LA Funding to Support Home Educators

Education Otherwise posts regular updates about funding on our Latest News page. Click here to sign up for email notification of new items.

STOP PRESS JUNE 2010

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has been renamed The Department for Education.

The new coalition Government is still deciding on the priorities for the new parliamentary term. Government spending is due to be cut drastically.

On June 17th the Department for Education made the following announcement:

"Funding may be available where a local authority provides significant financial support for a home educated young person in two specific circumstances. These are, first, where the young person has SEN and secondly where the young person attends further education college to take GCSEs or other courses. Where significant financial support is being provided, the LA can claim funding from the Department through the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG)."

Read more on the Department for Education website here.

It was also claimed that the January 2011 funding guidance would indicate local authorities could claim 10% of the Dedicated Schools Grant via Alternative Provision where local authorities funded GCSEs for home educated young people. It is not clear whether the new Coalition Government will continue with this plan.

A number of local authorities seem to believe that if the previous Government had successfully introduced new legislation on home education registration then there would have been funding to support home educating families. However, the recent proposed legislation contained nothing about funding for support.

It could equally be argued that a fraction of the money saved on the doomed registration and inspection scheme could instead be used for support and increased access to services. The previous Government estimated it would cost around £50 million to set up the registration scheme with a further £30 million annual running costs.

The Impact Assessment on the Children Schools and Families Bill February 2010 can be found here. Home education costs are outlined on page 90.

Secretary of State's letter to Graham Badman October 2009

Minister Diana Johnson statement on DSG House of Commons November 2009

EO Campaign Site posts on college funding April 2010 here and here

Consultation on Dedicated Schools Grant funding

Impact Assessment on Children Schools and Families Bill February 2010