EIGHTY per cent of children who have “gone missing” from Bradford schools are of a Eastern, Central or Western European background.

Children from mainland European families make up the vast majority who are referred to Bradford Council’s Out of School register, according to a new report by the council.

The authority has a responsibility to ensure all children are receiving a suitable education until the age of 16, and is now working closer with police, immigration services and the UK border agency to get a better grip on where all the children that are not in school have ended up.

The issue will be discussed by the council’s Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday.

Children who are not in education are referred to as being either “missing from school,” when they are on school rolls but have gone missing along with their families, “not on roll” where they are known to live in Bradford but aren’t on school rolls, “removed from roll” where they have been officially taken out of school, but not re-registered at another, or referred to another authority, where they are thought to have moved to another part of the country.

In the last school year 2,588 children were referred to the hub. That figure is the lowest in four years, and down from 3,101 in 2014/15.

An ethnic breakdown of the referrals shows that Gypsy/Roma children made up over 30 per cent of the “missing” category.

The report says: “It is known that there is a high mobility among these families as they move both around the city and the country for reasons of housing and employment.”

In January, Bradford will be part of a pilot with HMRC that involves the council sharing information about children if officers are unable to locate them. A similar pilot started in Sheffield this year saw 40 per cent of missing families located.

Councillor Imran Khan, Executive for Education, Employment and Skills, said: “We are working closely with a number of agencies in the UK and abroad to further develop our procedures for information sharing and data gathering to trace children missing from education.

“Our newly established Multiagency Education Safeguarding Team, including representatives from the West Yorkshire Police, Health Services, Border Agency and the Bradford Immigration and Asylum Team has been set up to tackle this issue.

“The aim is to gain knowledge of the welfare and whereabouts of every child of school age within the district.”

The committee meets in City Hall at 4.30pm.

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