How might public service funding impact school attendance?

A great deal has changed since I first wrote about the relationship between persistent school absenteeism and public service investment back in April. The election of a new government has shifted the education policy landscape significantly – particularly now Rachel Reeves has accepted a 5.5 percent, above inflation, pay increase for most teachers. This is a welcome start, but as Government ministers have frequently reminded us in the last few weeks, things will not change overnight. The latest figures on attendance still make for grim reading: the persistent absence rate for schools this academic year remains above 20%.

In my previous CfEY blog, I called for policy conversations around school absenteeism to look beyond the education sector for solutions. I also highlighted the need for these solutions to account for pupils who find it difficult to have their experiences heard by those in positions of authority, pupils we at CfEY often describe as being ‘on the margins’. This need remains as important now as it was before the election. 

To begin this process of widening the discourse, and to add further credence to voices calling on the new Government to further commit to increasing public service funding across the board, I look at how recent cuts to transport, health, and housing budgets continue to disproportionately impact disadvantaged children and young people and fuel school absenteeism.

Transport service cuts make travel to school more challenging

Cuts to public transport funding have made it increasingly challenging for children to get to and from school safely and easily. Take the current state of bus services across the country: outside London, services have plummeted over the last 15 years. 80 local authorities in England have seen bus services reduced by over 60%, with cuts having a disproportionate impact on rural communities. On average, bus services in rural areas in England and Wales have been cut by 52%, compared to 48% in urban areas.

These cuts have changed how children travel to school. In 2022, 16% of children aged 11-16 took a bus to travel to school, down from 25% in 2013. In rural areas, 8% of pupils got the bus to school in 2022, down from 18% in 2013. This reduction in bus travel has been almost completely replaced by the car: while just 43% of these pupils were driven to school in 2013, this figure was 57% in 2022. 

One of the benefits of good public transport infrastructure is that it offers greater independence for children: safe bus or rail routes in each community mean lots of young people can travel to and from school without parents or guardians. Not only have cuts to bus services made getting to school more difficult for pupils, it also asks more of parents, who have to find extra time to drive their children on top of pre existing commitments. This adversely affects disadvantaged families, where parents are more likely to work shifts, have multiple jobs, or have a sole parent looking after multiple children. Considering the current increase in adults signed off long-term sick for work, and the growth of people working multiple jobs to make ends meet, we start to see a much fuller picture of how prohibitive public transport cuts can be for school attendance.

Housing infrastructure

The declining state of Britain’s housing infrastructure also plays its part in shaping school attendance. For many families across the country, the picture is one of increasing precarity and rising costs. Long-term secure tenancies are a relative rarity, and insufficient funding has inhibited housebuilding infrastructure. This has led to an increasing number of families living in temporary accommodation or reliant on the whims of the private rental sector. The number of families living in temporary housing has increased by over 65% since 2011, while the number of families living in the private rental sector, where tenancies are typically much less secure and much more expensive, has grown by over 250% since the early 2000s. This shift has taken place amidst an ongoing decline in the availability of social housing that began with the introduction of the right to buy scheme in the 1980s and limits on how local authorities could reinvest profits from housing sales on new house building initiatives.

Precarious living situations impact school attendance. Children living in temporary accommodation tend to frequently move house, which can significantly increase or complicate travel to and from school, or result in the need to regularly move school altogether. This lack of stability can make it challenging for children to build the kinds of support systems they need amongst teachers, friends, and other school staff, or lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation which are well- documented drivers of lower attendances. 

Increasingly costly living situations also impact school attendance. Not only are more families reliant on the private rental sector, where rents are typically much higher than social or council housing rents or typical mortgage rates, private rents have grown hugely. New tenancy rent levels have increased by over a fifth in the last two years. Increases of this scale can push families into poverty or force parents to take a second job to make ends meet, impacting the time they have available to support their children, or to take them to and from school.

Children and young people fill gaps in health and social care services 

The current state of the NHS and the wider health and social care sector is often discussed at present and most of us are familiar with the headline trends: longer waiting times for appointments that are increasingly challenging to secure, fewer doctors and nurses, stretched social care services, and a greater reliance on the private sector to keep the whole system running. There are many ways in which cuts to health services have wider impact, including the increase in adults who are signed off long-term sick from work, but there are also less obvious consequences. 

Primary care translation services are one area in which this lack of investment is particularly clear. In primary care settings, like GP practices or A&Es, service providers are legally required to offer translation and interpreting services for patients who do not speak English or who have English as a second language. This is to make sure that everyone can access the support and care that they need. From my background in research and community engagement roles in the health and social care sector, I know that when asked about how services can be improved, one thing people from ethnic minority communities consistently say is that translation services do not work properly. GP practice or hospital staff rarely offer these services to patients, and most people don’t know they exist or that they are entitled to them.

This means that in some cases people who don’t speak English must find other ways to communicate with clinicians. In many families, it’s common for children who have grown up in the UK to speak English more confidently than older relatives, who may have grown up elsewhere. As a result, unaware of their statutory right to a professional translator, some people bring their children with them to appointments to help them communicate with doctors or nurses. This often involves children missing school. If the family member has a serious or long-term condition, this can involve a child missing a significant amount of school.

This practice goes directly against guidance – the Government is explicit that it is ‘inappropriate to use children as interpreters’. There is currently no data on how widespread this issue is, but during a time when healthcare settings remain understaffed and underfunded, with healthcare workers under huge strain, it’s easy to understand why such a practice is allowed to continue.

Translation services aren’t the only problem here. Wider issues across the health and social care sector also fuel school absences, from CAMHS waiting lists and long delays for people waiting for elective surgery, to the availability of GPs or the price of prescriptions. As with transport cuts, looking only to parents and schools for solutions to school attendance will miss those who are absent because healthcare services aren’t working for them and their families. 

What needs to happen?

In my last piece, I proposed a range of potential solutions that take a wide, cross-sector approach to tackling school absenteeism. I called for the introduction of a cross-departmental working group, more research on the possible role of schools as community anchor-institutions, and the introduction of an evaluation framework that takes its inspiration from the Marmot Review and Every Child Matters. 

Do you feel other cuts to public services are contributing to the problem of school attendance? Are there other approaches that might help to tackle some of these challenges? If you have thoughts on these questions – get in touch over on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, or leave a response below.