Today, I received two emails from Number 10, telling me that the Government had responded to two petition I had signed on their web site. I did this quite a while ago – both petitions closed on 6 June this year. The text of the petitions and the government’s responses to both can be found on this page and on this one.

The first was signed by 5,658 people and the government’s response reads:

Parents have the primary duty to ensure that their child receives a suitable education and home education is a well established alternative to school which allows them to fulfil that duty. Where a parent opts to educate their child at home rather than at school, they must provide their child with an education that is suitable to the child’s age, ability, aptitude and any special educational needs they may have.

Guidelines which set out the legislative position and the roles and responsibilities of local authorities and parents in relation to home educated children is available at - http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/publications/elective/.

The Government respects the right of parents to home educate their children and we appreciate the strong views held by both home educators and local authorities. As you will appreciate, we have not yet been able to consider in detail our approach to home education and whether or not any changes to the existing arrangements are required.

The other petition received fewer signatures, 862 in all. The government’s response to this one unsurprisingly echos that to the other:

Mark McCullough of Glentham and his seven year-old daughter Isabelle Photo: RAYMONDS (Daiy Telegraph)

Yesterday and today the media have been reporting on the case of Mark McCullough who received a letter from Lincolnshire County Council threatening him for allowing his seven-year-old daughter to walk unaccompanied 20 metres to their home from a bus stop. The letter said that it was a “child protection issue” and that they would take action if the family did not make other arrangements. The matter was brought to their attention by a concerned bus driver.

The BBC reports:

Denise Carr, the county council’s head of transport services group, said: “As a responsible authority, we have expressed our concern that a seven-year-old is standing on a busy road alone each morning, and then crossing the road unaccompanied after school.

“The bus driver should not be expected to leave a bus full of young children alone to escort the pupil safely across the road.

“As the pupil was also left standing by the roadside on a cold morning without warm clothing, we have raised our concerns with the girl’s parents, following discussion with the school.

“Safeguarding is the responsibility of everyone, and where we become aware of anything that compromises the safety of a vulnerable child or adult, we will take steps to address it.”

Home educating families are all too familiar with with the sentiments of that last paragraph; it is the mind-set of Directors of Children’s Services across the land.

Today, the Council has backed off and admitted that its letter may have been heavy handed. Here is a further quote from the BBC:

Debbie Barnes, assistant director of Lincolnshire County Council’s Children’s Services, said: “The safety of children is the responsibility of everyone and where a member of staff brings a situation to our attention where the safety of a child or adult is compromised, we must react.

“NSPCC guidance states that children under eight should not be out alone; in this instance, a seven-year-old girl has been standing unaccompanied on a roadside and left to cross the road by herself.”

She added that “with hindsight we accept the letter could have been phrased better and we have no intention of going down the child protection route or court action” and that the council would like to sit down with Mr McCullough to discuss the issues.

Different attitude, same mind-set: parents cannot be trusted, it needs Big Brother from the Council to keep children safe. It also seems that the NSPCC is now regarded as the defining authority on child safety.

You can find further reading on these pages: BBC 14 Sep., Daily Telegraph 14 Sep., BBC 15th Sep. & This is Lincolnshire 15t Sep.

Now the reason I started this post was not because I had read the story, but because this morning’s edition of Today on BBC Radio 4, followed up its report on this story with a discussion between Anastasia de Waal, from the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, and Julia Margo, of the think-tank Demos, on the responsibilities of parents and the state over children’s welfare. At the moment it is available on iPlayer here.

This discussion should be compulsory listening for every family and especially any home educating families who think that the election put Badman and Balls’ ideas in the grave. It needs listening to more than once because hidden in there is some criticism of the approach of social service departments, but on the whole all those involved in the interview had no problem with the idea that local authorities can be trusted far more than parents. The interviewer gets the ball rolling with the question:

Who should be in charge of children when they are not in school?

Anastasia de Waal is perhaps more cautious than Julia Margo, but for both it is not really about if but how the State should watch over parents. Margo quotes Finland, Norway and Germany as good examples of  State oversight, but this is tempered by criticism of how Social Services in the UK often fail to relate constructively with parents. However, as is said in the discussion, “the bottom line is the welfare of the child”, and it is assumed without question that the State knows best!

Ed Balls may never again be Education Secretary, Graham Badman may never be employed by the present Government, but the ongoing vision of making children safe by enfolding them firmly in the arms of the State is deeply embedded in the mentality of most LA staff and it will not go away without a fight!

It seems that Michael Gove has not yet decided his policy on home education (see here), so there is still a need for the HE community to keep their MPs (and peers in general) aware that we are not child abusers.

At the time of writing I have not had the time to read through the SCR, nor the associated press releases. This post is therefore not a full response to the SCR, but an initial reflection and seeks to provide a note of clarification which is sadly needed to avoid confusion spreading unnecessarily.

The Birmingham Post published three reports yesterday covering the publication of the SCR and one more today. The first was advance notice of publication and can be found here. The most notable comment was in the opening paragraph:

Under-fire social workers in Birmingham were today bracing themselves for more criticism as the long-awaited findings of an inquiry into the death of Khyra Ishaq are revealed.

Once the report was published the headline “Birmingham social services missed chances to save Khyra Ishaq, says report” confirmed what many people were expecting. This extract from the article highlights these failures:

Hilary Thompson, chairwoman of the BSCB, said: “The serious case review concludes that although the scale of the abuse inflicted would have been hard to predict, Khyra’s death was preventable.

“The report identifies missed opportunities, highlighting that better assessment and information-sharing by key organisations could have resulted in a different outcome.”

It said: “There were a number of early missed opportunities for intervention by professionals.

