{"id":168241,"date":"2022-10-14T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/?p=168241"},"modified":"2022-10-13T22:39:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T21:39:17","slug":"council-attendance-staff-cuts-50-times-bigger-than-new-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schoolsweek.co.uk\/council-attendance-staff-cuts-50-times-bigger-than-new-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Council attendance staff cuts 50 times bigger than new support"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Councils are \u201cunlikely to have capacity\u201d to meet tougher school absence duties as new figures show attendance staff numbers have been \u201cdecimated\u201d by a third in a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under reforms to crack down on school absence<\/a>, town halls will have to provide a minimum attendance support offer to pupils, and their families and schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last autumn, 23.5 per cent of pupils missed more than 10 per cent of sessions, up from 13.1 per cent in pre-pandemic 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dame Rachel de Souza, the children\u2019s commissioner, has also warned of between 80,000 and 100,000 pupils dropping off school rolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government has hired 13 new attendance advisers to help councils drive through its reforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But an investigation by Schools Week<\/em> has found nearly 50 times as many advisers in charge of school attendance at councils have been cut over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attendance support has ‘disappeared’<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL school leaders\u2019 union, said: \u201cA huge amount of support has disappeared”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The government maintains that improved attendance is a priority, while failing to provide the necessary investment to help schools achieve this aim.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freedom of information data from just over a third of local authorities found the number of staff monitoring and encouraging school attendance dropped from 672 in 2011 to 445 in 2021, a drop of 34 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Covid
Barton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Extrapolated to cover the whole country, this would mean a drop in staff numbers from 1,816 to 1,202.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decreases come in the wake of austerity-driven cuts to local authority budgets since 2010, including the \u00a3600 million education support grant that was scrapped in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councils have also reduced education staff as more schools have become academies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But new duties<\/a> will require councils to track local attendance data and devise a \u201cstrategic approach to attendance\u201d, and regularly \u201cbring schools together\u201d to communicate messages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They must also hold \u201ctargeted support meetings\u201d about pupils at risk of poor attendance and provide \u201cmulti-disciplinary support\u201d for families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Local Government Association spokesperson said: \u201cWith councils having fewer attendance staff, they\u2019re unlikely to have the capacity to take on greater responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Meeting reforms will be huge burden\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the London borough of Hackney, the number of full-time-equivalent staff working on school attendance fell from 18 in 2011 to 5.6 in 2021 – although 75 per cent of its schools are still local authority-maintained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anntoinette Bramble, the borough\u2019s deputy mayor, said that meeting the additional responsibilities would put a huge burden on already stretched funding and capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"attendance\"
Bramble<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Sheffield, the number of staff directly supporting schools on attendance fell from 55.49 to 22.46. However, the council now only maintains about 38 per cent of the area\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the reduction came between 2011 and 2012, when its wider education welfare service was disbanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Wigan, attendance staff numbers more than halved from 20 in 2021 to 9.4 last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catherine Pealing, the council\u2019s assistant director for education, said responsibility for attendance \u201cdoesn\u2019t all sit with the local authority, it sits with families, the school and our early intervention services\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur allocation of attendance officers is not the sum of support to meet this new duty, but will be supported by a multi-agency response.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numbers in the south London Borough of Sutton have dropped from 9.96 to 2.33. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson said it was a \u201cchallenge\u201d that the new responsibilities did not come with extra funding \u201cbut we aim to fulfil our statutory responsibilities within the financial restraints of the initiative\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some councils, however, have increased attendance staff numbers. In Bedford, numbers increased from three to 10.6, and in Greenwich, south London, they  increased from 6.3 to 10.24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheshire East\u2019s team has grownfrom 10.24 to 19.21. A spokesperson said it would give the council \u201ca strong foundation\u201d to meet its responsibilities under the new guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Reforms can be achieved by better use of resources\u2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The department said in its \u201cburdens assessment\u201d for the reforms earlier this year that they could be delivered through \u201cbetter use of existing resource\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It even claimed only 1,276 staff nationally would be needed to enact the changes, and that councils could save as much as \u00a3285,000 a year by 2025 from a reduction in \u201ccostly\u201d legal interventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the LGA said the analysis did not \u201cadequately capture the additional workload\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A DfE spokesperson said attendance was a \u201cshared responsibility\u201d, adding that the school sector had \u201cchanged significantly over the past 10 years and multi-academy trusts play a leading role in encouraging school attendance\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DfE has hired 13 absence advisers, but investigation suggests over 600 attendance staff have been slashed from councils<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":168199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1500,1501,28,239,54],"post-theme":[2396],"class_list":["post-168241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-dfe","tag-education-policy","tag-politics","post-theme-politics"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t