Analysis: Councils fail to track missing pupils

Children missing from education are among the most vulnerable in society. To get these children back into the system and protect them from harm, it is crucial to be able to identify who and where they are.

As long ago as 2002, the government said local authorities should have "robust systems" in place by December 2005 to identify children missing from education. This was restated after the Children Act 2004. And in February this year a legal duty came into force under the Education and Inspections Act requiring local authorities to record how many children are missing from education. But out of the 50 councils in England that responded to a Children & Young People Now survey, nearly one in five (18 per cent) were unable to say how many children were missing from education in their area.

Top councils have no system

Even top-rated authorities admit they have failed to track missing children nearly two years since the 2005 deadline. Martin Fee, communications and information manager at Essex County Council, says: "We are in the process of putting monitoring systems in place and therefore do not have a great deal of information at the present time."

A spokeswoman for Essex adds that until the government gave local authorities greater power to collate statistics on children missing from education, gathering figures was "a difficult task thwarted by a number of factors". But, she says, the council is now appointing a children missing from education officer.

Of those that provided data, the numbers recorded as missing from education varied wildly. In Hackney just four pupils were recorded as missing in 2006, while in nearby Camden the figure was 553, suggesting a major difference in identification methods.

Steve Beynon, chair of the Association of Directors of Children's Services' (ADCS) educational achievement committee, is concerned by the child protection implications of variations in how councils are monitoring children. "It is inevitable that the level of risk is greater in a state of inconsistency," he says. "We are not able to make comparisons and that is a problem."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families says it will be keeping a close eye on how authorities meet their obligation. "It became a duty from February for councils to identify children missing from education and get them back into school. We would be concerned if local authorities weren't complying with this duty and Ofsted will be monitoring this as part of regular inspections," he says.

Of the authorities able to provide data, the average number of children missing from education for 2005/06 was 122. But this rose to 145 for 2006/07.

If these averages are multiplied by the 150 councils in England that are supposed to gather this data, this suggests the number of missing children in 2005/06 was 18,291, rising to 21,680 in 2006/07. Both estimates are much higher than the latest official estimate, which puts the total number of children missing from school in England at 10,000. This figure is quoted in Ofsted's 2004 report Out of School: A Survey of the Educational Support and Provision for Pupils Not in School. This report criticised schools and local authorities for not tracking pupils nor having a comprehensive view of their whereabouts. "Weak monitoring is a cause for concern and indicates a high potential for pupils to be lost," the report's authors said.

Proper systems reveal problems

Yet despite the new duty on local authorities, the inconsistencies and lack of systems to track these children still persist. The figures gathered by Children & Young People Now show how some local authorities saw a dramatic increase in numbers recorded as missing from education when they introduced improved tracking methods.

In Kent, for instance, the appointment of a children missing from education officer enabled the council to establish the identities of more children who were not receiving a suitable education. They received 712 children missing from education referrals in 2006, almost double the 386 recorded in the previous year. Authorities that don't have such a system in place are therefore likely to be grossly underestimating the number of children missing from education.

Sheree Kane, principal officer for children in public care at the National Children's Bureau, says a consistent system of reporting is needed. "It is a great concern, and a major child protection issue. There needs to be consistency so when there is reporting on the number that are going missing from education we have a benchmark of what that's supposed to mean."

A spokeswoman for the Local Government Association says this will take time. "Ensuring these new systems are in place on the ground and operating effectively is a major new area of responsibility for local authorities and as such should be treated as a marathon, not a sprint," she said. "While some councils are more advanced in their development of services for children missing education it is understandable that others are playing catch up due to the sheer weight of change."

MISSING FROM EDUCATION: 2006/07

10,000 - Source: Department for Children, Schools and Families

21,680 - Source: Children & Young People Now survey

- Children & Young People Now requested figures on children missing from education from England's 150 top tier councils

- At the time of going to press, 50 councils had responded. A fifth had no figures and many of those who had data compiled it in different ways- The total number of children missing from education for the councils who responded, excluding those with no figures, was 5,926 for 2006/07. That figure was divided by 41 - the number of councils that had figures to report to give an average of 144.54. This number was multiplied by 150 - the total number of councils in England - to give 21,680.

- See feature, p24.