Stiffer penalties need to be imposed to force parents to provide proper education for their children.

That is the recommendation from Essex County Council as figures show the numbers of children being taken out of school to be home educated has tripled in a year.

The risk of children hidden and missing from the education system are highlighted in a briefing on Children Missing from Education by cabinet member Cllr Ray Gooding.

It reveals that between June 2018 and June 2019 the number of children and young people being removed from a school roll in favour of elective home education increased by 33.8 per cent.

The overall total number of children in elective home education has also increased sharply  – in 2013 the number was 1,187, which had increased to 2,058 by April 2019.

The county council has recommended to the government that the £1,000 fine that can be imposed on parents when children are totally missing from the education system is insufficient, especially given that each parent is liable for a fine of up to £2,500 and/or three months imprisonment as punishment for a child’s repeated truancy.

Parents are allowed by law to home school their children, but the dramatic increases have sparked concern that while it is clear some children will be properly educated at home, some children are not receiving a decent – if any – education.

Cllr Gooding says this is particularly relevant given increasing evidence that children who are not in school are becoming involved in gang and county lines activity.

Children under the protection of Essex County Council at risk from gangs increased from 79 cases in 2016/17 to 164 in 2018/19, a rise of 107 per cent.

In addition to the recommended increases in penalties, Essex County Council has put forward a number of other key recommendations to the government that it says would help ensure children receive proper education.

These include a mandatory registration of children, an application process which parents should be required to follow in order to be approved for elective home education, special powers for councils to monitor, at stipulated intervals, the quality of home education provision and changes to allow children who are withdrawn from school to be home educated to be reregistered with the same school without going through the usual admissions procedures.

In a briefing note ahead of a meeting next week Cllr Gooding said: “Whilst significant steps have been taken within Essex to maximise our capacity to intervene where children may not be in receipt of a suitable education, the lack of powers held by local authorities, the ease with which parents may deregister their child from school and the lack of any duty for schools to readmit children who are not in receipt of a suitable home education makes our work with this cohort of families unnecessarily challenging.

“There are still a significant number of children who are unknown to their local authority, as parents choose not to register them for health care and also choose not to apply for early years/school places.

“These children are ‘hidden’ and may be at risk – a concern shared by all professionals working in the field of home education.”