Making It Up

as we go along

Lord Lucas

Democracy in action?

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Tonight I am feeling betrayed and let down by a man who in all reality has no responsibility to me at all.

Lord Lucas has placed an amendment against the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill as follows:

311 Insert the following new Clause—

“Support for home education

Support for home education

(1) The Secretary of State shall establish a body to be known as the Home Education Consultative Committee (the “HECC”).

(2) The Secretary of State shall appoint to the HECC such persons as he considers appropriate.

(3) The Secretary of State shall consult the HECC whenever he intends to make proposals that will have an effect on home educating families.

(4) The HECC may undertake investigations into areas of policy or practice in relationships between the government and the home educating community.

(5) The HECC may produce and promote guidelines and examples of good practice in relationships between the government and the home educating community.

(6) The HECC may make proposals to the Secretary of State for changes in practice or policy of home education.”

So why is this a problem?

Well, let’s have a look at what the Secretary of State did when he wanted a review of home education. He appointed some bloke who knew nothing about it, who took a wide range of responses, chopped them up to suit his purposes, ignored academic research that he didn’t like the look of and came up with a list of recommendations that are so far from the five principles of good regulation to make you want to cry. What makes us think that a HECC appointed by a secretary of state would be any more responsive to home educators at large?

Perhaps it would be as responsive as the current largest home education support charity. Cue more hollow laughter.

I suppose we should have seen this coming. If you read more on what Lord Lucas has been saying recently in parliament, it appears that despite many of us attempting to persuade him to the contrary, he thinks EO is representative and that their ideas are sound. Or maybe, just maybe, as he wasn’t elected, and this government is hardly democratic in its makeup he just doesn’t care.

I am tired of this. I have written to my MP and not had so much as an acknowledgement. I would like to be listened to, but I have no faith that it will happen. I have commented on newspaper articles and written to journalists, and I would really really like to believe that in a democracy, my voice will be heard.

But I think I may need to shout louder. I think that this system is rotten to the core, and it’s time for change. In the meantime I will continue to lobby “my representatives” as well as the leaders of the other political parties, but I am also thinking that a system that doesn’t recognise my right to self-determination or listen to my voice is not a system that has a right to tell me what to do. If necessary I will withdraw my cooperation – this government only governs by the consent of the governed, and if enough of us withdraw that consent, then they have a real problem.

I have always been a law abiding citizen, but then again, I’ve always thought we lived in a representative democracy. I’m coming to the sad conclusion that we do not any more and that as such, this government has no legitimacy and no right to my cooperation. It’s a rather scary thought, but one I feel I have to face up to. I am saying No to the DCSF.

Home education review, what can we do now?

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Lord Lucas asks

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, as required by the Code of Practice on Consultation, they have published an impact assessment to accompany the “Registration and Monitoring Proposals” consultation following Mr Badman’s report on Elective Home Education; and, if so, whether they will place a copy in the Library of the House.

Baroness Morgan responds

An impact assessment is not required for the consultation at this stage as the proposals are still at an early stage of development. We do not expect them to place any significant additional burdens on local authorities as most already monitor home education, and our proposals will provide additional powers that will assist local authorities in dealing more efficiently with the small number of cases where home education does not come up to scratch. If we decide to proceed with legislation we will publish an impact assessment and will place a copy in the Library of the House.

Given this gem on the Draft Legislative Programme yesterday

FAIR CHANCES FOR ALL: BUILDING THE NEXT GENERATION OF PUBLIC SERVICES

Improving schools and safeguarding children Bill

which is to include

improving monitoring arrangements for children educated at home;

they appear to have decided to proceed with legislation, and therefore we should expect the impact assessment forthwith. (I didn’t know what an impact assessment is, but if Lord Lucas is asking about it, I assumed it was something I needed to know about, and looked it up.)

You can comment on the exchange between Lord Lucas and Baroness Morgan on the link above, and give your thoughts on the Draft Legislative Programme as follows:

Do you think the Draft Legislative Programme reflects the right priorities for the United Kingdom and, if not, what other issues do you think the Government should be addressing?

To comment:

Please email dlp@commonsleader.x.gsi.gov.uk

Or send responses to:

Freepost RSCA-KKCU-ELTJ

Legislation Committee Secretariat

70 Whitehall

London

SW1A 2AS

And Lord Lucas can be reached through his blog which he is using to garner opinion on a number of issues.

Another avenue of complaint is the Better Regulation Executive who say

The five principles of good regulation

A cornerstone of the better regulation strategy and implementation, and key to BRE’s work, is the five principles of good regulation. The principles state that any regulation should be:

  • transparent
  • accountable
  • proportionate
  • consistent
  • targeted – only at cases where action is needed

Do you have an idea on how to improve regulation? Visit our better regulation website and tell us how we can make a difference.

I think we are mainly agreed that the Badman recommendations are none of the above and the consultation about them certainly hasn’t been transparent.

Get those letters/emails written. And if you haven’t heard from your MP it may be time to consider a follow up. I’m giving mine two weeks, then printing out the email I’ve already sent him and posting it. It annoys me though that I’ve got to kill trees to get answers. Just one more minor irritation in the grand scheme of things though!

If you are a bit lost about all of this, I suggest you might want to pop back to my first post on what to do and start there. You are probably also wondering why I’m not pushing you to fill in the consultation. My reason there is quite simple, I don’t think it’s time yet. I don’t think we need to tip our hand to the government by filling in their consultation, which is increasingly looking like form filling which will be ignored anyway, as many of the submissions to the review were. I think it’s time to do other things, as above.

You could sign the petition if you wanted though.

Aged five and on flexi-time

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Well, the publicity is continuing post Badman review, with an article in the Guardian today about flexi-schooling with the tagline “New regulation for home educators could mean a rush to take up part-time schooling, a parent writes”.

I have commented as follows:

Just because the review was accepted in full by ministers does not mean that regulations will necessarily follow. The home education community does not accept the independence or impartiality of Graham Badman, and many of his conclusions are flimsy at best or based on personal opinion at worst.

It would be nice if the guardian would reflect some of the concerns of home educators about the review, rather than accepting it as a done deal!

That said, it would be good for ppl to have more access to flexi-schooling and for there to be more recognition that different children have different needs that can be met in a variety of different ways.

Please feel free to join in! The more times we put across our point of view the better I think.

Also in my google alert today, Parents’ anger at home education recommendations grows. Looks like we’re getting at least our emotions over there then! Their forums are buzzing with ppl’s views to be passed to the new Children’s Minister. Feel free to drop by and have a look.

And finally (for this post) Lord Lucas has been in action again. It’s well worth reading the Hansard report of the debate into the Welfare Bill and his amendment, as it becomes obvious that home education is becoming a more familiar topic of discussion in the House of Lords atm. I can only hope this is a good thing. Certainly having members of the legislature who have the first idea what they are talking about will have to help!