“Three incidents during March 2006 were not progressed, either by failures of paperwork to reach the correct departments, failure to follow safeguarding procedures, or to conduct thorough checks prior to case closure, resulting in any knowledge and intervention remaining purely single agency at that stage.”

The review, which began in May 2008, concluded: “Had there been better assessments and effective inter-agency communication over a period of time it (Khyra’s death) could have been prevented.”

A complaint of harassment by Khyra’s mother, Angela Gordon, against a social worker who visited their Handsworth home in February 2008 “generated a reluctance” to complete an assessment, the report found.

It said: “The complaint by the mother… appeared to impact upon the Children’s Social Care manager and practitioner.

“This action appears to have generated a reluctance to follow through on plans with a partner agency to effectively pursue assessment procedures, for fear of wider repercussions within the complaints process.”

The report continued: “Whilst a number of agencies and individuals sought to deliver effective services to the child… there were others who lost sight of the child and focused instead upon the rights of the adults, the adults’ behaviours and the potential impact for themselves as professionals.”

Now these observations did not come by surprise. In March last year Mrs Justice King giving judgement in a care hearing in the High Court (Family Division) Birmingham District in respect to the five surviving children, expressed similar conclusions:

K’s death was caused by and is the responsibility of her mother and the Intervenor, but on the evidence before the court I can only conclude that in all probability had there been an adequate initial assessment and proper adherence by the educational welfare services to its guidance, K would not have died.

(For a fuller review of her judgement see here.)

The Birmingham Post accompanied their report with a list of the Recommendations from the Serious Case Review. Just two of the eighteen recommendations, 13 & 14, refer to home education [HE] and I will comment on these in the future. Today (Wed. 28th Jul.) the Birmingham Post did a follow up article with the headline, “Khyra Ishaq: Council and social workers failed to act on signs of abuse”. Two comments in it are worth noting here:

Teachers and concerned members of the public attempted to alert social services and the city education department to what was happening but their cries went unheard, the inquiry found.

As HE parents who have looked carefully at information which has been in the public arena for some time concerning Khyra’s tragic death have been saying, the failing were not in the laws concerning HE, but in the capability of the local authority’s children’s services. (Many us us also believe that underfunding is a major factor in causing these failures. Sadly I suspect that in a society whose members neither want to take responsibility themselves nor pay taxes to equip others to fully fill the gap so created, and in the face of global financial crisis, such pressures are likely to increase rather than to be resolved no matter which political party holds the reigns nationally or locally.) The BP reporter goes on to confirm that concern raised about  HE by the LA was a red-herring by adding later:

The inquiry’s central conclusion – that education officials were out of their depth when agreeing the emaciated Khyra could be taken out of school and educated at home – flies in the face of the council’s official explanation earlier this year that nothing could have been done to save her.

From Mrs Justice King’s ruling it was clear that key members of Birmingham’s children’s services did not understand the law concerning HE and this included “a man called I H who is [Birmingham CC’s] ‘Educating Otherwise adviser’”, since named in the national press as Irvine Horne.

This lack of understanding concerning the law on HE though is not confined to Birmingham City Council staff. It is found in many local authority offices as well as in the minds of more important civil servants such as the Children’s Commissioner, Maggie Artkinson. When she appeared before the CSF Select Committee in October last year quoted Khyra’s name as all the justification she needed to argue for a change in HE legislation (transcript here – see Q36). She was however doing nothing other than singing from her sponsor’s song sheet. That sponsor was of course Ed Balls, at the time the Secretary of State for CSF, and who also over the months has used every opportunity to use Khyra’s death as justification for his attempt to nationalise the children of England. We are grateful he failed. Others who it appears don’t understand the law concerning HE include OFSTED, who recently published a very poor report on LAs and HE – see here for my comment on it.

One ray of hope in all this is that the present Secretary of State for Education, seems to be better informed. His statement on the publication of the SCR can be found here. Two of the five paragraphs refer directly to the situation concerning HE.

On home education, Michael Gove said:

We respect the right of parents to educate their children at home and most do a very good job, some of them picking up the pieces where children have had problems at school. We strongly encourage local authorities to develop a positive relationship with their home-educating community.

We note the views of the Birmingham LCSB about the law as it applies to home-educated children and we are aware of the very strong views held by local authorities and by home-educating parents on this matter. Clearly lessons need to be learned by the tragic events in this case, and I will consider the letter I expect to receive from Birmingham shortly, to see what changes need to be made to the existing arrangements and reply in due course.

Need I remind HE families of what was said by both parties now in the governing coalition before the general election? Whilst they both condemned Labour’s policy, they both said that there would have to be changes in the future! HE families need to keep their eyes on what is happening!

Moving on. Unfortunately confusion also seems to have spread to authors of this SCR and that too is a real cause for concern. The BBC web site carried two reports on the day the SCR was released. One,  “Starved girl Khyra Ishaq’s death ‘was preventable’” was much in line with those from the Birmingham Post. However, the second was seemingly written with the assistance of the Balls & Badman Department of Spin. Titled, “Khyra’s home education ‘helped conceal abuse’” it claims:

The report, released on Tuesday, said the current legislation for the assessment requirement for home education was “weak”.

There is “no mandate to monitor, assess or inspect the quality of home education provision once approval has occurred,” it added.

“This situation is particularly advantageous for parents who may wish to conceal abuse.”

These quotes are taken from the Executive Summary and my comments on them and the rest of the SCR will have to wait until I have read it. The confusion in the article however went further as the reporter jumped to the wrong conclusions about this statement on page 8, which is in the Executive Summary:

Education Otherwise (EO) provides advice, support and assessment to parents who have elected to educate their children at home. The lack of a robust and rigorous process by EO, during February 2008, to assess the capability of adults within this household to provide effective home education, coupled with the absence of any risk assessment process to address safeguarding concerns previously communicated by education welfare, must be viewed as a significant failure.

