Evaluation of the elective home education statutory guidance: summary

The aim of the evaluation was to explore the effectiveness of the elective home-education (EHE) statutory guidance, examine whether local authorities considered their position to ‘see’ and communicate with the child to have been strengthened following the publication of the guidance and to find out whether any amendments were needed to improve the guidance.

The elective home-education (EHE) statutory guidance for local authorities was published in May 2023 and replaced the non-statutory guidance that was previously in place. It was developed to support local authorities to exercise their functions to make arrangements to establish the identities of those children not receiving a suitable education.

The work programme for this evaluation was conducted across 4 stages.

• An inception stage
• Stage 2 was analysis of existing data desk-based research of existing policy and strategy documents, including the published EHE statutory guidance and supplementary materials
• Stage 3 included the development of a discussion guide to be used during primary research with each local authority in Wales – to include EHE lead officers and other relevant local authority staff as necessary (such as education welfare officers or Additional Learning Needs (ALN) leads). A data sharing template requesting EHE data as reported to the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) for January 2025 was also prepared. Semi-structured interviews were secured with representatives from all 22 local authorities and a teaching union between mid-April and mid-July. In total, 34 individuals contributed their views during the qualitative fieldwork phase
• Stage 4 of the evaluation included analysis of the fieldwork data and preparation of a report.

The EHE statutory guidance has achieved some benefits in supporting local authorities to carry out their duties in relation to EHE. Several local authorities reported greater clarity and having a standardised framework in place and highlighted its helpfulness in clarifying School Attendance Order (SAO) processes and improving suitability of education assessment templates. 

However this is uneven - around a third of authorities reported that the statutory guidance made little or no practical difference to their approach either because their existing processes already aligned with the guidance or because the guidance is seen as too vague to change practice. Overall, the guidance has clarified intent but has not consistently changed local authority practice or strengthened enforcement levers. The additional funding provided by the Welsh Government has increased local authority capacity in many cases, and there is a stated desire for the funding arrangement to be agreed for the long-term.

Only 9 local authorities stated that they had introduced substantive or incremental process changes since May 2023 in response to the statutory guidance. Examples included revising local policies, adopting Welsh Government templates, establishing new referral processes or EHE panels, and strengthening multi-agency working. However, around 10 local authorities reported some issues around the limitations of the guidance citing concerns about ambiguity or perceived contradictions. It was also noted that the guidance’s reliance on voluntary cooperation from families to meet with EHE officers limits the effective monitoring of, and support for, all home-educated children.

Overall, the evidence does not show that the statutory guidance is being used fully and effectively by all local authorities. While the guidance provides a useful framework and has prompted substantive changes in some areas, its practical application is uneven as it is highly dependent on local resources, interpretation, and the extent to which authorities have embedded the guidance into concrete local processes. 

When considering the extent to which the EHE statutory guidance has been effective in strengthening the position of local authorities to ‘see’ the child in the home, local authorities are clear that it endorses this principle and sets an expectation of at least annual contact. However, many local authorities continue to rely heavily on relationship-building and alternative meeting venues and events to enable sight of the child. There is a strong view that the guidance has not provided local authorities with the power needed to compel parents to provide access, and many local authorities consider that the wording (e.g. use of ‘should’ rather than ‘must’) and lack of statutory powers limit its effectiveness in guaranteeing direct contact. 

Our research has not uncovered strong evidence that local authorities have been able to see more children as a result of the new EHE statutory guidance being published. There are reports of modest gains in the proportion of children seen within a few local authority areas but these increases are mainly attributed to local factors such as increased staff capacity, new local processes, or the arranging of outreach events rather than the guidance itself. There is no consistent national effect that is attributable to the guidance alone, and many local authorities report either no change or that growing EHE numbers mean an unchanged proportion still equates to many unseen children in their locality. 

