Thousands of pupils missing from school and authorities don’t know where they are
Thousands of children have vanished from school with authorities often having no idea where they are, according to figures seen by Sky News.
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.
They are categorised as Children Missing Education (CME), and include any child of school age not in school or receiving an education anywhere else.
Last year a staggering 94,900 children went missing at some point during the 2021/22 academic year.
Often, they are youngsters who have moved on from one area to another and they have not been enrolled into a new school.
By law, councils have to take “all reasonable steps” to find these children, but many remain missing for long periods.
Sky News can reveal that the number of council staff in England whose job it is to monitor school absences has been cut by nearly half in the past decade, making it harder for a lot of councils to track children down.
In 2013, there were 751 education welfare officers, or their equivalent, compared with just 402 this year – a cut of 46%.
That has put huge strain on councils to keep an eye on missing school children.
Read more: Inside a pupil welfare unit where a small team tries to track down missing children
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A spokesperson for the Local Government Association told Sky News: “Funding pressures faced by councils over the last 10 years have impacted on the number of roles councils are able to provide.
“We have long raised with government that councils lack the powers to ensure that children who are missing school don’t slip through the net.
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Why are children missing school?
“Under the current arrangements, children not in school are invisible to councils and the services that keep them safe. This is why it is vital the government legislates for a register of children who are not in school, combined with powers for councils to meet face-to-face with children.”
In response the Department for Education said: “The government is committed to ensuring that all children, especially the most vulnerable in our society, are safe and have access to an excellent education.
“We are continuing to work with local authorities to improve support for children missing education which includes their voluntary registers of children not in school.
“We estimate nationally there are currently more than 1,500 FTE local authority attendance staff and remain committed to introducing a statutory system so that no child falls through the cracks.”
The number of children missing significant amounts of school has risen sharply since the pandemic and is now regarded as a national crisis.
Read more:
An urgent national crisis: The number of children missing school soars
The ‘ghost children’: Thousands are missing school – and COVID made the problem worse
More than 1.7 million schoolchildren are missing from class more than 10% of the time, the equivalent of a morning a week. That has gone up by 108% since COVID.
And more than 125,000 children are spending more time out of school than in – double since the pandemic.
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Thousands of school children missing
The government has set up so-called attendance “hubs” in some of the areas with the highest absence rates.
It has also introduced attendance “mentors” to help support families and schools get children back into class.
Birmingham band UB40 say the city’s striking bin workers and their union should “keep fighting” in their dispute over pay.
It comes as the government and the council urged them to accept a “fair and reasonable offer”.
“We’re fully on their side,” drummer Jimmy Brown told Sky News. “I think they shouldn’t give up, they should still be fighting.
“Working people shouldn’t have to take a reduction in their incomes, which is what we’re talking about here.
“We’re talking about people being paid less and it seems to me with prices going up, heating, buying food, inflation and rents going up then people need a decent wage to have a half decent life… keep going boys!”
Members of the Unite union in Birmingham earlier this month. Pic: PA
Workers joined picket lines again on Thursday, with some fearing they could be up to £600 a month worse off if they accept the terms.
“We have total utter support for the bin men and all trade unions,” said guitarist Robin Campbell.
“The other side is always going to say they’ve made a reasonable offer – the point is they’re the ones who’ve messed up, they’re the ones who’ve gone bankrupt, they’re the ones now trying to reduce the bin men’s wages.”
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Lead singer Matt Doyle told Sky News: “It’s a shame that what we’re seeing is all the images of rats and rubbish building up, that is going to happen inevitably, but we’ve just got to keep fighting through that.”
About 22,000 tonnes of rubbish accumulated on the city’s streets after a major incident was declared last month by Birmingham City Council.
Rubbish has blighted the city’s streets for weeks . Pic: PA
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Bin situation ‘pains me’ – council boss
On a visit to the city, local government minister Jim McMahon said the union and local authority should continue to meet in “good faith” and the government felt there was a deal that could be “marshalled around”.
He paid tribute to the “hundreds of workers” who have worked “around the clock” to clear the rubbish.
Read more:
Bin workers urged to accept ‘fair’ offer
Military planners help with bin crisis
“As we stand here today, 85% of that accumulated waste has been cleared and the council have a plan in place now to make sure it doesn’t accumulate going forward,” said Mr McMahon.
Sky News understands talks are not set to resume until next week.
Trans women in British Transport Police custody will now be strip searched by male officers – not female – following Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling.
The force said it is introducing an “interim position” while it digests the Supreme Court’s decision that the definition of a “woman” under the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.
A British Transport Police (BTP) Authority spokesman told Sky News: “Under previous policy, we had advised that someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) may be searched in accordance with their acquired sex.
“However, as an interim position while we digest today’s judgment, we have advised our officers that any same sex searches in custody are to be undertaken in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee.”
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In September last year, BTP, which is responsible for policing the UK’s railways and similar transport systems, published its “position” on transgender and non-binary officers carrying out strip searches.
It said officers would “only be able to search persons of the same sex on their birth or gender recognition certificate (GRC).
Officers who identified as another gender but who did not have a GRC were not allowed to, but if a trans woman had a certificate, they could strip search a female detainee.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Strip searches involve the removal of more than a jacket, outer coat, gloves, headwear and footwear.
They “expose buttocks, genitalia and (female) breasts”, the BTP guidance says.
The Sex Matters campaign applied for a judicial review of that guidance with the High Court in December.
It said the policy “puts detainees at risk of sexual harassment and sexual assault”, and said it was a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
Sex Matters said the policy “also puts female officers in a humiliating and dangerous position, as they may be pressured to search trans-identified men”.
Read more: NHS must stop trans people being allowed on single-sex wars
Campaigners celebrated outside the Supreme Court after Wednesday’s ruling. Pic: PA
One of the High Court judges who made Wednesday’s decision, Lord Hodge, said the ruling should not be read as “a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another”.
Government minister Karin Smyth told Sky News public bodies have been told to look at how equality laws are implemented following the ruling.
She said: “Obviously, public bodies have been asked to look at their own guidance.
“And we will do that very, very carefully.”
But she warned against public bodies making statements “that may alarm people”, telling them to take their time to look at their guidance.
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said the ruling means there is “no confusion” now.
She said the NHS will “have to change” its 2019 policy, which says transgender patients are entitled to be accommodated on single-sex wards matching how they identify.
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