This was taken up in the BBC article and, when it was first published and the reporter had contacted what everyone in the HE community knows as ‘EO’ (an independent charity) for their comments. Unfortunately, I did not make a copy of the BBC report when it was first published, because on reloading the page today I found very different wording in it. The interviews with EO representatives were gone and instead there was these paragraphs:

One organisation criticised in the report is Education Otherwise (EO), a department within Birmingham City Council, which gave support and advice to parents who opt to teach their children at home.

The report said other agencies were hoping to rely on assessments carried out by the city council’s EO but ignorance of home education legislation around those processes “clouded professional assessment and decision making”.

The phrase highlighted in italics has not been changed (and it shows), but originally it went on to describe the charity Education Otherwise. Alerted to this case of mistaken identity EO did publish a press release yesterday on their web site. It reads:

Tuesday 27 July

Press Release – Confusion in Khyra Ishaq Serious Case Review

Confusion in Khyra Ishaq Serious Case Review over use of “Education Otherwise”

A spokesperson for the leading Home Education charity, Education Otherwise reacted with dismay at the confusion in the Serious Case Review into the death of Khyra Ishaq.

Fiona Nicholson, Trustee of Education Otherwise said, “Like all parents I am horrified at the death of Khyra Ishaq. However, due to the confusion caused by Birmingham City Council I need to make it clear that the charity Education Otherwise has no role in the assessment of home education. Birmingham City Council used the same name for their internal department and this has not been made clear in the serious case review or any publicity.”

Annette Taberner, Trustee of Education Otherwise has written to the Select Committee and to Birmingham Council highlighting a number of errors in the Serious Case Review, which should have been corrected before the final draft was agreed in April.

Ian Matthews, Media Spokesperson said, “Despite the agreement of the courts in March, Birmingham City Council are still persisting in causing confusion in the media by using the name Education Otherwise. Criticism intended for Birmingham council in the Serious Case Review appears instead to be directed at the home education support charity. We will be advised by our lawyers on how to proceed.”

See full press release document for footnote references. [N.B. - this file is now hosted on this site as EO have not moved it to their new web site.]

What a mess! At least Mrs Justice King was accurate enough to refer to Irvine Horne as “the Educating Otherwise adviser” for Birmingham. Perhaps this was because he was at pains to “explained that he is the only adviser to Birmingham City Council with regard to Educating Otherwise”.

The SCR was, according to today’s article in the Birmingham Post, “led by a senior NSPCC Inspector”. The NSPCC has sadly over the last two years been at the front of the campaign to invade the lives and homes of HE families. In April 2009 it apologised after one of its staff suggested that home education may be a cover for child abuse cases like that of Victoria Climbié (see here). Whilst I am not going to comment on whether or not another of its staff has been guilty of using this SCR to convey that same message, until I have read the whole review, I am left to wonder why a senior official was unable to distinguish between a national charity, Education Otherwise, and a department within Birmingham CC, labeled Educating Otherwise?

I would like to think that this confusion was caused by incompetence rather than mischief. Then again  if the authors did not have the ability to distinguish between the two very different organisations, it really does not reflect well on them!

It is a pity too that Caroline Gall in rewriting her report on the BBC’s web site, did not have the grace to include a comment and an apology about the error in the original copy she posted. She could have even expanded the story by highlighting the misleading wording of the SCR, and especially its repeated use of EO’s initials! Perhaps if she had done so, this piece would not have been so long!

Finally, I know that in the HE community their are mixed feelings about EO. Some families think it is wonderful, whilst others give it a wide berth. I would hope though that whatever our feelings towards the charity, all HE families would not wish it to be confused with a section of a LA’s underfunded and ill informed children’s services which seemingly did not understand the law concerning HE. I think there is one thing we will all agree about concerning the real EO – its representatives do understand HE legislation!

Hopefully, in my next post I will be able to give an in depth response to the SCR in relation to its comments on HE.

I commented on their survey in January here, that at the time there was widespread concern in the HE community about the motivation behind it and the quality of the questionnaires sent to HE parents and children. Whilst there is a hope within the HE community that a change of government will see a more sensible approach to HE in Whitehall, there are also fears that educationally blinkered bureaucrats will continue to push for the State to assume authority over parents in regard to the education of their children.

I was made aware of the publication of this report entitled “Local authorities and home education” by a page on the BBC’s web site here and an article in the Independent here. Both carried headlines which HE families would see as negative – “More home education information needed, say inspectors” and “Home school parents ‘must register children’” respectively. When I eventually found the report here and the associated Press Release here on OFSTED’s website I could see why – this is the message they intended to emphasise. For example, the Press Release starts:

Local authorities need more information and understanding about home education to provide effective support for children educated at home, a report published by Ofsted today reveals.

However, before I get into what is wrong with the report, I do want to point out that it is not as bad as it could have been. In fact it has some very positive things to say about HE parents and children. It is also important to note that the stated objective of the report was:

… to evaluate how well the sample of local authorities discharged their statutory duties to ensure the suitability of education for children and young people who were educated at home. (Executive summary – p4)

This was not an inquiry into HE (which OFSTED has no responsibility for), but an enquiry into the ways in which Local Authorities (LAs) relate to HE families. It is unfortunate therefore that OFSTED chose to headline the report in a way which makes it sound like the Son of Badman – but then perhaps that was its non-declared objective.

