Lincolnshire County Council Home Education Monitoring

[Elaine Kirk]

I do believe local authorities have to keep records of the educational achievements of children in their care. Maybe Lincolnshire should be asked for theirs and also for details of the budget allocated to monitoring the level of engagement with education amongst children in their care...oh and the cost of ultra vires ongoing monitoring of home educated children .

[elysian]

Thanks, Ali P, for posting the link to my blog post Lincs CC have told me that I will have a full and final response to the complaint by the 1st June, once the Chief Exec has got over his little fit of indignation about me being disrespectful towards his employees on my blog

Meanwhile, as some of you already know, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post on ultra vires monitoring as the 3rd anniversary of Badman approaches. They really liked it, and it's featured on their front page today; last time I looked it was also the top featured story (as opposed to headline) on the main education section and one of the three headline posts on the schools section. Ultra Vires Home Education Monitoring: Badman Via the Back Door?

Will let you know when the full and final reply arrives from Lincs...

[elysian]

The full and final reply is in. It can be viewed here.

Essentially: they still insist their policy is not ultra vires; they found no evidence of bias against home education; they don't believe any apologies are necessary, including from the offensive councillor; they don't accept that they obstructed the complaint, despite not following their own complaints procedure and despite withholding the contact details I had to ask for three times and was never actually given; they don't accept a failure to consult. They're whiter than white, apparently.

I'm undecided what to do about this next. It seems that it's bad timing for a judicial review, given the new select committee inquiry. LGO is a possibility, but they don't seem very clear on home ed law themselves, and as someone wisely pointed out to me in the FB group, should they decide Lincs is not at fault then it sets an uncomfortable precedent. The other option is to do nothing until they contact me with their yearly monitoring request (due in October) and then refuse to play ball and see what they do. A sensible choice, probably, except that I'm not big on patience

Meanwhile, two of my FOIs have still not had responses and are now a week late, so I'll be dealing with that separately.

Llondel mentioned on the first page that the Dept of Ed/Michael Gove had said to take ultra vires practices up with the LA's complaints procedure. I've sent a very short note asking explicitly a) whether they agree that ongoing, routine, annual monitoring is ultra vires and b) what they suggest a family should do having exhausted the LA's complaints procedure. I fully expect a waffle/boilerplate reply, but having something from there which says to pursue it with LGO (which is what I assume they'll say) might just make a potential case to the LGO stronger.

[pendlewitch]

I have to agree that I think a JR could potentially be very problematic, but can see why you would want to go for one. :-(

[llondel]

Llondel mentioned on the first page that the Dept of Ed/Michael Gove had said to take ultra vires practices up with the LA's complaints procedure. I've sent a very short note asking explicitly a) whether they agree that ongoing, routine, annual monitoring is ultra vires and b) what they suggest a family should do having exhausted the LA's complaints procedure. I fully expect a waffle/boilerplate reply, but having something from there which says to pursue it with LGO (which is what I assume they'll say) might just make a potential case to the LGO stronger.

I could probably write their response and get most of it correct, they basically don't want to touch home education with a bargepole. However, it would be interesting to note whether they now tell you to wait while the Select Committee does its thing. They might even promise to take note of, and act on, any recommendations.

[elizm]

Originally Posted by elysian

The full and final reply is in. It can be viewed here.

Essentially: they still insist their policy is not ultra vires; they found no evidence of bias against home education; they don't believe any apologies are necessary, including from the offensive councillor; they don't accept that they obstructed the complaint, despite not following their own complaints procedure and despite withholding the contact details I had to ask for three times and was never actually given; they don't accept a failure to consult. They're whiter than white, apparently.

I'm undecided what to do about this next. .

I've only scanned this, seems it didn't go to a panel, in Lancashire the complaints system results in the complaint going to a panel of Councillors, your paperwork can be presented for discussion and you can attend if you wish. Tricia and I attended the discussion. It wasn't simply a matter of an LA bod having a look and answering questions.

I wonder if the complaints department can explain this to you?
It seems that it is the time to get the local government people involved, the buck stops at the councillors. Im Lancs various people tried batting us off, we did need to keep pushing them to think about it properly, once they did that they realised that it was a simple as we said. But it took a few avenues before finding people prepared to switch their brains on.

Must be difficult doing this on your own.

[elizm]

I've had a closer read, they have thought about it, they are changing little bits checking things and trying to bat away any blame. I wonder if one next step would simply be to see how little information would be enough to "pass" the annual contact. Also push them to a review of the policy with a real consultation to be completed within the year. THis might achieve your outcomes without them admitting thhey are wrong.

with lancs we did have to pull back from niggling on every detail at the point that theybstartedbto listen. that was hard for us, but now they are checking almost everything with the HE community, down to whether the leaflet needd the title in bold or not.

Once they know they are being held to account they may be way more careful and take account of the evidence you presented, they probably won't want to admit that though.

Well done, you have got them thinking at least.