Part of why the government recently did a consultation on home education is to figure out how the current systems are working. They aren't for many. We have some schools pushing trouble kids out to be home educated so they don't mess up the school's scores (personally, I think part of school stats available should be a leave rate - all schools will have some due to moving and things but those with high rate could be flagged) and we do have some parents who use home education as an excuse to not do anything. We have education services which have responsibilities but also facing cuts and home educated kids are an easy group to just put on the backburner due to the small size and some louder elements known for being against anything government-related to be involved. All kids deserve an education, they have a legal right to it, but the responsibilities to make sure it happens...the system is pretty much set up now to ignore that. That goes for home educated kids and school educated kids.
There is an issue with lack of trust with professionals - it's quite difficult for many to report if there is an issue and those of us who have often feel like it didn't do anything. My kids are known to social services - we've been reported by several medical professionals from pediatricians to a dentist. I've had the letters and phone calls and visits to the point we've been told by social services, who are sympathetic but have a responsibility when these reports happen, that the conversations are pretty much the same - someone reports my kids as not in school, they get told my kids are registered as home educated and that this is not a social services issue (it's an education welfare issue), and then something gets made up like them being dirty. It's gotten to the point we take photos of all the kids prior to any appointments on their recommendations. I've had a few lovely conversations with social services staff and there is nothing any of us can do about it.
Like others, while for the first few years I had yearly visits and sent yearly reports, I haven't heard anything from them for the rest of the time. I asked once for a few months delay as we were preparing and dealing with a family member's funeral and haven't heard anything since beyond the offers for secondary school my older two got to which they both declined. I emailed to say they were declining them and that was that. I've previously made the jokes that they were looking for an excuse to no longer have to deal with my 20-30+ page reports and all those spreadsheets, but the fact in recent years I've had for more discussions with social services about home education than anyone in council involved in education does raise concerns for me. It does feel like we've been left to the wolves, much like with school educated kids in bad schools who are quiet and any needs they might have are ignored.
I grew up in the Bible belt in an evangelical community commonly seen in many of the US HE horror stories. They would tell you up and down that what they do would never interfere or encourage violence on others - but they would also say girls shouldn't go to University and certainly don't need to learn as many subjects as their brothers, that boys should follow in their father's footsteps, that only religious Universities are acceptable and anything else is going to lead them astray or cause the community to shun them (and there is a major issue in the US with religious colleges and Unis with these communities funding colleges and Universities giving really bad educations that prevent kids from leaving). They would tell you that making a girl care for their younger siblings and cleaning up after them and her father is just 'cultural'/'how we do things', that making a boy work in his father's business without pay was just helping him be part of the community and build work ethic. I don't care how bad the schools are, those kids have the same rights and deserve the same consideration and society has the same responsibility to them as those in the same community who send their kids to school. There is room to for all of them to be considered and more options for things being assessed. I don't view it as the councils condemning but acknowledging and figuring out a way to make the responsibility for education transparent rather than what is going now for all kids where most are ignored.
Now, UK home education community is quite different to American ones. All the research I've seen shows the UK ones are more reactionary - the vast majority start in schools and come out after issues rather than those like my kids who have never been to school and tend to use very different education philosophies. It's part of why I'm confused by the idea that anyone "knows all about HE" when there are a dozen or so of popular home education philosophies and methods alongside the different ways different councils deal with home educators. I'm structured, not quite of the classical-leaning but of that general framework of subjects and methods, my kids' best friends are in a family that uses an unschooler-unit study approach, both home educated but very different. Other home educators brag about never using textbooks or worksheets, only 'living books' where I heavily use both and find most ~living book~ recommendations duller than dishwater especially for pretty much any science topic. I know others like the OP who said that just being in an environment with literature get kids to read (which I don't agree with) while I use phonics throughout - my just finished Year 8 child still does phonetical nonsense word practice before moving onto speech skills regularly.
As this thread looks like it's about to be full, maybe another home educator could do another AMA or another post on this? I could do it though I'm pretty slow at typing.