Returning to the positives, the report does say some nice things about HE parents and children:

What many of the parents surveyed had in common was their passion for their children’s upbringing and their willingness to give up significant amounts of time to be their child’s educators. (A diverse group, s6 – p10)

The children and young people whom inspectors met were enthusiastic about their learning and explained what they thought they had gained by being educated at home. Those who had attended school compared their experiences and conveyed clearly that, for varying reasons, they were happier now that they were being educated at home. (Executive summary – p7)

One young person summed up the views of several who had found school difficult, either academically or socially, when she said: ‘At school, friends can do it all fine, you can’t do it, it’s not nice at all. At home, it’s just your family, you can relax and it’s all fine.’ The following are typical remarks made by young people who had previously attended school who spoke to inspectors during the survey:

‘I really like being educated at home, it’s more social and less stressful.’

‘When I was in school it was really competitive. Now I can work at my own pace and I don’t get distracted – I just get on with it.’

‘When my mum decided to take me out of school I was glad, it was what I had been wanting for ages, I was really relieved.’

‘I’m feeling much healthier and happier now.’

(Children’s experiences, s48 – p21)

Besides recognising that both parents and children are usually happier because of their HE experiences, the report does touch on some other constructive possibilities. These included easier and cheaper access to examinations like GCSEs and encouraging initiatives such as flexi-schooling. Initiatives such as these should be welcomed by HE families provided they are available on request, without strings attached. However, such things also depend on a change of culture in many LAs from one of policing to one of partnership with HE parents.

In spite of such praise, it does have to be pointed out that what parents and children think about their HE experiences is outside of OFSTED’s remit both as an agency and in the terms of reference for this report.

I need now to address the dangers of this report. I was struck as I read it by how often the words ‘registered’ and ‘monitoring’ are repeated throughout. This is a concern because under present legislation there is no HE registration scheme in place, nor is there any provision for the monitoring of HE parents or children. So why are these words used so often in this document? Could it be that educational bureaucrats have a less than average vocabulary? Have they not come across such words as notify and encouragement? Or has their educational experience pushed their minds into a mould which only lets them understand the world from inside a bubble where the State is supreme? I suggest the latter.

Where the report is helpful is in identifying the source of the conflict between such officialdom and those who understand that parents are primarily responsible for the education and welfare of their children, with the State there to step in when parents and their families fail for whatever reasons. This principle is not new; it is what gave birth to the modern system of state-run schools. These days in societies like ours it is generally perceived that ‘children go to school’ but that has not always been the case. In Britain government schools were resisted until the late 1800’s when they came into existence in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Amongst other things this huge sea-change separated parents from children during working hours, leaving children to their own devices or to be employed in factories. Less than 150 years later OFSTED, in common with the the majority of the population, thinks of schools as “traditional” (p13). Family-based education is traditional, state-funded schools were established as cover for parents who were failing!

This revisionist view of education is in part responsible for the confusion which now arises from legislation brought in by the previous government. The report cites section 436A of the Education Act 1996, which was inserted there by the Education and Inspections Act 2006, as ‘chapter and verse’ for what they claim is the LA’s statutory duty to monitor home educated children. It then goes on to bemoan the fact that other legislation fails to provide them the powers to do so. Thankfully Graham Stuart, who became the champion of HE families in the last parliament and has now been elected as the Chair of the Education Select Committee, quickly spoke out to condemn OFSTED’s spin. On the blog of the Conservative Education Society (here) he blasted OFSTED for not knowing the facts:

It is astonishing that the Chief Inspector of Schools should stray onto home education and get it so wrong. In Ofsted’s official press release she says that “it is extremely challenging for local authorities to meet their statutory duty to ensure children have a suitable education”, when they have no such duty. Parents, not the state, have the statutory duty to ensure that their children have a suitable education.

I hope that the new Secretary of Education is in full agreement with him. However, I want Michael Gove to go further. Whilst this ambiguity continues, the door is open for people like the current Children’s Commissioner, Maggie Atkinson, to argue that every child in the country (and their families) all belong to the State. You need only watch the first two and a quarter minutes of this video to see what I mean! (source)

At present the door is open for HE families to engage with their MPs and to press the the new team of Education Ministers to make clear in legislation that English, British and International laws do not give the State ultimate authority over children. Graham Badman in his report (here) and Baroness Deech (here) both argued that the United Nations have given such powers to every state that has signed its Convention on the Rights of the Child! OFSTED’s report, though it may have been commissioned by Ed Balls as a time-bomb for his successors, provides us with an opportunity to appeal that this confusion be removed before the political pendulum swings back in favour of Socialism.

The BBC report mentioned above carries what is probably the most important comment on HE this week:

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “We respect the right of parents to home educate their children.

“The Ofsted report confirms that most parents who educate their children at home do a very good job, some of them picking up the pieces where children have had problems at school.

“We note Ofsted’s findings and recommendations and ministers will shortly be considering if changes need to be made to the existing arrangements, given the strong views expressed by both home educators and local authorities.” (emphasis mine)

That is real ‘Government Speak’, but what can we take away from it? Is it a put-down for OFSTED? Is it a vote of confidence in HE families? The most important sentence is the last one. The Department recognises the gulf between the views of the HE community and those of LA staff and ministers are to consider what changes need to be made to made, if any.

To those who would say “None!”, I respond with the warning that if the ambiguity is not dispelled then with the next change of government we could easily see a return to Badman or worse. However, if we lobby now for changes which reinforce the current law and remove the over-application of Labour’s “Every Child Matters” agenda, then the future for HE in England and Wales could be a lot more peaceful than it was last year.

