An Action for Home Education briefing paper regarding the Report of the Deputy Director of Children’s Services at Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council to the meeting of the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee to be held on 12 October 2016.

1. The proposed delay in deregistration from school contradicts Section 8 of the statutory Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 and would leave school proprietors open to personal fines. ⁱ

2. The proposed use of personal data about children and families breaches Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rightsⁱⁱ, as demonstrated in the case of The Christian Institute and others (Appellants) v The Lord Advocate (Respondent) (Scotland) in the Supreme Court on 28 July 2016ⁱⁱⁱ, particularly in sections 45 to 48. Any processing of personal data (collection as well as sharing) below the Children Act Section 47^iv threshold without consent is unlawful unless it meets the Human Rights necessity and proportionality tests^v.

3. To comply with the Data Protection Act^vi and the Human Rights Act^vii the information sharing must be a) with consent; and b) necessary but the data sharing proposed in the Report of the Deputy Director meets neither criteria.

4. This is because by the nature of the scheme those families whose personal data would be shared will not know about it and therefore cannot be asked or therefore agree to provide their informed consent to the data sharing.

5. The information sharing scheme described in the report also fails to meet the 'necessary' test because the threshold for concern about individual unregistered children is not apparent and such blanket strategies for the effective hunting down of all unregistered home educated children is not mandated in any statutory regulation.

6. Current home education liaison practice in Bradford breaches the Elective Home Education Guidelines for Local Authorities^viii and Section 437 of the Education Act^ix when it seeks extensive information about a child's provision before any concerns have been reported that it may be deficient.

7. The problem of illegal schools should be addressed by proper policing of Section 98 of the Education and Skills Act^x. Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council has taken no action whatsoever in at least one ongoing incidence of a reported illegal school.

i http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/1751/regulation/8/made
ii http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf
iii https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2015-0216.html
iv http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/47
v https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/conditions-for-processing/
vi http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/contents
vii http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1/part/I/chapter/7
viii https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elective-home-education
ix http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/56/section/437
x http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/25/pdfs/ukpga_20080025_en.pdf