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8 October 2009 |
Dear A White
I refer to your request for an internal review which was received on 13 July (case reference 2009/0052752).
Before informing you of the outcome of the internal review I should like to apologise for the delay in replying. The Department is aware that there has been a very considerable delay. I much regret this. While I appreciate that it is in no way a justification I should like to explain that the Department makes every effort to respond quickly to requests for internal reviews, but the delay in responding in this case has been due to the unusual volume of requests the Department has received in recent months.
On 12 June you requested - in relation to the statement reported in the media that “Children educated at home are twice as likely to be on social services registers for being at risk of abuse as the rest of the population” - `full details of the statistical evidence on which Mr Badman bases this assertion' .
You also asked for `copies of all the statistical returns from English local authorities and other agencies to the DCSF which indicate the educational status (school or electively home educated) of school aged children on their “at risk” registers'.
The Department has now completed its internal review process and has carried out a thorough review of the case, chaired by a senior officer who was not involved with the original request.
The Department has decided to uphold the original decision not to disclose the information concerned, for the same reasons as set out in the Information Rights Manager's email of 10 July 2009
In addition the following points are relevant:
In answering the request the Department had interpreted your request on the basis of information that it actually held i.e. children `known to social care' (as referred to in Graham Badman's report on the review of Home Education) as opposed to the phrase reported in the press i.e. `children … on social services registers'. This was the reason the Department provided the information which you have disputed.
The panel considered that, with hindsight, the Department should have clarified the phrase used by you before providing its response, and the Information Rights Manager has asked me to pass on to you his apologies for this.
The panel noted that the term `at risk' was not used in Mr Badman's report, nor was information collected under this category.
The panel noted that having decided to respond on the basis of `children known to social care' the Department considered that sections 38, 40 and 41 were engaged, and the panel upheld this decision.
The panel noted that, in relation to section 41, safeguarding statistics from local authorities were provided in confidence on the assumption that, because they included sensitive data they would not therefore be divulged.
The panel noted, with regard to section 40, that data are personal data if, taken with other information, they enable a living individual to whom the data relate to be identified.
It was agreed unanimously in respect of section 38 that the balance of public interest - both at the time of the request and at the time of the internal review - remained in withholding the detailed information requested. The decision to withhold the information under the exemptions at sections 38, 40 and 41 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would remain.
If you are unhappy with this decision, you have the right to appeal directly to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
The Case Reception Unit
Customer Service Team
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Further information about the Information Commissioner's complaints procedure can be found on the Information Commissioner's Office website: http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom_of_information.aspx
Yours sincerely
Penny Jones
Deputy Director
Independent Schools and School Organisation.
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