Finally, you may be wondering if the OFSTED report tell us anything about how LAs respond to HE families. Yes it did, but only in passing. 15 LAs were consulted. 2 of them (13%) operated a policy that pressurised parents to put their children back in school (Local authorities’ actions: Guidance for families, s16 – p12). When it comes to good practice, the report mentions in several places that 5, and sometimes 6, LAs tried to work with HE parents. That at best is 40% of LAs engaged ‘constructively’ with the He community.

Upon their own evidence, OFSTED could have headlined their press release with the point that at least 60% of LAs are not doing enough to support those HE families who request their help. If they had taken that approach, they could have continued by adding that all LAs should also abandon the mind-set that believes ‘school is best’. Now that would have been refreshing as well as surprising – from the organisation which thinks HE parents should be CRB checked before being licensed to look after their own children 24/7! (Section 3.2.3, bullet point 3, Memorandum to CSF Select Committee – available here.)

As I am sure every reader will know the final decision on who would govern was delayed because the British electorate had give no single party an independent mandate. At a time when financial concerns were dominating the minds of politicians, party leaders were presented with a result which would only stack up in just one way. (Whilst I think both Cameron and Clegg had to be brave to commit to working together, I have a concern for the long term changes in society their coalition may have been motivated by.) As the dust settles on this ‘new politics’ what might be the implications for HE in England and Wales?

Both the parties, Conservative and Liberal Democrats, had been our heroes in the closing months of the previous Parliament. They had come together in opposition to the Balls-Badman pincer movement, triumphing finally in the wash-up. However, now alert to the existence of large numbers of HE families spokesmen for both had said whilst they were against Labour’s proposals “things would have to change” in the future in regard to HE. Now that both parties have their hands are on the national helm, where will they take legislation in regard to HE? What will they propose?

It is still early days, but yesterday (20 May) saw the publication of their official agreement on what they hope to achieve in the next five years. Called “The Coalition: our programme for government” it can be download as a PDF from here. Two sections in it, 14. Families and Children, and 26. Schools, could contain proposals for HE, but the good news is that they don’t! I hope this means that HE families will not be pestered for a while, but I am making no promises as the socialist staff in local government offices across the country are still committed to the ideology that all children are in the care of the State.

What I do think will be disastrous therefore is if HE families now retreat under the covers. The last year and half witnessed some excellent work by normal families, parents and children,  in educating MP’s about HE. Now though there are over a third of MPs who are new to Parliament and potentially know nothing about HE. I would like to think that not only would families keep in touch with those MPs who are still there but those with a rookie MP would, once they have settled in, get to know them and tell them about the benefits and blessings, as well as the hard work, of teaching your own children. Of course you will need wisdom, we don’t want to stir up a hornets nest, but we certainly don’t want to loose the ground we gained through a lot of hard work.

I am hopeful that the time to stop posting to this blog is getting close. I have recently uploaded what I hope will prove to be our last appearance in the local paper in connection with Balls & Badman – you can find it here. However, I am not going to fall into the trap of saying that this is the end. On the horizon there is still the publication of the Serious Case Review in connection with the death of Khyra Ishaq in Birmingham. Given the way Ed Balls sought to use it for political gain and how his comments were at variance with those of Mrs Justice King (see here), I suspect that I will want to comment when the summary of the SCR comes into the public domain. Once I have I hope it will mean that the course of this blog will be run!

Their is a very old joke which asks how do you know when a politician is lying? The answer being, “When their lips are moving.” Over the next few weeks here in the UK we will be bombarded with claims from all the Parties that they will provide the best hope for the future and anyone who is motivated to go to a polling station on 6th May, will have to make some sort of decision on whom they think will be best at providing oversight in Great Britain over next half-decade or so. The purpose of this post is not to encourage you who to vote for, but to test out the claim of the present Government that they will ensure a “Future Fair for All”.

It is pragmatic not to look in a Party’s manifesto to see how they will act in office especially when they have been in power for over a decade. It is far safer ask what they have and haven’t achieved in that time. Again, my declared purpose in this place is to address the important topic of HE and I am not about to look through all of Labour’s portfolio of recent Bills.

I cannot however resist commenting on their election slogan in the light of their attitude to HE. In fact on the day Gordon Brown launched this thin veneer of a headline, I was motivated to write to our  regional newspaper to comment on it. I really did not expect it to get published as it was far too long for the letters page – you may have noticed that brevity is not one of my skills!

Not wishing though for my time spent then to be wasted now that the election battle-buses are on the road, I thought posting it here may be helpful to some.

21 Feb, 2010

Sir,

A future fair for all -
except home educated children

Your readers may remember that over the last six months you have printed several reports where families have expressed concern about the present Government’s plans for changing the law concerning parents’ freedom to elect to home educate their children.

Initially our concerns were provoked by the publication of a review by Graham Badman. This had been commissioned by the DfCSF because they feared that home education could be used as a cover for child abuse. Even though Badman could find no evidence of this, he recommended far-reaching changes in the law which if implemented would require families to seek approval to home educate. Owen Paterson, MP for North Shropshire, presenting a petition in the Commons from “a large number” of his constituents, described Badman’s recommendations as “iniquitous”.

These recommendations now form part of the present Children, Schools and Families Bill and have been criticized by MPs of all parties including, Kate Hoey , David Anderson and Caroline Flint from the Government’s own benches. Why have so many MP’s taken up the concerns of their constituents as clearly as they have? Because from having very little knowledge of home education a year ago, they have now met children and parents from home educating families and are clearly impressed by the character and skills of the young people as well as the commitment of their parents.

