Double Counting?

Well, what d'ya know...the DCSF is garnering the views of LAs twice it seems. Of course, home educators only get one chance. Whilst we can all participate in the consultation that runs till 20th Feb, it emerges that LAs will be able to put their case in another, this time explicitly confidential questionnaire any time through to March.

And then the LA get some sixty questions, on top of the six that we can all answer.

AND some of the questions on the LAs form imply that they have duties which they don't have and are therefore extremely misleading. For example, question 29:

"How does the local authority ensure families know about their rights and responsibilities in relation to home education? (List all approaches used)."

Cough, splutter, excuse me? Where in law is an authority allowed to appropriate responsibilities to itself without legislative force of any sort whatsoever?

Altogether, one is left wondering how Mr Badman can possibly draw any sensible conclusions from such squewed and erroneous information gathering.

And it isn't just the numbers. So far the evidence for all these suspicions about what home educators get up to that are being bandied about by the LAs and the government has been thin to negligable. Making policy on the back of unsubstantiated suspicion is not the behaviour of responsible government.