Measures in the bill will give local authorities significantly more powers to monitor children not in formal education, tackling a long-term blind spot that has grown in recent years and that in some cases has contributed to child deaths, education and safeguarding experts say.
The wide-ranging bill, published before Christmas, incorporates proposals to improve safeguarding in education and how agencies work together to protect vulnerable children generally, as well as boosting support for struggling families, looked-after children and care leavers, and powers to curtail the profits of private care providers.
It is measures to improve councils’ monitoring of the growing pool of children that are home educated that have gained most attention, as this was a factor in the murder of 10-year-old Sara Sharif by her father and stepmother in Surrey in August 2023.
During the trial of her murderers, it emerged that Sara was removed from school a few months before her death despite concerns raised by the school about her welfare and an investigation by Surrey County Council. The case has been used by the government to highlight the need for reform of this area of safeguarding, although the bill’s failure to tackle the issue of a parent’s right to “reasonable chastisement” has drawn criticism from campaigners (see box).
Home education
Under the bill, local authorities will be required to create and maintain an elective home education (EHE) register containing details of every child that is not taught in mainstream school. The register will include a child’s name, date of birth and address and details of whether they have any special educational need or disabilities (SEND), if they have a protected characteristic or are subject to a child protection investigation. The register must also include details of who is teaching the child and the amount of time dedicated to this. Parents will be required to provide information within 15 days.
The measure has been welcomed by local government and children’s services leaders.
Arooj Shah, chair of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, says: “We are pleased government is acting on a long-standing call by the LGA for councils to have and maintain ‘children not in school’ registers.
“However this must be combined with powers for councils to meet face-to-face with children, which is vital to allow councils to ensure children are receiving a suitable education in a safe environment.”
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has long called for an EHE register. In its response to a government consultation on children missing education in summer 2023, the ADCS said that “councils have a duty to establish whether a suitable education is being provided but do not have the powers to assure themselves that this is the case”. It added that councils should be funded to “fulfil an assurance role or monitoring visit and parents should be required to engage with this process on an annual basis”.
Latest data shows that local authorities estimated there were 111,000 EHE children in the autumn term of 2024/25 academic year. This is up from 80,000 in 2022/23. Experts say the surge is down to several factors including stricter school behaviour and admissions policies, and rising levels of mental health problems and SEND pupils.
Details on the frequency of contact between parents and local authorities will be decided during the bill’s passage through parliament.
However, the bill makes it clear that parents will no longer have an automatic right to educate their children at home if a child is subject to a child protection investigation or under a child protection plan, and local authorities will have the power to require school attendance if a home environment is assessed as unsuitable or unsafe.
Teachers’ union NASUWT welcomed “commitments in the bill to end the presumption of the right of parents to home educate their children. Too many children have been let down and left in unsuitable and unsafe conditions. That has to change. The best place for every child is to be in school”.
Maria Neophytou, acting chief executive at the NSPCC, adds: “It is encouraging to see the introduction of a register for children who aren’t in school, backed up by stronger measures to prevent parents taking children out of school where there are safeguarding concerns. Sadly, for some children at risk of abuse and neglect, being out of school and concealed from the services that could help them can have devastating consequences. The measures proposed in this bill will help better protect them from harm.”
Wider safeguarding
The bill contains measures to improve information sharing across agencies that have a role in children’s lives, most notably introducing a requirement for schools and early years settings to be included in their local multi-agency safeguarding arrangements and clearer guidance on sharing information about vulnerable children.
Central to the proposals are plans to develop a “consistent identifier” for children that will allow those responsible for the safeguarding and welfare of children to better join together relevant data, preventing children from falling through the cracks.
The bill says the consistent identifier will be a “number or code” that is unique to a child, although full details of how this will work are still to be decided.
The LGA’s Shah backed the move but called for it to be accompanied by “wider reform to facilitate better information sharing including investment in systems and administrative support”.