When applying the EHE statutory guidance, local authorities have experienced, and reported, some common issues. The guidance is sometimes seen as vague or open to interpretation (creating inconsistent application across local authorities) – and a number of specific examples of this are provided throughout the report. Local authorities also feel that the statutory guidance lacks legal powers when families refuse contact. Uncertainty also remains around the standards of evidence required and the attribution of work to the child, and what further action local authorities should take in circumstances where there are doubts about the evidence and the source of the work. Often local authorities also point to practical capacity limits in general (e.g. one officer covering very large, and increasing, caseloads) which makes implementing the guidance challenging. Some local authorities also noted a lack of capacity within legal teams to issue SAOs resulting in the process becoming lengthy and resource-intensive. The time-consuming adversarial contact from organised groups and resource pressures for SAO/legal processes are also perceived as challenges in some areas. 

Where local authorities have experienced issues in applying the EHE statutory guidance, they have adapted their operational processes. This evaluation uncovered many examples of how these issues were being addressed by local authorities. Notable promising practice includes: 

• improved data capture approaches (such as compulsory online deregistration forms to capture reasons, which enable targeted follow-up)
• Red-amber-green (RAG)-based prioritisation to target limited resource to higher-risk cases
• EHE panels to take decisions in complex/SAO cases
• the use of neutral community venues and enrichment events to encourage attendance and to see learners
• directing Welsh Government funding to (partial) staffing increases
• tailored use of the Welsh Government grant to create dedicated EHE posts and family support (learner grants, equipment, community activities)

Such measures have been successful in some areas - for example, local authorities reported better data capture, more timely visits, and improved engagement as a result, but they remain limited by capacity issues and the guidance’s lack of enforceable parental obligations. 

Local authorities made several suggestions and proposals on how the EHE statutory guidance could be amended to help address some of the issues raised. Suggestions offered include 

• the use of firmer language (where appropriate: ‘must’/clearer expectations of parents)
• greater clarification or an improved definition of what counts as ‘seeing the child’ (e.g. video/group events)
• statutory or clearer requirements for initial evidence at deregistration
• stronger expectations around timescales
• a statutory EHE register
• clearer separation between education monitoring and safeguarding duties
• practical examples/templates for evidence attribution and families of children with ALN

Many local authorities also request greater legal backing or legislative change to provide enforceable powers where necessary.

Recommendations for the Welsh Government

Recommendation 1: consider making statutory changes and prioritise targeted measures where evidence suggests a need for further strengthening

This evaluation has demonstrated that many local authorities view the lack of legal compulsion as the principal barrier to a consistent and adequate approach to checking that EHE learners receive a suitable education. The Welsh Government should consider revisiting the statutory measures where evidence shows it is necessary to do so. This should include consideration of whether specific statutory levers are required:

• to enable local authorities to require an initial evidential submission at deregistration
• for an EHE register (or stronger registration mechanism) so all children are consistently visible to services and
• a legal compulsion in terms of parents agreeing to let local authorities to see the child; any legislative change should be subject to an equality/safeguarding impact assessment and stakeholder consultation

Recommendation 2: clarify and strengthen wording in the guidance to reduce ambiguity

The Welsh Government should seek to strengthen wording in the guidance where this will improve clarity and practice. Ambiguous ‘should’ language should include clearer expectations where appropriate (for example around annual contact and reporting timelines) while protecting lawful parental rights or should be strengthened, if possible. A short preface table could also be added to distinguish which parts of the guidance are legal duties and which are advisory or suggested practice. This would reduce inconsistent interpretation across local authorities, strengthen accountability, and provide clearer messaging to families.