There is one small but important group of MPs who have not joined in these parliamentary tributes. This group are Ministers in the DfCSF, led by Secretary of State Ed Balls, one of Gordon Brown’s closest allies. Before Badman, they had already carried out three consultations about home education, and immediately after those, they launched yet another one – dealing only with the registration and monitoring aspects of his review with no mention of the support which Badman recommended that local authorities provide for home educating families. They received over 5,000 responses to this consultation, and to each of the 11 proposals an average of approximately 82% replied negatively, yet on 11th January the DfCSF published a response which basically said they were ignoring the concerns expressed in the responses they received. In the same way they have ignored a report by a Commons Select Committee and the record breaking number of petitions presented to Parliament (around 300), claiming they only want a light touch regime. It was pointed out to one Minister when she appeared before the Select Committee that ‘light touch’ was the phrase used twelve years ago to describe the national curriculum!

The DfCSF continues to protest that it wants to support home educators, but as one MP pointed out during the recent Committee stage of the CSF Bill, the Department does not practise what it preaches. Again, on 11th January Gordon Brown and Ed Balls announced “Home Access Grants” which would “give 270,000 low income families a free computer and free broadband access”. However, on the DfCSF web site, and subsequently confirmed by two Ministers, it is stated that home educated children do not qualify for these grants. Is this what they and their party mean by “A future fair for all”?

Yours etc…

The question then, which any rational person would ask, is if this promise of a fair future – a just tomorrow – a sign of repentance on behalf of Gordon Brown and his crew or are they nice words to pull the wool over the electorates eyes?

Labour’s tenure at the DfCSF has included repeated ‘consultations’ into HE of which Graham Badman’s was seemingly a final attempt to get the answers they wanted. The suspicion that many of us have is that his ‘findings’ were in effect drawn up before his ‘review’ was announced. No doubt the fight that Ed Balls found himself in once Badman’s work was published surprised the Secretary of State. Badman’s incompetence was perhaps best illustrated by his inability to do basic maths even when Graham Stuart MP corrected his figures twice! (The first in a Select Committee session and later at a meeting of the Commons Public Bill Committee.)

Now the electorate would hope that when a minister has been shown clearly to be rushing badly researched legislation on to the statute books, that the same minister would welcome the opportunity think again and commission more reliable research before rushing on stage with a sticking plaster. Not Ed Balls. On Wednesday (7th Apr.) he quickly wrote a letter to Michael Gove blasting him and the Conservative Party for blocking a number of clauses in his precious Bill during the wash-up. He then published it on his own (not Labour’s) web site here. On the topic of HE he wrote:

Finally, you and your colleagues have been clear about your opposition to the proposed registration scheme for home educators. I do believe this is profoundly misguided and will put children at risk in the future. We have always been clear that the vast majority of home educators do a good job and that they have nothing to fear from the proposals we brought forward. However, without our reforms the small minority of children at risk will remain so. By opposing these provisions you have removed a potentially valuable tool for local authorities in their work to safeguard all children.

His letter concluded:

It is a great pity that you have put at risk improvements in our schools, support for pupils and the well-being of our young people. I will be campaigning to ensure that this Government is returned and that these measures do make it on the statute book in the first session of the new Parliament.

Are those words expressed on his authority or do they have his boss’s (be that Brown or Mandelson) support? In a last ditch attempt to justify their mischievous objectives, seemingly driven by ideology rather than what is best for children, Vernon Coaker clinging to the white flag of surrender, made this promise (see here for more details):

We hope that we can bring these matters back before Parliament in the near future, along with other measures that we have had to remove from the Bill, such as toughening home-school agreements, home education and the ability to collect data for the new school report card.

We don’t yet know what will be in the Labour manifesto about HE, but we are in no doubt what is in their hearts and mind. Clause 26 and Schedule 1 we were told at various times was about education, or about safeguarding or supporting HE families or, according to Mr Coaker, “merely suggesting that there should be a better understanding of what was going on.” With so much confusion amongst ministers who can criticise HE parents for thinking that there are unspoken objectives buried under their protestations.

I don’t care who you vote for as long as HE families are aware that the Socialists in Labour do not believe that your children are your responsibility. They believe that all children are the responsibility of the State and that the State can prescribe where, how and what they are taught. It is from this ideology that the modern Thought Police have emerged. HE parents and children do not conform to their dictates – free-thinkers are a danger to their vision of a Socialist world. They think they are backed by the whole issue of the ‘Rights of Children’, but as where other issues are concerned they pick and choose which ‘Right’ dismisses all other conflicting ‘rights’. Badman made that clear in his headline quote:

“The need to choose, to sacrifice some ultimate values to others, turns out to be a permanent characteristic of the human predicament”
ISAIAH BERLIN, Four Essays on Liberty London: Oxford University (1969)
[Page 1, Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England, Graham Badman, June 2009]

Will the Future be Fair for All under a returned Labour government? I am convinced that it will not be for HE families and I am convinced that they will not be the only people who are not tolerated as totalitarianism masquerades as tolerance. On one point therefore I can agree with David Cameron, its Time for a Change. And whilst his party and the Lib Dems both responded to the pleas from HE families for help, I am not saying that this means that either (or both) of them have the right answers to all the important questions. Who you vote for is your choice if you wish to vote – and you still have the freedom to chose not to vote.

Just one final note. I had hoped to make this my final post until after the election. However, yesterday BBC West Midlands was saying that the Khyra Ishaq Serious Case Review was due to be published “soon”. They did not give a time-scale, but if it is published in the next four weeks, I trust that it will provide us all with the opportunity to call Ed Balls to account for the opportunism he has resorted to by using her memory for political gain.

