Lord Storey

This government is committed to delivering new breakfast clubs in every primary school across England, providing children with a supportive start to the day so they are ready to learn. Rollout will start in up to 750 schools from April 2025.

The department is aware of existing offers provided directly to schools from food companies, which support schools to give pupils a healthy breakfast at the start of the day. Companies provide this support as charitable donations, offering direct grants to schools so they can provide breakfast food and buy equipment for their breakfast clubs. The department knows these donations are gratefully received by schools and that the companies provide valuable support to the sector. Any food served in schools must meet the School Food Standards.

In total, five prosecutions have been initiated in the past five years against individuals suspected of conducting an unregistered school. The table below shows the number of prosecutions that have been initiated in each of those five years.

An unregistered school is defined as any setting that is operating as an independent school without registration. It is a criminal offence under section 96 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 for a person to operate an unregistered independent school. The department does not retain data about the number of unregistered schools operating.

The department works closely with Ofsted, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police to identify and close unregistered schools to ensure children are protected from harm. Ofsted has powers under section 97 of the Education and Skills Act 2008 that allows for unannounced inspections of settings believed to be operating in breach of registration requirements. A team of inspectors are employed to identify, investigate and inspect any setting where there is evidence to suggest that an unregistered independent school is operating.

The department will publish an updated audit closure report in Quarter 1 of 2025/26 on completion of the remedial actions.

The department has collected local authority data on electively home-educated children from local authorities in England since autumn 2022. The most recent published figures show an estimated 92,000 children in home education on the October 2023 census, which is an increase from 80,900 on the same day in the previous year.

The department knows that local authorities are concerned about rising numbers and the resulting implications on resources for their ongoing education and safeguarding duties. Data collection shows that mental health, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and dissatisfaction with schools are increasingly common reasons behind decisions to home-educate. The forthcoming SEND reforms will help more schools to meet the needs of children with SEND and may help to stem the flow of families who feel that schools are not able to appropriately support their child.

The government will legislate for statutory local authority registers of children who are not in school as part of the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which will be introduced in due course. Parents will have a duty to provide information about their child for these registers. This will help to improve local authority and the department’s understanding of this cohort of children and enable local authorities to target resources and capacity to those children who need it most.

£500 million is being provided to enable the current Household Support Fund, including funding for Devolved Administrations through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion. This means Local Authorities in England are receiving £421 million to support those in need locally.

The current Household Support Fund will be in place until 30 September 2024.

As a new government, we are reviewing all policies, including the Household Support Fund.