Recommendation 3: clarify guidance on suitability of education and attribution of evidence (including ALN)

Local authorities reported difficulties in attributing work to the child and judging the sufficiency of evidence. The Welsh Government should issue clearer guidance including refreshing Annex A on the assessment of suitability (including where learners with ALN are concerned) and on evidence attribution along with practical examples to reduce disputes and aid consistent decision making. This should be developed with input from EHE and ALN practitioners as well as assessment specialists. The guidance should provide practical exemplars of acceptable evidence across ages (e.g. primary or GCSE years) including what constitutes demonstrable progress over time. It could include short case studies that show good practice for assessing literacy and numeracy and for attributing work to the child (e.g. in-visit short tasks, or video-recorded activities where consented). This would assist local authority officers (and families) to gain a shared understanding of suitable provision, would lessen ambiguity over what is deemed to be ‘suitable and efficient’ and reduce inconsistency and subjectivity in interpretation.

Recommendation 4: strengthen communication of existing guidance requirements and data reporting to support consistent interpretation of ‘seeing and communicating with the child’

While the guidance defines that seeing and communicating with the child at meetings to discuss the suitability of education online or in person, local authorities seem to interpret and record these interactions in different ways. As such, the Welsh Government should consider further strengthening its communication of the appropriate sections of the guidance and share good practice examples where local authorities have used the funding to develop activities which provide further opportunities for officers to see and communicate with the child. Furthermore, Welsh Government should seek to revise data reporting templates to: clarify expectations around the range of acceptable approaches and the minimum evidence required in each case, provide worked examples of how different types of engagement (e.g. in person visit, online meeting, observation at group activity) should be categorised and recorded, and encourage consistency in how these data are captured and reported across Wales. This would support greater consistency in local authority practice, allow for more reliable comparison and analysis of data and ensure that the flexibility in the current approach continues to be applied transparently and effectively.

Recommendation 5: maintain and clarify funding arrangements that support EHE capacity-building and family engagement

The Welsh Government’s targeted funding was designed to enhance local authorities’ capacity in this area in preparation for the implementation of the new guidance. As implementation of the statutory guidance continues, it will be important to maintain this additional capacity and avoid loss of expertise or momentum where possible. Within the constraints of annual or shorter-term funding cycles, the Welsh Government should:

• continue to communicate funding intentions clearly and in a timely way to support local authorities’ workforce planning
• provide updated clarification on eligible and ineligible uses of EHE funding (e.g. staffing, training, equipment, enrichment activities, but excluding direct financial assistance to families)
• encourage local authorities to plan for sustainability of EHE functions within core resources over time

Recommendation 6: encourage structured early engagement and information-sharing at the point of deregistration

The Welsh Government should consider introducing an expectation that parents provide initial evidence at the point of deregistration. This could take the form of a short deregistration pack including an outline educational plan. A standard form should be made available to support consistency, and the approach could be piloted in a small number of authorities before considering whether to make it mandatory. This would assist local authorities to triage cases more effectively, prioritise follow-up, and ensure that engagement begins on the basis of clear information about proposed provision.

Recommendation 7: share and scale best practice

Local authorities that used community events and neutral venues and those who provided or funded non-statutory group activities reported higher success in getting to see the child. Sharing these best practice approaches would enable low-cost improvements to be scaled. Local authority EHE officers should continue to encourage the use of practical engagement tools and best practice in outreach, enrichment events. An engagement toolkit could be developed including tried-and-tested approaches (coffee mornings, science workshops, community sessions, doorstep/brief contacts) and a small fund made available for local authorities who wish to trial creative outreach approaches in addition to what is already being provided.

Recommendations for local authorities

Recommendation 8: strengthen EHE capacity and contingency planning to fulfil statutory duties

Given the continued growth in EHE across Wales, local authorities must have sufficient capacity to discharge their statutory duty to ensure that all children of compulsory school age receive a suitable and efficient education. To achieve this, local authorities should:

• undertake regular staffing and caseload reviews to ensure workloads are manageable and proportionate to local EHE numbers, with indicative caseload benchmarks (e.g. no single officer carrying more than X active cases)
• ensure appropriate administrative support to enable officers to focus on engagement and assessment
• use the Welsh Government additional funding to enhance their existing capacity and prepare business cases to sustain essential roles if external funding ceases
• consider cross-training EHE and ALN staff to reduce reliance on single officers and ensure continuity during staff absence or turnover

This would help ensure local authorities can continue to meet their legal responsibilities effectively, provide consistent support to EHE families, and respond to increasing demand in a sustainable way.