On Tuesday Gordon Brown finally plucked up the courage to “see the Queen” and ask her permission to call an election. That not only officially launched the election campaign, but it also triggered the start of the Parliamentary process strangely nicknamed ‘the wash-up”. I have never been interested in such things before, but now thanks to Messrs Brown and Balls I have been following it as closely as possible as one Bill after another is ‘debated’ at breakneck speed. Amongst those being swirled around in this human dishwasher is of course the Childrens, Schools and Families Bill which contained the offensive clauses about home education.

Yesterday (Wed. 7 Apr) the CSF Bill, joined the queue to get rushed through the House of Lord. It was clear from their previous comments that both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would not allow Clause 26 & Schedule 1 to remain in the Bill. I am pleased to say that they kept their word!

Round 1 therefore goes to the many home educating families who have lobbied MPs and Lords, developing skills which they had rarely called on before.

Balls and Badman have to now retreat to lick their wounds. However, as could have been very easily predicted, Ed Balls sounding something like a spoilt child who has had his favourite toy taken from him, has already promised to reintroduce all the deleted clauses. Of course his best pal Brown has first to convince the people of Britain that Labour is the best option for the next Government. Many people think that that is unlikely but not impossible and whilst HE families can now enjoy a small break from political activity, we cannot afford ourselves the luxury of thinking the big bad wolf has gone away. He would love to have another go!

If the Conservatives or/and the Liberal Democrats have influence after May 6th then whilst they have said they will not seek a licensing scheme, they have both said that there will have to be a change to HE laws in the future. Whilst we don’t want to rush HE to the top of the agenda, HE families will need to engage with local politicians and front bench teams at some point. I trust we will not leave this until the last minute next time.

Having said that I want to congratulate and encourage all the families who have risen to the task in the last fifteen months. It has often been said that the HE community has a weakness because it cannot easily gather together under a single organisation. Can I say here that I believe that it’s our independence which has proved a valuable asset. MPs and peers have commented many times on the amount of correspondence they have received and several have said how they have been impressed by the HE children they have met. What they have discovered is that the HE community does not consist of one or two groups of self-appointed representatives but hundreds of responsible parents who are so committed to their childrens’ futures that the education provided by the State to the majority is just not good enough for them!

Enjoy the break but keep your eyes on the ball (and Balls)!

Further Reading:

DfCSF Statement on the Children, Schools and Families Bill

Conservative wash-up announcement

I cannot find anything from the Lib Dems at present

Ed Balls bolshy (or should that be sulky) letter to Michael Gove

Relevant article in the Daily Telegraph

For a limited period you can hear the programme on BBC iPlayer here:

Here is a recording of that section of the programme:

Ed Doolan then gave an invitation for people to phone in, to which I responded. I was put on hold before becoming the first person to be asked to comment. However, my comment did not last long. What did I do wrong? I mentioned that there were five other children who had been mistreated by Angela Gordon. As soon as I mentioned the other children, I was cut off from the studio, but could still hear the broadcast. Here is what happened:

I was then spoken to by someone from the studio who explained that they had received legal advice to the effect that they could not discuss the other children on air. I was angry because this meant they were not giving their listeners a balanced picture of what was already in the public domain. Instead they limited discussion to the one child and I cannot but ask if by doing so they were playing into the hands of the DfCSF and Birmingham City Council who want to abuse the memory of this girl even further. They are doing this by using the connection to home education to push through oppressive legislation in the case of the DfCSF, and to try and avoid taking the blame for departmental failures in the case of the local authority.

I made it clear that I wished to make a formal complaint and I was phoned back later by someone from the production team. Predictably, it was  unproductive because she was hiding behind the shield of legal advice. I pointed out that BBC News had made several references to the six children, both in the guilty plea by Angela Gordon to five counts of child cruelty and through references to them sleeping on a single mattress or eating from one bowl. She did of course have no real answer to this, simply saying that as a station they had been advised not to mention the other five children.

Her attitude did change slightly when I said that I had no idea what the relationships of the children to each other or to the adults were. At that point she acknowledged that I seemed to be well informed. As an olive branch I offered to record an interview for them, which they could edit before broadcasting, but that was not in her brief, so it looks like I will have to go ahead and make an official complaint.

To be fair on the programme, Ed Doolan did  ask several times during the show if raising home education was a red herring. Once was when another HE dad, Dave Hough phoned in:

Later in the programme they played a clip from a City Council representative saying that it was the fault of the community for not telling them of their concerns. This was followed by a 7 to 8 minute interview with someone from the NSPCC who, whilst he was reluctant to criticise the local social services outright, did not blame the community. Instead he emphasised how the NSPCC could help neighbours with concerns – though knowing what his organisation has said in the past about the dangers of home education (here) I cannot have total confidence in what advice people calling the helpline will be given. You can hear this section of the programme below:

Am I just moaning here or is there a purpose behind all this?

Yes, there is. Since the end of the trial several things have happened. For a start Ed Balls released a statement which you can find here. In it he said:

The trial has demonstrated, and statements today from the police confirm, that home education was a factor in this case. It shows why we do need a system in place to make sure that when children are home educated or removed from school, they not only get a good education but are safe. That is why I asked Graham Badman to review home education and home educated children’s safety and welfare.

I am now taking forward Graham Badman’s recommendations that every local authority should have access to any home educating family and that all home educating parents must register with the local authority. We will do all we can to ensure the safety of children, in Birmingham and elsewhere, including using statutory powers where it is right to do so.

Did you spot the sleight of hand? “home education was a factor in this case”, but if you read these two paragraphs in full you get the take-home message that “home education was the factor in this case” which prevented the local authority from investigating and intervening in the home. However, the facts which are already in the public domain, even though the Serious Case Review has not reported yet, suggest that this is far from the case.

