Schools: “Ghost Children”

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Lord may agree, I am not sure that a home education Bill would be quick. More importantly, we support the rights of parents to educate their children at home and know that many parents are very committed and do a fantastic job. Equally, we cannot overlook the rising numbers of children being home educated. We remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers of children not in school, but in the meantime we are working closely with local authorities on a voluntary basis to collect that data. I recently met the chair of the ADCS to discuss this exact point.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, guidance on school absence refers to multiagency and whole-family approaches but not to family hubs, which specialise in this for children aged nought to 19, not just the early years. They exist in more than half of English local authorities, but the Family Hubs Network—which I co-founded, as recorded in my entry in the register—finds many schools not engaging with them. Will the Minister commit to updating the guidance to refer specifically to family hubs so that they become the starting point for addressing anxiety and other underlying issues affecting our children?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his work in this area and I agree with him that very often persistent absence will not be the only issue that is going on in a family; therefore, the nature of family hubs is ideal to address this. The department has commissioned a team of 10 expert attendance advisers who are working with every local authority and with multi-academy trusts to help address issues of persistent absence. As part of that support, those advisers strongly recommend and encourage engagement with family hubs.