Recommendation 9: use data proactively to identify and analyse trends

The research uncovered strong examples of local authorities treating EHE data as an active tool for service planning and challenge, not purely a reporting requirement. We recommend that all local authorities should adopt this type of practice in future. This should include routine analysis of deregistration and caseload data by school, year group (highlighting Years 10–11), ALN status, and geography to identify trends and hotspots. Regular (ideally quarterly) EHE insights reports should feed into senior management and school improvement teams so that findings can be used to target outreach, challenge school practice where required, and plan services.

Recommendation 10: strengthen expectations for early and ongoing engagement with EHE families and direct communication with the child

Local authorities should ensure that both early and ongoing engagement with EHE families are timely, proportionate, and centred on the child, in line with statutory guidance.

• At the point of deregistration, local authorities should meet with families to discuss proposed educational arrangements and to provide clear information about parental responsibilities. This initial engagement should, wherever possible, include direct communication with the child to help establish a baseline understanding of their learning and wellbeing.
• Ongoing engagement should continue to prioritise direct child interaction, normally through in-person or live virtual contact involving active participation by the child. Where this is not immediately possible, local authorities should set defined timescales for follow-up, document reasons for alternative approaches, and make use of neutral venues or group settings to facilitate observation where appropriate.

Clear expectations of this kind would support consistency across Wales, ensure that engagement is meaningful and child-centred, and help local authorities to fulfil their duties to assess the suitability of education in a proportionate and supportive way.

Recommendation 11: adopt ‘panel oversight’ for complex decisions

Where they do not currently do so, local authorities should seek to adopt panel oversight and use it to proactively review suitability and decide whether to commence SAO action, removing sole decision-making from a single officer. To realise this, LAs should seek to establish and operate a multi-disciplinary panel. Minimum membership should include the EHE lead, ALN lead, safeguarding officer, educational psychologist (where ALN is suspected) and a legal adviser. The panel should have clearly defined terms of reference, decision-making thresholds, experience of child development and of monitoring the progression of learners to support assessment of evidence, and a written record of panel deliberations and actions. The panel should meet regularly and be able to convene urgently for high-risk cases.

Recommendation 12: follow existing SAO guidance and ensure timely, consistent escalation

Each local authority should determine who takes the lead for issuing SAOs (i.e. EWS or EHE team) and ensure they adhere to statutory guidance on SAOs, following the timescales and escalation procedures outlined in the All-Wales Attendance Framework. Local authorities could use the multi-disciplinary panel suggested in Recommendation 12 above to review and sign-off SAO proposals to ensure legal robustness and consistency in decision-making.

Recommendation 13: adopt practical, family-sensitive techniques to strengthen evidence of suitable learning and build constructive relationships with home-educating families

Local authority officers should continue to routinely use brief in-visit assessment tasks and arrange observations in neutral venues or small group settings to see the child learning. EHE officers should request time-stamped recordings or corroboration from tutors, group leaders or other third parties to validate that work relates to the child where possible. Local authorities should proactively offer neutral meeting spaces and organise outreach events in partnership with voluntary and community organisations to reduce adversarial interactions and encourage ongoing engagement.

Report author: Heledd Bebb, Nia Bryer and Tanwen Grover, OB3 Research and Geoff Andrews, Miller Research

Views expressed in this report are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the Welsh Government.

For further information please contact:
Schools Research Branch
Social Research and Information Division
Knowledge and Analytical Services
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: SchoolsResearch@gov.wales

Social research number: 14/2026
Digital ISBN: 978-1-83715-925-3