Local authorities and home-educating families need better guidance from the Scottish Executive if they are to develop positive partnerships, says a report from the Scottish Consumer Council.

The report Home-based Education: Towards Positive Partnerships is based on a Scotland-wide survey of local authorities and case studies of home-educating families. It found wide variations in the approach and practices adopted by local authorities. This can foster suspicion and lead to increased tension between families and council staff which, ultimately, can be damaging for children.

The report sets out a series of recommendations for improving the relationship between families and their local councils. It is being published on the final day of a Scottish Executive consultation that is reviewing guidance on home education.

Parents have a legal right to choose to home-educate their children. The Scottish Executive estimates that just over 700 children are educated at home with rural areas such as Argyll and Bute, Highland and Perth and Kinross having the highest numbers.

The report says that research carried out in England and Wales has challenged the view that home-based education is inferior to that provided in schools. Testing of home educated children has shown a generally high level of performance. It also found that the main reason given for choosing to home-educate children was negative experiences at school such as bullying.

However, local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that education provided at home is “efficient and suitable.” That has led to different policies being developed across Scotland from unannounced home visits at one extreme to supportive meetings with parents, telephone discussion and the acceptance of written submissions at the other. Some families have complained about intrusive monitoring which has affected their relationship with council staff.

Staff have also complained that existing guidance is unclear about how monitoring should take place and about how “efficient and suitable” education should be defined.

Similarly, there is concern about the way requests to withdraw a child from school to start home education are being handled and how long this can take. Only five out of 26 councils that replied to an SCC survey had timescales for granting permission (ranging from 4 – 8 weeks).

Such requests are also handled differently across Scotland. Some local authorities require contact with the child when making a decision while others do not. Some are happy to accept written submissions on planned education while others require meetings. Requests are referred to council committees in some local authorities by handled by officers in others.

The report recommends a number of changes to legislation and the Scottish Executive guidance to help improve relationships between home-educating families and local authorities.

They include:

• Amending the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 to allow parents to withdraw a child from school for home education by notifying the local authority in writing. At present, children have to remain in school until permission is granted which can take several weeks. In the interim there should be a maximum three week time limit for processing withdrawal requests.
• Clarifying the legal role of local authorities in relation to on-going contact with families.
• Developing information on home education for parents for use by all local authorities
• Supporting education officers to develop good practice on home education

The Chair of the SCC, Douglas Sinclair said: “The right to home-educate is a fundamental entitlement of every parent in Scotland. However, it is conditional on providing an ‘efficient and suitable’ education for their children. This places a home-educating family and their local council in a unique relationship which relies on the development of a positive partnership between the two.

The findings of this research demonstrate that in many cases this ‘positive partnership’ is not being developed. Many of these problems appear to stem from the way that the initial request to home-educate is handled. While some councils approach this in a positive and supportive manner, others are employing a heavy-handed approach which can be intimidating to parents and in some cases their children.

Often the tensions between councils and home-educating families stem from different interpretations of the law in relation to home-based education. The current Scottish Executive review of the guidance on home education offers an opportunity to clarify roles and responsibilities and build strong partnership between parents and councils. We believe it would be in the interests of all three parties – the Executive, councils and home educating parents – for the new guidance to be developed in a tripartite way.

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About the Scottish Consumer Council

The Scottish Consumer Council was set up by the government in 1975 to promote the interests of consumers, particularly those who experience disadvantage in society. While producers and suppliers of goods and services are usually well organised when protecting their own interests, individual consumers very often are not. The people we represent are consumers of all kinds: they may be council tenants, patients, parents, solicitors’ clients, public transport users, or simply shoppers in a supermarket. We speak up for them by communicating with the professions, industry, business, local authorities and central government, using careful research and persuasive lobbying.