Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is Ofsted's policy regarding its expectation of the duties and actions of Local Authority Elective Home Education Officers.

When inspecting Local Authority children’s social care services, Ofsted looks at the arrangements for children’s welfare and protection while they are being electively home educated.

Ofsted will look at the ways in which Local Authorities identify children who are not receiving suitable education and what steps the Local Authority takes to deal with that, particularly those children who are either on a child protection plan, education, health and care plan, or are a child in need as part of its children’s social care remit. They may also request a report on children for whom the local authority is responsible who are of school age and who are not in receipt of full-time school education at the time of inspection.

The ‘Evaluating the educational progress of children in care and care leavers’ section of the Ofsted framework for inspections states that Her Majesty’s Inspectors will analyse data and information on elective home educated children and children missing education, as part of these inspections.

Inspectors do not have powers to evaluate or comment on the quality of home education, only the way Local Authorities deal with it as part of their statutory responsibilities.