Missing from Education
The Police Perspective

Defining the terms precisely

CME, persistent absence, and Missing from Home are three distinct categories that frequently overlap in the cases police encounter. Understanding the difference matters because the responsible agency, the legal powers, and the appropriate response vary significantly:

Compulsory school age

A child is of compulsory school age from the term following their fifth birthday until the last Friday in June of the school year in which they turn sixteen. Police should be aware of this boundary. A 16-year-old who leaves education in Year 11 is not CME after the last Friday in June; they are legally entitled to leave. A 15-year-old who drops off the roll is CME regardless of how long they have been absent.

Who identifies CME children

The local authority has the s.436A duty to identify CME children in their area. In practice, this relies on notifications from:

• Schools (when a pupil is removed from roll without confirmation of a new placement)
• GPs and health visitors (for younger children not yet in school)
• Housing authorities (when a family moves without notifying the school)
• Police (when a child comes to attention who appears to have no school registration)
• Community and voluntary organisations

The CME team in most local authorities is small, often part of the Education Welfare or School Attendance service. They hold a register of known CME children, but it is consistently under-representative of the true population because the notification mechanisms are imperfect.

The EHE risk picture

Elective home education is a lawful parental choice, and the majority of EHE families are not a safeguarding concern. However, EHE can be used as a mechanism to remove a vulnerable child from the protective scrutiny of school. Indicators that an EHE registration may warrant closer attention include:

• The child was subject to a child protection plan or was a Child in Need immediately before deregistration
• The deregistration followed a safeguarding referral or a school expressing a concern to the DSL
• The child is known to police in a county lines or exploitation context
• The parent providing EHE is also the subject of welfare or criminal concerns

School absence, specifically the pattern of it, is one of the most reliable early external indicators of county lines involvement. It is earlier than most police intelligence triggers, earlier than most family escalation points, and visible to a professional who sees the child every day. The problem is that the professional who sees it (the school) and the professional who can act on it (police, MASH) are often not talking about the same child.

The typical absence trajectory in county lines exploitation

The intelligence silo problem

County lines intelligence typically sits within serious organised crime teams, regional organised crime units (ROCUs), or dedicated county lines units. CME intelligence sits within the LA's education welfare service. These two data sets are rarely cross-referenced in real time:

• A child flagged as CME in the LA system may be an active intelligence subject in a county lines unit without either team knowing about the other's concern
• A child reported missing from home may have attendance data that would confirm a pattern, but police MFH logs rarely cross-reference school attendance.
• A child who has been cuckooed at an address in another force area may remain on the school roll in their home area, not yet CME, while being actively exploited for months.

What good multi-agency working looks like

Where county lines and CME intelligence are being effectively joined up, the practice includes:

• MASH cross-referencing: CME referrals from schools are screened against the Children in Need and child protection registers, and against police intelligence markers, before being assigned to an Education Welfare Officer
• Operation Encompass alongside: A child who is flagged as CME but was also the subject of a domestic abuse incident will have had an Encompass notification. Both pieces of information together create a more complete vulnerability picture.
• Return to School risk assessment: When a child reappears after an extended absence (or returns from Missing from Home), the school and police conduct a structured Return conversation. The absence and return pattern itself is intelligence.
• JIT (Joint Intelligence Teams) access: In some force areas, MASH practitioners have direct access to police intelligence systems for the purposes of cross-referencing CME children. Where this exists, it significantly improves the early identification picture.

Police do not hold the primary CME duty; that sits with the local authority under s.436A Education Act 1996. But police have significant roles and legal tools when a CME child comes to their attention, and the absence of a primary duty does not mean an absence of responsibility.

What police can and cannot do specifically for CME

• Police cannot compel a CME child to attend school. There is no police power equivalent to a School Attendance Order, and police have no power of entry solely to check whether a child is receiving education.
• Police can share information about a CME child with the LA CME team and MASH under the Children Act 2004 s.11 welfare duty and under s.115 Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (see Article 6.4)
• Police can make a safeguarding referral to MASH if a CME child comes to police attention and there are welfare or exploitation concerns. CME status is itself a relevant factor in assessing whether a child may be suffering or likely to suffer significant harm.
• Police retain all standard MFH powers if a CME child is also reported missing. CME status does not remove or reduce the Missing from Home response obligation.

