home educated forms a significant element of fulfilling an authority’s statutory duty under s.436A of the Education Act 1996 – to make arrangements to enable the authority to establish, so far as it is possible to do so, the identities of children in its area who are not receiving a suitable education. The duty applies in relation to children of compulsory school age who are not on a school roll, and who are not receiving a suitable education otherwise than at school (for example, at home, or in alternative provision). Until a local authority is satisfied that a home-educated child is receiving a suitable full-time education, then a child being educated at home is potentially in scope of this duty. The department’s children missing education statutory guidance for local authorities applies.” [Underlining and link original]
The above section was carried over into the English 2019 Guidance for LAs (published 24 June). The underlining was included, but a further sentence was added. The paragraph now concludes:
“However, this should not be taken as implying that it is the responsibility of parents under s.436A to ‘prove’ that education at home is suitable. A proportionate approach needs to be taken.”
Therefore, by the time the Welsh consultations of July 2019 and January 2020 came round, the Welsh Government was well aware that it could attempt to work around the problems of seeking to identify and monitor HE children by appealing to s.436A, having already had the example set by the English Department for Education.
It is this recent and contentious interpretation of this clause first inserted into the Education Act in 2006, which has enabled successive Education Ministers, in both Wales and England, to nefariously claim that the measures they are seeking to introduce “are not about elective home education.”
Home educating families in both countries have every reason not to trust them.
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