Freedom for Children to Grow

Education Otherwise Government Policy Group members had a pre-consultation meeting with the DFES on December 19th 2006 at which point we were told that DfES were planning a full public consultation in the new year to review the regulations for home education.

However since the New Year the DfES seems to have realised that there should be more dialogue with partners and stakeholders before launching such a wide ranging consultation. However, DfES evised its plans and decided to go for written Guidelines for Local Authorities instead.

Local Authorities have been able to submit to the consultation. Local authorities have a duty under the Children's Act 2004 to consult stakeholders; at a local level, home educating parents are stakeholders.

If your Local Authority did not hear of the consultation, and if the LA has no experience of meeting home educating families and understanding their point of view, then it is likely that the LA will made a consultation response unfavourable to Elective Home Education in which the LA simply demanded more powers. For this reason the Education Otherwise Campaign Team here are encouraging home educators to consider some form of collective dialogue with their Local Authority, to find out if they responded, and what response they made. Here is some information which we hope will help: "What your LA Can Do For You" and "Meeting with Your LA".

This is about contacting the officers of the Council (see our page on how to contact your Local Authority for more guidance on finding out who you need to speak to). You could copy to your local councillor. This is to influence the elected representatives at Council level. They can influence the work of Officers and are supposed to represent local people on the Council.