International safeguarding expert Ann Marie Christian says a unique identifier could have helped agencies to get a clearer picture of the risks posed to Sara Sharif.
“The ‘unique identifier’ would have been helpful, as all the previously known information about Sara would have been accessible to the agencies at the time of making the decisions about the custody of where she lived, the domestic abuse and the bruising,” she explains.
On measures in the bill to involve schools more in safeguarding decisions, Christian says: “Most children attend a school or an educational establishment for 12 years during their childhood. They are seen five days a week, for 39 weeks of the year, and schools build rapport with the children and their families. They are best placed to spot early signs of child abuse and actual abuse.”
Family support
The government also announced it is to double funding for family help services to £500mn next year. This will fund more wrapround support for families struggling with issues like substance misuse or mental health, to prevent problems escalating.
New laws will see all councils offer family group decision making, such as Family Group Conferences (FGC), to put intensive support in place to try to prevent the need for care proceedings.
Children’s rights charity Article 39 welcomed the requirement for councils to offer family group decision-making meetings before launching an application for a care order. However, it called for the bill to be amended so that councils and family networks must give due consideration to the child’s wishes when making decisions.
Cathy Ashley, chief executive of Family Rights Group, says FGCs are well placed to provide the “family led, robustly evaluated approach” needed to make the proposals work.
“They operate to clear standards and reduce the likelihood of a child entering or remaining in care,” she says. “Most local authorities also have an FGC service, albeit often small, so there is a strong existing base to build from.”
Local kinship offer
Meanwhile, there is a new requirement for councils to publish a local kinship offer, so that potential family and friends carers know what support is available.
Lucy Peake, chief executive of Kinship, says the bill strengthens previous plans for a “local offer” for kinship carers.
“This is vital as nearly half of kinship carers rate the information provided by their local authority about kinship care as poor or very poor,” she says.“It is also welcome that the bill will put the recent extension of Virtual School Head support for children in kinship care on a statutory footing.”
However, she called for kinship carers to have access to financial, practical and emotional support.
The bill will have its second reading in parliament on 8 January before going to committee stage.
EXPERT VIEW TIME TO REMOVE ‘REASONABLE CHASTISEMENT’ DEFENCE
Carolyne Willow, chief executive, Article 39
It is once again astonishing that a bill about child protection does not repeal the “reasonable chastisement” defence available to parents and others who have been arrested and charged with the assault of a child.
The common law “reasonable chastisement” defence arises from a criminal case, R v Hopley, from 1860 where a head teacher was found guilty of the manslaughter of a 13-year-old child with learning difficulties. The judge instructed the jury that if it considered the head teacher, who had beat the child with a stick for more than two hours, had gone beyond moderate and reasonable physical punishment it should find him guilty.
As respect for children’s physical and mental integrity has grown, the defence has been removed in a variety of children’s settings – state schools, children’s homes, independent schools, fostering and early years – but it remains available for parents charged with the assault of a child.
The idea that it can be legitimate to inflict physical violence to correct “what is evil in the child” is anathema to children having equal dignity and worth to adults, as proclaimed in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948. Ever since the UK ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), in 1991, the Committee on the Rights of the Child has consistently urged law reform.
‘Legally punished’
When Sara Sharif’s father, Urfan Sharif, rang Surrey Police to inform them he had killed his daughter, his words echoed those of the judge in the 1860 Hopley trial. Urfan Sharif told police he had “legally punished” Sara before she died. It was later revealed that he had signed agreements with social workers in 2013 and 2015 not to physically chastise Sara. The truth is the law was on his side – because it reinforces the patriarchal view that children are the property of their parents and can be hit by them, so long as they don’t go too far.
It is not unusual for governments to table amendments to public bills shortly after their introduction, to remedy drafting oversights. The removal of this disreputable defence that allows individuals like Urfan Sharif to imagine there are forms of physical violence which are legitimate if the victim is a child must be an immediate priority. Nearly 70 states plus the nations of Wales and Scotland have given children the same legal protection from assault as adults. We must be next.
