Freedom of information response
Home Education
This is a request about home education teams. I am aware that some local authorities may have a different word or phrase to describe these teams, so for the avoidance of doubt, I am asking for information about any staff whose main role is to support or monitor the use of elective home education for the authority
I would like to request the following information
1. How many people on average did the LA employ in its home education team during each of the last 10 full financial years. If you do not have an average, a snapshot figure for a point in the year is acceptable
2. How much did the council spend on its home education teams and wider work to support and monitor the use of elective home education in each of the last 10 financial years
1. Until December 2020 the discharge of the local authority’s duties in respect of Elective Home Education (EHE) was achieved using the services of a Consultancy Service. This involved 1 person whose sole responsibility was EHE. Some support was given from various officers in the Education Welfare Service but it would not be possible to give any meaningful breakdown of time spent on these tasks or the relative costs.
From December 2020 the management of EHE was taken over by the School Attendance Support Team (SAST) and a full time EHE Officer was recruited with no need for the Consultancy Service. Some support is given by the officers in the School Attendance Support Team however as the level of support and time offered varies greatly between officers, who have many other roles and responsibilities, it is not possible to separate the EHE duties in order to provide a breakdown of time and cost. I can offer an estimation of at least 25% of their time.
2. It is proving to be very time intensive to obtain accurate figures relating to the payments made to the Consultancy service since 2014. I can offer, using historical information from before 2014, that this is estimated to have been £15k per year.
From December 2020 to June 2022 the spend for the Elective Home Education Officer was £52757.85 There was a vacancy until August 2022 and since then the spend for the EHE Officer has been £ 42,600