To ask Her Majesty's Government why Sutton, Worcestershire, Tameside, Sandwell, Telford and Wrekin, Brent, Leicestershire County, Hounslow, Sheffield, Birmingham City, Knowsley, Bracknell and Suffolk local authorities, who filled in the supplemental questionnaire in relation to home education, do not appear on the list of local authorities to have done so published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. [HL406]

There have been three separate requests to local authorities for data relating to home education. A list of authorities that responded to the first request is found at (http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage. cfm?action=collections.displayDocument&i_document ID=881&i_collectionID=346), the list of authorities that responded to the second request is found at (http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage.cfm?action=collections.displayDocument&i_ documentID=899&i_collectionID=347) and a list of authorities responding to the third request is found at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/. Where local authorities responded late to a data request their response may have been too late to be included in any analysis. Sutton, Sandwell, Telford and Wrekin, Brent, Leicestershire County, Birmingham City, Bracknell and Suffolk responded to the third questionnaire but their responses were too late to be analysed. Worcestershire, Tameside, Hounslow, Sheffield and Knowsley did not respond to the third questionnaire, although the published lists show that they did respond to the first and second questionnaires.

To ask Her Majesty's Government for each local authority for which they have data, (a) how many home-educated children are considered to be receiving no education, (b) what is the total number of home-educated children, and (c) how many of the home-educated children considered to be receiving no education (1) are from traveller families, (2) are children who first became home educated in years 10 or 11 with a previous history of irregular attendance, and (3) are children who have not yet been assessed. [HL407]

I attach a table showing the number of electively home educated children in each local authority that responded to the questionnaire on home education distributed in September. The department's policy is not to release any information that might lead to individual children being identified where data released could be combined with other data. As 69 local authorities identified a total of 210 home educated children that they assessed as receiving no education at all, we are not able to release a breakdown of these data by local authority as the numbers for each individual authority would be very small and individual children might be identified.

We did not collect information on the ethnic or cultural background of home educated children receiving no education, nor their age, so we are unable to provide information on the number from a traveller background, or the number that are in years 10 or 11. Home educated children awaiting assessment were included in the data collection as a separate category.

* indicates number < than 10 per LA

To ask Her Majesty's Government for each local authority for which they have data, (a) how many home-educated children are considered to be not in education, employment or training (NEET), (b) how many home-educated children are not considered to be NEET, and (c) how many of the home-educated children in each local authority considered to be NEET (1) are from traveller families, (2) are children who first became home-educated in years 10 or 11 with a previous history of irregular attendance, and (3) are children for whom the local authority has no evidence of their current occupation. [HL409]

The department's policy is not to release any information that might lead to individual children being identified where data released could be combined with other data. As 47 local authorities identified a total of 270 out of 1220 home educated children that were not in education, employment or training when the Connexions Service conducted its autumn survey of year 11 school leavers, we are not able to release a breakdown of these data by local authority as the numbers for each category in each individual authority would be small. The percentages for different authorities are given in the form of a histogram on the Every Child Matters website at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/ete/independent reviewofhomeeducation/irhome education/.

Data requested in parts (1) and (2) of question (c) were not collected. Only children who had supplied information about their education, employment or training status are included in the survey.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is meant by “Known to social care includes Section 17, 37 or 47 enquiries” in the Department for Children, Schools and Families' working paper Independent Review of Home Education—safeguarding evidence. [HL434]

Known to social care in this context means children who, at the time of the data collection, were receiving or were planning to receive social care services in local authorities in England under the following sections of the Children Act 1989:

Section 17 (provision of services for children in need, their families and others);

Section 37 (care orders); and

Section 47 (local authority duty to investigate when there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm).

Legal definitions can be found at http://www.opsi. gov.uk/acts/acts1989/ukpga_19890041_en_1.

The questionnaire seeking information excluded some children that fell into these categories and this is shown at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage. cfm?action=collections.displayDocument&i_ documentID=801&i_collection ID=322.