LEAs have decided that a register is the most palatable way to increase enforced monitoring of home educated children and many LEAs have an unapologetic policy of getting children back into school as they believe that school is best for everyone. How that plays out has been endless pretend requests for information and pretend offers of support by people who are effectively truancy officers. Parents have responded in good faith and then found themselves misquoted and the evidence of learning pulled apart for the purposes of getting the child back to school, rather than genuine reasons. It has been a disgrace at times, quite genuinely. LEAS seem to believe that the end justifies the means.
The national curriculum is not the only way to learn by a long shot but children's work is criticised if it deviates from this, or is too far ahead. It is a poorly understood fact, especially in the UK, that reading at age 8/9 is absolutely fine and is much easier to pick up at that age for many children. We also know that many children with additional needs receive little provision at school and bullying is rife. Neither of these factors are really acknowledged or understood by LEAs. It is nonsensical to monitor evidence of learning that a school in reality would not be providing that child, with the sword of Damocles hanging over their head that the child will be ordered back to school if they can't produce it. Many parents are trying to unpick the damage of school bullying and address additional needs at a late stage. They often are encouraged by progress at home and then are understandably frazzled at the veiled threats in these letters from LEAs. Legally the obligation to provide an education is the parent's and they're under no suspicion if they discharge that themselves. LEAS are used to being in charge (as they are if parents outsource their responsibility to the school) and expect a cookie cutter education. LEAs try to maintain an illusion of being in a role of authority when, unless there is evidence that a suitable and efficient full time education is not being provided, they have no authority. I personally don't think they're fit for a position of authority so would be against a register for that reason if no other.
So parents are not keen to give power to incredibly disorganised, often uneducated, school-based learning obsessed officers with a dubious relationship with the truth and an agenda to catch a parent out somehow, anyhow. The letters these officers send are often riddled with spelling errors and it is very common for a different child's details to be discussed in error with a parent who has never heard of that child. They shouldn't have any more information until they have learned how to handle data with what they've got. Parents might feel differently if there was a different agenda and a different track record, but there isn't.
The poster claiming that a register wouldn't help abused children because abused home educated children are usually already known to SS is probably right, insofar as each instance of abuse of home educated children that has come up has already involved failures by SS. You won't find one that hasn't. Given the general incompetent and the ease with which abusers hide their guilt, it seems highly unlikely that the officer who can't spell their child's name right would have the competency to spot it. It also suggests that home educated children should be immediately flagged as a safeguarding risk with the implication that a home educating parent is more likely to abuse. These parents are often exhausted and dedicated parents to children with additional needs who have encountered hostility and lack of support throughout their child's life as stretched services fail. That is a step too far for many of them and echoes uncomfortably with the attitude of many LEAs that they're already in the wrong because their child isn't in school. The register is not really about safeguarding. It's about restoring a power dynamic to something LEAs feel comfortable with. It's highly unlikely to help victims of abuse but will hurt parents and children who have already been failed by the education system. It is not just open to abuse, it is planned for a completely different reason than the ones being trotted out.