The primary legislation is clear, say many. Local authorities must simply be forced to keep their actions toward and demands of home educators within the boundaries of the law. To do otherwise, to create, for example, guidelines that appear to be more complex than the law itself, is to invite misinterpretation and mission creep.
Regulatory Framework
But local authorities must consider more than just primary legislation. They must deal with an entire regulatory framework, which includes, but is not limited to, the primary legislation. What else is included in the framework? For a start, there is case law, and other legislation (along with its accompanying guidelines) that may refer to or have an impact on home education (such as the children missing education legislation contained in the amended Education Act 1996 and the 2006 pupil registration regulations).
Then, there are the current guidelines, written in 2007. Many people insist that these guidelines are fine the way they are, and need not be tampered with. Ironically, some of the voices putting forward this argument were highly critical of the current guidelines when they first appeared. Now, however, there seems to be a “better the devil you know” movement, made up of people determined to cling to the old guidelines because they fear that any change is bound to be a change for the worse, and bound to give LAs more power, or more wiggle room for harassment.
Finally, there are individual local authority policy documents on EHE, some of which are developed in consultation with home educators, but many of which are ultra vires (in other words extending beyond the legal capacity of the local authority to demand more than current law permits). While these demands cannot be legally enforced, they certainly do affect the behaviour of local authorities’ employees, whose superiors expect them to follow the policies written for them. Indeed some local authorities believe they are entitled to make these demands or cannot fulfil their duties without making them. To make matters even worse, local authorities sometimes borrow policies from each other, and often choose the elements of their policies based more upon their own desires and prejudices than upon the law. MP Graham Stuart recently went through some of these in his speech to Parliament about the proposed changes to deregistration regulations.
Another look at the Current Guidelines. Why Change?
Legislation and regulation change constantly, in many tiny ways. Many legislators and lawyers spend much of their waking hours trying to keep up to date with these small changes. Many of these changes have an impact on other, seemingly unrelated regulations. For example, children missing education legislation has had an enormous, and negative, impact on the way home education is treated.
Guidelines, therefore, need to be updated from time to time. No guidelines or policy documents stay current forever. These constant changes do often lead, as some of the critics of any change to the status quo have stated, to “mission creep,” and to ever more insidious growth of the nanny state.
But must it? It is interesting that Graham Stuart stated clearly that the opposite was his intent. From the beginning he made it clear that his objective in considering new guidelines was to rein in local authorities personnel who were going beyond the powers given them in law. These same local authorities often ignore the current guidelines. So why won’t they just ignore the new ones, some ask.
A new government, with a new understanding of home education (many MPs having been well educated by their constituents during the Badman debacle), may be willing to use new guidelines to force local authorities to respect the law. The new broom sweeps clean, as they say. While change for the sake of change may be pointless, on the other hand, the 2007 guidelines were a first attempt at this very purpose – an attempt to instruct local authorities in the limits of their duties and their powers.
Most people would probably agree that they have not entirely succeeded. It does not necessarily follow that guidelines are therefore pointless. It could be that both government and local authorities can learn from that attempt. It could be that a revisit to the guidelines will allow the government to create a document that more clearly examines the regulatory framework and defines the limits of local authorities’ duties so that there is no wiggle room for harassment.
EHE Guidelines in a Post-Badman Report Environment
EHE Guidelines in a Post-Badman Report Environment
For some years, so-called safeguarding concerns have been repeatedly mentioned in conjunction with home education in many local authorities. This, combined with the increasing intrusion by local authorities and the state into private family life, has created an atmosphere of distrust between home-educating families and local authorities. The 2009 Badman Report’s attempt to use the tragic 2008 death of Khyra Ishaq in a smear campaign against EHE served to deepen this distrust.
Mr Badman’s proposals for EHE regulation were based on evidence that crumbled to dust at the slightest scrutiny, and after much concerted effort on the part of home educators, the Education Bill’s EHE section that was inspired by them crumbled as well. However the concerns and confusion of local authorities remained.
Many LAs were left believing they had active safeguarding duties (i.e. that they had to ensure every child is safe and well). Others erroneously believed it was their job to ensure that the education provided by home educators was up to scratch. Graham Stuart MP provided evidence of local authorities’ beliefs and confusion in his recent speech in the House of Commons, mentioned above.
Some voices in the home education community have been heard to say that there is no need for new guidelines because home educators should just stand up for their rights and not co-operate with ultra vires demands. This may work for some plucky or even lucky parents, who have access to support and good knowledge of the limits of the law, but one need only read a selection of home education blogs and forums to see evidence of a wide variety of struggles with local authorities that home educators across the country have endured during the past 12 months.
Others have suggested that local efforts by home educators to hammer out workable agreements with their local authorities are the answer. It is certainly true that such efforts often pay off, with good local policies being written as a result. Groups of home educators have expended great effort to get policy documents rewritten in Suffolk and Birmingham
Protecting Freedom with Clarity
Successful guidelines would need, as Graham Stuart stated, to be all encompassing with regard to the regulatory framework, able to connect and correlate all the related case law and related legislation in a manner that would be crystal clear and unlikely to lead to local authority misinterpretation. The whole point, he seemed to be saying, would be to clarify, not muddy the waters.
One test for success for new guidelines, therefore, will be whether they will lead to greater clarity for both local authorities and home educators. Will they outline not only what local authorities should do, what their duties actually are, but also what they must NOT do? If they fail in this regard, if they instead lead to greater complexity, or offer more opportunities for LA misinterpretation or “mission creep,” then home educators would do well to reject them.
New guidelines should also move in the direction of less, rather than more, intrusion into the lives of home-educating families. Will Graham Stuart’s new draft do this? It is impossible to say until he decides to make something public. Only an examination of the actual proposals Mr. Stuart puts forward will allow home educators to answer this question for themselves.
Since he has consistently stated that he will be looking for the problems, and asking the home-educating population for feedback, one would hope that he will be able to take on board any concerns regarding specific points or issues. In light of this, the current round of speculation about Mr. Stuart’s proposals seems rather a waste of energy.
Section 436A of the 1996 Education Act & Revised statutory guidance for local authorities in England
The Education (Pupil Registration) (England
