Scheming plots?

There is growing evidence that very senior staff within local authority social services departments have worked very closely with staff from the government’s Department for Children, Schools and Families to undermine parents rights to home educate and to portray home education as a growing risk to child safety. Recently a member of the House of Common’s Select Committee for Children, Schools and Families asked Maggie Atkinson, Ed Balls’ candidate for the post of Children’s Commissioner, “What do you think we should be saying as a Committee regarding the legislative process and the Badman Report, and whether it is protecting children’s interests or trampling all over the interests of home-educated children?” Her response was “I would give you two words, and they are the first and second names of the child who died ‘Khyra Ishaq’.”

Ms Atkinson was referring to the tragic case of a child from Birmingham whose mother and step-father allegedly starved her to death. In the last months of her life Khyra Ishaq did not attend school. However, what Ms Atkinson did not tell the Select Committee was that, months before, Khyra Ishaq’s teachers had repeatedly warned social workers of their concerns but had been told that the situation did not warrant further inquiry. Ms Atkinson also choose not to inform the Select Committee of the nineteen children in Birmingam who have died of abuse or neglect since 2004, nor did she feel it necessary to tell the committee members that sixteen of these were already known by social workers, police or health care staff to be at risk of harm. And the evidence of collusion between senior social services staff and the government – on the 16th January 2009, Maggie Atkinson and Graham Badman along with John Coughlan and John Freeman (Joint Presidents of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS)) had a 24 hour session with DCSF staff to work on matters relating to the DCSF’s Children’s Plan; three days later the ‘independent’ Badman Review was launched.