Member

The department already runs a mandatory collection of data from local authorities concerning their home-educated cohorts. This collection includes the size of each cohort and the usage of school attendance orders. However, as I mentioned in the previous debate, the children not in school registers will improve the quality and completeness of that data. That is why the Bill contains measures that can be used to oblige local authorities to provide data returns to the Secretary of State once the children not in school registration system is implemented.