Section 47 threshold

CME status alone does not automatically meet the s.47 threshold, but CME combined with other vulnerability indicators (county lines markers, domestic abuse history, MFH episodes, age) may well do so. When police encounter a CME child with exploitation indicators, the appropriate step is a MASH referral that explicitly references the CME status and asks MASH to assess whether s.47 enquiries are appropriate.

The NRM trigger

If a CME child is encountered and shows indicators of modern slavery or criminal exploitation, police are a competent authority for the purposes of the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). The NRM trigger for a child is lower than for an adult; there is no "consent" requirement for a child referral. Indicators that make an NRM referral appropriate alongside a MASH referral include:

• The child is found in possession of drugs or cash with no plausible explanation
• The child is at an address that is not their home and cannot explain how they came to be there
• The child shows signs of physical harm, malnourishment, or poor hygiene inconsistent with their home circumstances
• The child is travelling between areas and cannot account for their movements
• The child has multiple phones or phones registered to other people
• The child is known to be CME or has multiple Missing from Home episodes

An NRM referral for a child does not require confirmation of exploitation. It requires reasonable grounds to believe the child may be a victim of modern slavery. The CME context is often precisely the missing piece that makes those reasonable grounds credible.

The Return to Home Interview (RHI)

Every child who has been reported missing should receive a Return to Home Interview when they come back. This is a statutory requirement under the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010 (for looked-after children) and recommended best practice for all children under statutory guidance. A child who has been CME for an extended period and then reappears at home, at school, or after a police encounter should be treated with the same thoroughness as any missing child return:

• The RHI should be conducted by an independent person (not a parent) and ideally not by the officer who found the child
• The RHI is an intelligence-gathering opportunity as well as a welfare check. Where has the child been, who were they with, what were the conditions?
• Information gathered in an RHI can and should be shared with MASH and, where relevant, with county lines or serious crime teams
• A child who refuses to engage with an RHI, or whose account is clearly coached, is itself an intelligence data point

Effective CME safeguarding depends on police and LA CME teams sharing information about the same children in real time. In many areas, this does not happen routinely, and children fall through the gap as a result. This article covers the legal basis for sharing, what to share, and how to make the information flow work practically.

Who runs the CME team

The LA CME team typically sits within the Education Welfare or School Attendance service, not within the children's social care directorate. This matters. Officers who know how to contact MASH or the children's social care duty team may not know how to contact the CME team, and vice versa. Find your local CME team contact and add it to your safeguarding contacts list alongside MASH. In most areas you can find it via the LA's children's services directory.

The legal basis for sharing

• Children Act 2004, s.11: Police have a statutory duty to have regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Sharing information to support a CME child's welfare is within this duty.
• Crime and Disorder Act 1998, s.115: This provides a power, not a duty, to share information with the local authority and other responsible authorities for the purposes of the Crime and Disorder Act. It includes sharing information relevant to identifying and supporting vulnerable children.
• Working Together 2026: Sets out the expectation that all agencies share information proportionately and in a timely manner when there is a safeguarding concern. CME combined with exploitation indicators is a safeguarding concern.
• UK GDPR / Data Protection Act 2018: Information can be shared without consent where there is a lawful basis. Safeguarding children is a recognised lawful basis. The standard data protection framework does not prevent appropriate sharing; it governs how it is done.

What police should share with the CME team

When a child of compulsory school age comes to police attention and there are welfare or exploitation concerns, consider sharing:

• The child's name, date of birth, and address of record
• The circumstances of the police contact (stop and search, arrest, MFH return, welfare check), without prejudicing an active investigation.
• Whether the child has multiple police contacts or MFH episodes. The pattern is often more significant than any single event.
• Any information about adults in the child's network who may be relevant to their vulnerability
• Whether the child is known to be associated with a county lines network or cuckooed address

The CME team will check whether the child is on the CME register, whether there is an active EWO case, and whether the child has a confirmed school place. This information, shared back to police, completes the picture.

