The Strategic Director, Children’s Services will submit Document “AM” which reports that as part of the Local Authorities statutory responsibilities around locating Children who are Missing in Education (CME), the Education Safeguarding Team have entered into a data sharing pilot with HMRC, in order to reduce the number of CME cases the Council holds. This is the second phase of this pilot; the first took place with Sheffield Local Authority, whereby they located over 40% of their CME using the data sharing agreement.

Recommended-

That the Committee notes the report as an update to the HMRC pilot on matters relating to Children Missing Education.

                                                            (Judith Kirk – 01274 431078)

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services submitted Document “AM” which reported that as part of the Local Authorities statutory responsibilities around locating Children who were Missing in Education (CME), the Education Safeguarding Team had entered into a data sharing pilot with HMRC, in order to reduce the number of CME cases the Council holds.

This was the second phase of this pilot; the first took place with Sheffield Local Authority, whereby they located over 40% of their CME using the data sharing agreement. Leeds, Harrow and Lancashire were also involved in the pilot with HMRC.

It was reported that this was the first time that data had been shared with the authority , and until now officers not been able to obtain address details of families who were in receipt of Child Benefit. The pilot would run from January to June 2017.

Members were informed that the authority would share details with HMRC of those children who were missing from education (CME) after officers had exhausted all enquiries when trying to find them. HMRC would then check if the family were in receipt of benefits, and if the address they held was different from the one that the authority held, they would share these details with the authority in view of trying to locate the children. If the address was the same, HMRC would then write to the family advising they had reason to believe they were no longer living at the address they held, asking them to get in touch as well as being at risk of losing their benefit payments.

Members were informed that the pilot commenced on 9^th January 2017  and the authority had so far sent in two data returns consisting of 15 cases. The authority had one return with a possible address and one that officers were closing as enquires exhausted, as HMRC had identified them as left the country. Data returns were submitted on a weekly basis.

It was reported that details of 59 families had been passed onto HMRC; the authority had been passed details of alternative addresses of five families and so far had located four of them, some were outside this local authority and others were abroad.

It was reported that HMRC had already made saving of £300,000 from fraudulent claims.

It was reported that Sheffield shared the information received from HMRC with their Housing Benefit and Council Tax Department where as this authority did not and was something officers would be looking into.

The Chair emphasised that from the Committee’s point of view, this was mainly about finding children who were missing education but any savings would be beneficial.

In response to a Member’s question it was reported that due to data protection issues, the authority was unable to share details of the families with other local authorities not involved in the pilot.

Members felt that the Committee should lobby the local MP to have this pilot more widely extended.

Resolved-

(1)          That officers advise the Committee as soon as they receive notification as to whether the HMRC Children Missing Education Data Sharing Pilot would continue after June 2017.

(2)          That the Strategic Director, Children’s Services gives consideration to sharing the Children Missing Education case findings data with the appropriate Council Departments.

(3)          That the Chair of the Committee writes to the Districts MP requesting that the HMRC Children Missing Education Data Sharing Pilot be extended nationally.

Action:             Strategic Director, Children’s Services/Overview and Scrutiny Lead