Dear Sir or Madam,

     Can you please email me an electronic copy of the following
     information:

     Confirmation that when 16 or 17 year old unaccompanied children
     make a claim for asylum, that:

     1) they are referred to your social services department for
     immediate support?

     and

     2) for a period, they are initially cared for under Section 17 of
     the Children Act?

     and

     3) then they are cared for and accommodated under Section 20 of the
     Children Act after a needs led or age assessment confirms such a
     duty is owed?

     and

     4) once this Section 20 duty begins it ceases after a period and
     then they are supported under the Children (Leaving Care) Act?

     4.1) For this group of 16 and 17 year olds please indicate, on
     average, how many weeks they are accommodated under Section 20
     before this duty is discharged and they are transferred to after
     care services under the Children (Leaving Care) Act, for the year
     ending 31 March 2008?

     6) Please also provide copies of any information you hold hold that
     explains the Referral and Assessment process, procedures, service
     provision and legal duties that are applicable to this group of 16
     and 17 year olds, from the point of referral, assessment and
     through to when you fully discharge your Section 17 or Section 20
     duties and the discharge of your Children (Leaving Care) Act
     duties.

     : Your correspondence:

     Please ensure that any of your general correspondence,
     acknowledgments or holding letters etc are included or
     cut-and-pasted into the body of the email messages, using plain
     text, rather than as attachments. As this will mean your
     correspondence is much easier to access, read and respond to.

     : Accessibility:

     When providing any information disclosures please provide it in the
     original unrestricted format such as:

     a. MS Word .doc or Rich Text Text .rtf format or equivalent
     (suitable for disclosure of email messages)

     b.Spreadsheets in MS Excel .xls format or equivalent

     c.Presentations in MS Powerpoint .ppt format or equivalent

     or converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), ONLY if none of the
     above formats are available

     if you only have a paper version (hard copy) available, please
     provide a Digital Photo Copier Scanned version in PDF format. If
     you do provide disclosures in PDF from a Digital Photo Copier Scan,
     please state that you have done so because no other format, such as
     a, b or c above, are available.

     If you need to redact text elements of any disclosure can you
     please ensure that the rest of text based information remains
     accessible to a Screen Reader.
     <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>

     Please ensure any electronic disclosures are absolutely free of any
     Document limitations or controls, such as making them Read-only,
     Encrypted or Password restricted, as this is likely to render them
     less usable on a general basis and more specifically, inaccessible
     to Assistive Technology.

     Please do not send any information in compilation archive formats,
     such as .zip.

     Providing correspondence and disclosed information via these means
     will help ensure that text based information is accessible for use
     with a Screen Reader or a Magnifier for none text based information
     and will prevent any further and separate representations under the
     Disability Discrimination Act. If you are unable to meet these
     reasonably practicable accessibility requests please state why and
     provide a copy of any internal information, such as a policy relied
     upon that would explain such a decision.

     Yours faithfully,

     Cassidy, J

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