Source · Select Committees · Education Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Accepted
Conduct an audit of local authority support for persistent absence and assess EWO funding impact.
Recommendation
The Department should conduct an audit of support provided by local authorities to tackle persistent absence. As part of this, the Department should make an assessment of the impact of providing funding for Education Welfare Officers through schools, compared to centrally funding such roles. (Paragraph 47) Government Interventions
Government Response Summary
The government states it is already closely monitoring local authority support for attendance through a team of advisers working with every local authority, reviewing their approach and supporting plan implementation, and notes the significant change in LA roles since 2014.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Department is already closely monitoring support provided by local authorities. The role of the local authority in attendance has changed significantly from that of the pre-2014 Education Welfare Service. While core functions have been retained, the ‘Working together’ guidance also sets clear roles and responsibilities for schools for the first time. These include day to day management of attendance and casework support for families where the barrier to attendance is school based, which is the significant majority of cases. This approach followed analysis of effective practice and a public consultation in Spring 2022. A significant majority of school and local authority respondents agreed with the allocation of responsibilities set out. ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ includes a core set of functions that local authority attendance support staff (whether titled education welfare officers, attendance officers or early help practitioners) are expected to provide free of charge to all schools and funded centrally through the Central Schools Service Block and Supporting Families Grant. These functions comprise: communications and advice: bringing schools together to communicate messages, advise and share best practice within the area; targeting support meetings: all schools are expected to be given a point of contact in the attendance team holding termly meetings to identify pupils and cohorts at risk and agree targeted actions; Multi-disciplinary support for families: providing practical whole-family support where needed to tackle the causes of absenteeism; Legal intervention: taking forward the full range of attendance legal intervention measures where voluntary support has not been successful or engaged with. Schools can choose to provide what is set out in the guidance using their own attendance or pastoral staff. They can also choose to employ independent education welfare companies to fulfil their expectations, or buy additional attendance support capacity from their local authority. The Government monitors the implementation of these expectations through our team of advisers who are working with every local authority in England, reviewing their approach and supporting them to develop and implement a plan to deliver the guidance expectations. Each local authority remains responsible for the way in which it shapes its services to deliver the guidance expectations.