Warning over ‘grossly inadequate’ mental health support for schools that could make high absence levels ‘the new norm’
Mental health support for children struggling to attend school is “grossly inadequate”, a report by a committee of cross-party MPs has said.
The number of children absent from school has more than doubled since the pandemic and a report by the Education Select Committee says ministers are not acting fast enough to get numbers down.
A “major cross-government review on how to overcome this challenge” is needed, the committee chair has said.
The children are asked to write about how they are feeling
One senior teacher has told Sky News she fears high levels of absence could become the “new norm” – inflicting long-term damage on thousands of children.
The latest figures show that in 2021/2022 more than 1.7 million children were persistently absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of school.
Around 125,000 spent more time out of class than in, according to Department for Education figures.
Furness Academy
The report is critical of the government’s approach, saying there has been “no significant improvement in the speed and scale” of reducing absence rates.
One of the authors’ biggest concerns is the rising rates of children struggling with their mental health.
Education Committee chair Robin Walker MP told Sky News: “It’s clear that since the pandemic there have been a growing number of children citing mental health reasons for being out of school.
“This is deeply troubling and it is evident that our health service can’t meet this growing demand, leaving schools to fill the gaps.
“A major cross-government review of how to overcome this challenge is needed and greater resources both inside and outside schools will be required.”
‘I just felt useless’
In Cumbria, teaching staff at Furness Academy in Barrow-in-Furness have been trying to reduce their absence rates by holding specialist mental health sessions with children struggling with school.
Sky News was given access to one of the sessions as students spoke openly about these struggles.
Josh, 13, said: “I felt like I was just one of the non-smart kids in school. I just felt useless.”
Josh said he ‘felt useless’
Teddy is six years old and staying in a homeless hostel
And another 13-year-old, Brooke, who has struggled with attendance, said: “I missed out a lot on the lessons. So I fell behind. I would just refuse to come in. I’d feel sick with anxiety in the morning before coming to school.”
John, also 13, said the sessions “have helped me improve my confidence. Maybe in the future I’ll be able to speak more instead of trying to hide myself away.”
The pilot scheme, funded by the government and run in conjunction with Westmorland and Furness Council, Furness Academy and the charity Family Action, has improved attendance for all of the children. But sessions like these are rare.
Diane McSharry, education officer at Westmorland and Furness Council, said the authority was under “huge pressure” to tackle low attendance.
“We have to come up with ways to support children and families to get over whatever the barrier is. It’s a constant battle but you have to think outside the box,” she said.
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Funding for schemes like this is often ad hoc and inconsistent, assistant head teacher Linzi Stanway said, and she doesn’t think Whitehall fully grasps the challenges they and others face.
“I think one of the things that’s missing at the moment is an understanding of just how difficult a process this is.
“I’m really worried that this is going to go on for a long period of time.
“And if we don’t do something quickly, I think it is going to become the new norm and that’s not going to be good for anybody.”
Furness Academy, staff have been trying to reduce their absence rates
Student Brooke speaks at a session
ANALYSIS: How Sky News has reported the national crisis of children missing from school
The Education Select Committee report has made a series of recommendations it says will help solve the national crisis in low attendance. Many of these issues have been highlighted by Sky News as part of a long-running investigation.
TEDDY’S STORY
Teddy is six years old and staying in a homeless hostel
The report says the rising costs of transport and uniforms was a major barrier to attendance, particularly affecting pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Last May, Sky News featured the story of Sammy and her six-year-old son Teddy, who were living in a homeless hostel after their landlord evicted them through no fault of their own.
Sammy told Sky News she could not afford transport costs to get her son to school and he was slipping behind on his education.
The report said that while low-income families can apply for extra support for costs like transport, anecdotal evidence suggests take-up is low.
You can read Teddy’s story here.
CHARLIE’S STORY
Charlie is a passionate boxer
The committee heavily focuses on mental health as a barrier to attendance.