What the CME team can share back

• Current roll status: whether the child is registered at a school in the LA area.
• Whether the child is on the CME register and how long they have been on it
• Whether an Education Welfare Officer has made contact with the family and what the response was
• Whether the child has previously been at multiple schools (high mobility is a county lines indicator)
• Whether there is an EHE registration and when it was made

The EHE risk: a specific sharing consideration

A child can be deregistered from school by a parent at any time, without the LA's consent, simply by notifying the school. If a child is deregistered while they are a subject of police intelligence, or while a MASH referral is pending, the police should notify both MASH and the CME team of this context. The LA has a duty under Working Together 2026 to conduct a welfare assessment before agreeing that EHE is appropriate where there is a pre-existing safeguarding concern, but they can only do this if they know the safeguarding concern exists.

Understanding how the school responds when a child stops attending, and how long it takes, is essential context for police. The school's CME timeline is slower than it might appear from the outside, and by the time a child reaches CME status on the LA's register, the situation is often well advanced.

What the school does when a pupil stops attending

1. Day 1: First-day calling. The school's attendance officer calls the family to establish the reason for absence. Most schools have a first-day calling protocol for all unexplained absences. If no contact is made, the absence is marked unauthorised.
2. Days 2, 5: Continued calling and home visit attempt. The attendance officer continues to attempt contact. A home visit may be made if contact cannot be established by phone.
3. Day 5, 10: DSL involvement. If the absence is unexplained after approximately a week, the DSL is typically involved. The DSL reviews whether the child has any existing safeguarding concerns and considers whether the absence pattern, combined with what they know about the child, warrants a MASH referral.
4. Day 10: EWO referral consideration. After 10 consecutive days of unauthorised absence, schools are required to notify the LA. An Education Welfare Officer may be assigned.
5. Day 10, 20: EWO engagement. The EWO makes contact attempts with the family. If the family is engaging, this may involve a Parenting Contract or School Attendance Order process. If the family cannot be contacted or the child's whereabouts are unknown, this escalates.
6. Day 20+: Roll removal consideration. After 20 consecutive days of unauthorised absence with no contact, the school may remove the child from the roll. Removal triggers formal CME notification to the LA. Note: many schools resist removal from roll precisely because it removes their pastoral oversight. A child who is off roll is harder to support back into education.

The DSL's safeguarding assessment at each stage

At every stage of this process, the DSL is making a parallel assessment of whether the absence suggests a safeguarding risk beyond non-attendance. The factors that escalate a standard attendance concern to a MASH referral include:

• The child has an existing child protection plan or is a Child in Need
• The child has previously been a subject of MASH referrals, even if those were not substantiated.
• The child's attendance pattern (sporadic Mondays and Fridays, unexplained mid-week absences) matches county lines indicators the DSL is aware of
• The child's behaviour in the periods when they were in school showed exploitation indicators: new phone, unexplained cash, behavioural change, peer group change.
• The family cannot be contacted at all, not just not responding to the school.
• The child is known to have been missing from home during the same period as school absences

What police should know about the timeline lag

The DfE Autumn Census blind spot

The DfE's annual school census takes place in October. It captures every pupil on roll at that point. A child who dropped off the roll in November and has not been placed at a new school by the following October will not appear in any LA CME count between those two dates unless a notification was made. In practice, a significant number of CME children are never counted in official statistics because the notification and census capture mechanisms both fail.

How police can make the school's job easier

When police encounter a child in a county lines context and wish to share information with their school, the most useful thing to do is:

• Contact the DSL directly, not the headteacher or reception staff.
• Say: "We have information about [child's name] that we believe is relevant to their safeguarding. We'd like to share it with you and understand what the school's current picture is."
• Be explicit about the county lines context if you are able to share it. The DSL needs the exploitation framing to make sense of the absence pattern they have been seeing.
• Ask the DSL whether the child is currently on roll, and whether a MASH referral has been made or is being considered
• If the child is no longer on roll, ask when they were last in school and who the current EWO contact is

Police should share what they know about the child's criminal exploitation context, and the DSL should share what they have seen in the child's attendance and behaviour. This two-way conversation is the mechanism by which county lines cases and CME cases stop being parallel silos and start being a coherent vulnerability picture.