Children not in school

The Children Not in School (CNIS) consultation’s purpose was to seek views on proposals relating to local authority registers of children not attending school, which would improve local authorities’ ability to undertake their safeguarding and educational responsibilities related to children who do not attend mainstream education institutions, and on a duty for local authorities to support home educating families.

The ‘Children Not in School’ consultation received almost 5,000 responses, mostly online, and mostly from parents. However a large proportion of local authorities (LAs) responded. There were 145 LA responses, although a few LAs sent in more than one response. The consultation also had significant interest from a number of children’s charities, who are strongly supportive of the proposals.

Following the consultation response, which was published on 3 February 2022, the next steps are to legislate to enact the proposals at the earliest opportunity. We will continue to work together with key stakeholders and other government departments to make this happen and develop the proposals into CNIS registers for each local authority in England and a duty on local authorities to support home educating families should they want it.