In June we reported on 13-year-old Charlie, who hasn’t been to school for the past three years. His dad James said his son was struggling with anxiety and that even though authorities had fined him thousands of pounds, he was “willing to go to prison” rather than force his son to school.
Today’s report said there is a “lack of consistency between England’s local authorities in their approach to issuing fines. Schools Minister Nick Gibb recently told the committee fines can be suitable, “if families are not prepared to engage” with support.
You can read Charlie’s story here
GEORGE’S STORY
George has not been to school for six months
The select committee also raises the problems faced by children with special educational needs (SEND). Absence rates are significantly higher among pupils with SEND and there’s a shortage of special school places in many parts of the country
In July, Sky News spoke to 10-year-old George and his mum Rachel.
He has a complex speech disorder that makes it hard for him to learn, and he has been waiting years for a diagnosis to see if he has autism.
We revealed how thousands of children with special educational needs or disabilities are missing out on the education they are entitled to because of huge delays in the system designed to support them.
A record half a million pupils now have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) – a legal document setting out a child or young person’s special educational needs, the support they require, and the outcomes they would like to achieve.
The plans must be issued within 20 weeks of being applied for, but analysis of government data by Sky News reveals this deadline is missed in a staggering half of all cases, meaning thousands of children are having to wait. In an exclusive interview with Sky News, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was forced to admit that children like George “won’t be helped as much as we want to, as quickly as we want to”.
You can read George’s story here
THE MISSING CHILDREN
The report urges the government to bring into law a national register of children missing education.
We reported how thousands of children vanished from school and authorities often had no idea where they were.
On a single day in spring this year, local authorities in England reported an estimated 24,700 children as missing education – a worrying snapshot of the crisis facing schools.
A Sky News FOI revealed that Education Welfare Officers have been cut by half in the last decade.
The report recommends that the Department for Education urgently looks at the funding available for these jobs.
You can read the story here
Suspected online hate crimes referred to police have quadrupled already this season in English football, Sky News can reveal.
And we have learned that the football policing unit has urged the government to form a new unit to address racism in the sport.
We have also uncovered new details about the police investigation into the hate received by England star Jess Carter, who revealed to me after the Euros final win that the abuse nearly forced her to stop playing at the tournament.
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But the scale of racism facing footballers is highlighted by the abuse received by Kira Rai – a British Sikh Punjabi – after signing for Peterborough United last month.
They play in the fourth tier, far from the spotlight of the Women’s Super League, but that does not limit the venom targeted at Rai on social media.
She told Sky News: “There were some racial slurs about my heritage, where I come from, that I don’t belong in this country, that I should go back to X country and just sorts of things along those lines.
“I think that’s probably quite difficult to read about yourself at the end of the day.
“It should be a moment for me to celebrate, I’ve just joined a new club.”
What an impact she has made at her new club, scoring an incredible five-minute hat-trick in the FA Cup on Sunday on her home debut.
But the joy is tinged with sadness when we meet the next day.
‘A reflection of society’
“I’ve been in football since I was six, so for people to question whether I belong in football purely based on the colour of my skin, I think is something that’s really difficult to get your head round,” she said.
“It’s probably a reflection of what’s going on in society right now and how prevalent racism has become, and I think football is quite clearly a reflection on society.
“In society, over the last weeks, months, I think there’s almost an underlying tension that’s perhaps not been there in recent years.”
Kira Rai, who plays for Peterborough United, suffered racial slurs about her heritage
‘Depressing’ rise in racism
The is felt by the police unit that has overseen football issues for the last two decades, with racism in stadiums and online rising.
Social media is a growing concern, with 170 referrals already this season of online racism compared to 54 in the first three months of the 2022-23 season and 41 in 2023-24.
“We’re seeing more reports, which is depressing,” Chief Constable Mark Roberts said in an exclusive interview.
“I think we’re also seeing that the number of those reports that actually meet the criminal threshold has increased.”
It’s up to 154 already this season.
