Guidance on LEA and police visits to absent children
Southport Inquiry · The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · Issued 13 April 2026 · Addressed to: Department for Education
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
The Department for Education and the Home Office should review whether further guidance and/or minimum guidance is required in relation to local education authority and police visits to children not attending their place of education.
Southport Inquiry, The Southport Inquiry Report: Phase 1 · 13 Apr 2026 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- The government response states that the Department for Education and Home Office are lead departments and expect to complete implementation by late 2027, and that by mid-2027 the Home Office and the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection will review whether national guidance on police home visits is required (Government Response to Phase 1 of the Southport Inquiry, CP 1623, Home Office, July 2026).
Sources
How was this evidence gathered?
Response — verbatim from government
●Department for Education
The Department for Education (DfE) and Home Office are the lead departments and expect to complete implementation of this recommendation by late 2027. Progress and next steps:
- DfE will amend guidance for supporting young people who are NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), or at risk of becoming NEET to support the development and implementation of a number of initiatives set out in the Post 16 Skills White Paper to help young people at risk of becoming NEET into education, training and work.
- The revised guidance will set an expectation on education providers to notify local authorities within a specified timescale where a young person aged 16+ is no longer participating in education or training.
- The guidance will also address referrals by local authority NEET officers to relevant services, including safeguarding. It will clarify that low attendance should trigger safeguarding consideration where appropriate.
- Decisions on whether police visits are made to the homes of children not attending their place of education are made on a case-by-case basis, informed by multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.
- By mid-2027, the Home Office and the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection will review whether national guidance is required to support consistent decision-making on when police involvement, including home visits, may be appropriate.
Department for Education · 2 Jul 2026 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 2 Jul 2026 · Department for Education Government response published 2 July 2026 (CP 1623). The government accepted this recommendation; the lead department reports implementation is in progress. Source →
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.