By the time I phoned up the show many papers were carrying reports of the failure of local authority social workers to respond properly to repeated requests by two local schools to get involved.

The Daily Mail’s story is here and it has this damming graphic in it:

If I had been allowed to say more I may have quoted this from this report in the Guardian which included these paragraphs:

Suraj Ahmed, a doctor at Birmingham city hospital, examined a seven-year-old boy who lived at the house in January 2008 after teachers expressed concern about his welfare.

“He was searching cupboards looking for food as soon as he got into school,” Ahmed said. “At lunchtime, he would grab food from other children’s plates and eat it, and that was a cause of concern for the school staff.” His weight was below average.

Ahmed pointed out to Gordon that the child was not getting enough calories and suggested he saw a dietician, but she rejected this advice and said she did not want the school feeding him any snacks without her permission.

During a brief stay in hospital, the boy would constantly approach people and ask them for food. A lock had been fitted high up on the kitchen doors to keep Khyra and the five other children in the house away from the food inside.

This turns out to be only the tip of the problem.

Since my contact with BBC Radio WM I have become aware of the judgement from a hearing in respect to an application by Birmingham City Council for a care order under section 31 of the Children Act 1989 in relation to the five surviving children. The application was made in the High Court (Family Division) Birmingham District Registry and judgement was given on 6th March 2009. It can be found here on the web site of the British and Irish Legal Information Institute.

Before you rush to read it let me warn you it makes very harrowing reading. Someone else has described it in these terms:

Warning to anyone who has not read it, the other 5 were all seriously malnourished (two within days of death and in a way that has mostly been seen in WWII POWs or African famines) and the social worker basically did not take into account the schools’ comments (over three months) about all the children (three with statements and one with an IEP) being obsessed with food and losing weight.

In fact, to save this post from being incredibly long I have put a guide to the most relevant clauses in this 43 page document on a separate page.

You can read it here (opens in new window/tab).

Here I will just quote two paragraphs from from a section called, K: slipping through the net:

256. The fact remains however that M’s school was seriously concerned and the school of L, Z and K were voicing their concerns about these children, in particular their concerns relating to their belief that the children were not being fed properly. The schools did all they could to bring their concerns to the attention of the relevant authorities. These concerns were not taken sufficiently seriously and were not adequately investigated.

259. K’s death was caused by and is the responsibility of her mother and the Intervenor, but on the evidence before the court I can only conclude that in all probability had there been an adequate initial assessment and proper adherence by the educational welfare services to its guidance, K would not have died. Merely looking at the photographs of the house and the conditions in which the children were living confirms in my mind that had social services even seen the bedroom in which the children lived or the Mer [sp. manner] in which they were fed, they would undoubtedly have intervened.

I am not sure how long Mrs Justice King’s judgement has been in the public domain, but until the Serious Case Review is published it is essential reading for anyone who wants to try to understand the events which led up to the death of this little girl. It paints a picture of a broken family descending into deeper and deeper problems.

In the struggle to survive Angela Gordon, after Khyra’s father had left her,  made mistakes and sought help from someone who had suffered in his own childhood. Signs of the downward spiral the household was in were spotted by both schools the children attended and they contacted Social Services several times to ask them to intervene. For whatever reasons, they were slow to do so and even when they did they handled the situation in a way which prompted the Judge’s comment in Para. 259 above.

Alongside the failures of that department, the judgement also refers to the testimony of Birmingham’s home education adviser. He was the only person in the department – no secretarial support he insisted – and responsible for liaison with 350 or so families. He blames the Government’s guidelines on HE for his inability to do anything, but also seems not to have understood the law. He and a colleague spent an hour in the house, but did not see any children. However, even when Gordon failed to provide requested ‘teaching plans’ and did not keep a further appointment, he told Special Educational Needs Assessment Services:

“that the parents were able to supply adequate information about their plans for educating the children and that he was satisfied that they were sufficiently set up for home teaching.”

My concern here is not with what these people did or did not do, but with Ed Balls who as Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, should have been aware of this judgement some time ago. Even if he had not taken the time to read it in full, someone in his department should have briefed him as to its implications.

• If he was aware of this judgement and still chose to make the central issue of Khyra Ishaq’s premature death the fact that she was being ‘home educated’, then he is guilty of abusing this girl’s memory for political reasons.
• If he was not aware of the implications of this judgement before he issued his statement, then questions must be asked about his ability to run such an important Government department.

I hope that the Serious Case Review will be published in full in this instance, because it is clearly in the public interest given the way the case has been dragged into the political arena.

If, as Justice King’s ruling suggests it should, the SCR finds once again that local authority departments were not up to the job, then perhaps we should demand not only accountability from those in their employ, but also from the Department which is responsible for such services across the country. Of course it is the DfCSF’s political bosses who are ultimately responsible for what happens, but like Birmingham City Council they are all too ready to blame others.

The full story can be found here.

The Tories would scrap a new duty that requires parents who educate their children at home to be registered with councils.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, said that he would block plans which “stigmatise” home educators.

Under the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which has almost finished going through Parliament, local authorities will setup databases of home-educating families and visit them to ensure that standards are met.

and

In a debate yesterday on the timesonline blog, Schoolgate, one parent said: “Home educators have no faith in government after being treated so badly by Labour. How can that be rectified?”

Mr Gove said that he thought parents who educated their children at home did a wonderful job. He said: “Government should support them and we won’t allow the current Government’s plans to stigmatise home educators to get through.”

Mr Gove promised that clauses of the Bill relating to home education would never become law if the Tories won power in the general election.

To be fair to Mr Drew, he made clear he may not agree with every home educator he has met, but he still spoke out on our behalf.

More details and videos of the Third Reading can be found on this page.