Chief Constable Mark Roberts says reports of abuse which meet the criminal threshold has increased
Incidents ‘creeping back’ into stadiums
“There’s an awful lot in the political sphere that people are saying that probably a few years ago just wouldn’t have been thought of, so I think it taps into that broader societal piece which makes it challenging,” the National Police Chiefs Council’s football lead added.
“Sadly that seems to have gone backwards a bit. The lower league grounds now, we are seeing incidents creep back into the games which obviously we’ve got to be really keen to clamp down on and make sure that people face consequences.
“Now whether that’s been driven by people being able to say things or feel that they can say things online and that’s now leaking into the actual stadiums, there is a definite trend to see more of it.”
One of the unit’s most high-profile investigations has been into the racism that led Carter to speaking out during England’s run to Euro 2025 and stepping away for a time from social media.
While two arrests have been announced, Sky News can reveal a third person has been arrested. A fourth suspect has also been identified, and six people overseas are under suspicion.
Carter previously told Sky News: “I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to come back on the pitch and be me.”
No one has been charged.
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‘Slippage’ with Musk’s X
Three cases are pending with Elon Musk’s X.
And whether it’s X or Meta-owned Instagram, there is no agreement on the “grossly offensive legal threshold” with policies more tolerable than British law.
Mr Roberts said: “There has been some slippage recently with X that we’re working with them to try to get back to those standards. And I think one of the factual issues we sometimes struggle with is our perception of what is clearly a criminal offence.
“They can sometimes suggest that it doesn’t meet the threshold for their community guidelines, which I find difficult to reconcile really because surely if it meets the criminal prosecution threshold, surely it should breach [their guidelines], and we sometimes have a wrangle about securing information from them.”
England’s Jadon Sancho (L), Marcus Rashford (R) and Bukayo Saka were racially abused after missing penalties during the 2021 Euros final. Pic: AP
A challenge is dealing with international police forces with two-thirds of referrals of racism generated overseas – beyond the jurisdiction of the football policing unit.
While not naming particular countries, Mr Roberts said abuse posted from Eastern Europe and Asia is the main problem.
“The level of interest from some countries varies,” he said. “Some just aren’t interested. We won’t get a response. Others will try and take positive action.”
The approach of English football can seem somewhat disjointed if different campaigns and anti-racism investigations run by different parts of the game.
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For Mr Roberts, that could ideally be enhanced.
“I would like a joint function to tackle online hate with ourselves, the football bodies, Kick It Out and others, ideally supported by government, so that we can do it in a really coherent, joined-up way,” he said in our interview at Cheshire Police HQ.
“I think that would make a massive difference, whether it’s education, whether in-stadium hate, whether it’s online hate.
“The way we’re going to tackle this most effectively is by doing it in a joined-up way where we’re mutually supportive. So I think that’s something we’d be keen to pursue.”
So would those who have been the target of abuse just for doing what they love – playing football.
‘No one wants to talk about this’
Kira Rai, a role model for British South Asians in football, said: “Perhaps there needs to be an overhaul, everyone needs to come together and actually deal with these uncomfortable conversations because they’re not necessarily fun conversations that we have.
“No one really wants to talk about this, and I can understand why. For real change, for genuine change to actually occur, you have to have these difficult conversations.
“You have to listen to player stories, to fan stories, to anyone’s stories in football, in society, to actually get to the bottom of it.”
And as some players showed last weekend in the Women’s Super League, change doesn’t come by taking a knee, but taking a stand.
Up to 14.2 million people could each receive an average of £700 in compensation due to car loan mis-selling, the financial services regulator has said.
Nearly half (44%) of all car loan agreements made between April 2007 and November 2024 could be eligible for payouts, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said.
Those eligible for the compensation will have had a loan where the broker received commission from a lender.
Lenders broke the law by not sharing this fact with consumers, the FCA said, and customers lost out on better deals and sometimes paid more.
A scheme is seen by the FCA as the best outcome for consumers and lenders, as it avoids the courts and the Financial Ombudsman Service, therefore minimising delay, uncertainty and administration costs.
The scheme will be funded by the dozens of lenders involved in the loans, and cost about £8.2bn, on the lower end of expectations, which had been expected to reach as much as £18bn.
The figure was reached by estimating that 85% of eligible applicants will take part in the scheme.
What if you think you’re eligible?
Anyone who believes they have been impacted should contact their lender and has a year to do so. Compensation will begin to be paid in 2026, with an exact timeline yet to be worked out.
The FCA said it would move “as quickly as we can”.
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People who have already complained do not need to take action. Complaints about approximately four million loan agreements have already been received.
There’s no need to contact a solicitor or claims management firm, the FCA said, as it aimed for the scheme to be as easy as possible.
A lender won’t have to pay, however, if it can prove the customer could not have got cover anywhere else.
The number of people who will get a payout is not known. While there are 14.2 million agreements identified by the FCA, the same person may have taken out more than one loan over the 17-year period.
More expensive car loans?
Despite the fact many lenders have to contribute to redress, the FCA said the market will continue to function and pointed out the sector has grown in recent years and months.
In delivering compensation quickly, the FCA said it “can ensure that some of the trust and confidence in the market can be repaired”.
It could not, however, rule out that the scheme could mean fewer offers and more expensive car loans, but failure to introduce a scheme would have been worse.
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The FCA said: “We cannot rule out some modest impacts on product availability and prices, we estimate the cost of dealing with complaints would be several billion pounds higher in the absence of a redress scheme.
“In that scenario, impacts on access to motor finance and prices for consumers could be significantly higher with uncertainty continuing for many more years.”
Kemi Badenoch has repeatedly refused to say whether she admires Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
Speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, the Tory leader said she did not “understand the question” when asked if she held her rival in high regard.
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Asked what she thought of Mr Farage, whose party is currently leading in the polls, Ms Badenoch replied: “I think it’s very interesting that a lot of the media in Westminster is very interested about asking about Nigel Farage.
“I’m not interested in Nigel Farage, I’m interested in the Conservative Party.”
Ms Badenoch was speaking against the backdrop of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, where the party has announced a string of policies, including a promise to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and “ICE-style” deportations if she wins the next election.
The announcements have been interpreted as an attempt to respond to the threat posed by Reform, who have already announced plans to leave the ECHR and carry out mass deportations.
Last month, they also vowed to scrap indefinite leave to remain, which gives people the right to settle, work and study in the UK and claim benefits, and to make obtaining British citizenship the only route to permanent residence in Britain.
However, the Conservatives have sought to use their conference to distinguish themselves from Reform, branding their spending plans “socialist”.
It comes despite a poll of Tory members by YouGov showing that 64% support an electoral pact with Reform, while almost half of Tory members – 46% – would support a full-blown merger.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms Badenoch admitted there was “a lot we could do better” given the Conservatives had dropped in the polls from 26% to 17% and her personal poll ratings stood at -47.
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But she said: “I don’t let these things distract me. The fact of the matter is that last year we lost in a historic defeat. We never had so few MPs, and it’s going to take time to come back from that.
“I am absolutely determined to get our party out of this, but I always said that things would get worse before they got better because we’d be out of government.”
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The conference has been dominated by questions of collaboration with Reform, after 20 Tory councillors announced they were defecting to Reform – on top of the eight who have moved to Nigel Farage’s party since March.
On Monday, Tory MP Andrew Rosindell said he believed the Conservatives and Reform needed to work together.
“I’ve made it clear all the way through, and nothing has changed, that I am for the Conservatives and Reform working together,” he told GB News.
“We need right-of-centre unity to defeat the left.
“If that means the Conservatives and Reform working together, we should do it. I don’t see Reform as our enemies. It’s a split on the right, and we need to come together.”
Put to her that the Tories may need to work with Reform, Ms Badenoch ruled out a pact and told Beth Rigby: “I’m not interested in doing pacts. I was not elected to have a pact with Reform.
“I was elected to change the Conservative Party, make it clear what we stand for and that’s what I’ve done at this conference.
“Robert Jenrick is not the leader of the Conservative Party, neither is Andrew Rosindell. I am.”
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