16 September 2009

Dear Mr Moran,

Re: Your request for information: 3914

Thank you for your request for information received on 4 July 2009 in which you requested:

In "Southwark Children and Young People Services" document "A Policy for the Education of Gifted and Talented Pupils" at http://www.lgfl.net/lgfl/leas/southwark/accounts/aspects/gatp/web/Resources/documents/Southwark_LA_GT_Policy_updated08.doc it states:

"The LA will work to support and advise schools in their provisions for gifted and talented pupils and will:

Analyse data in order to identify and address possible underachievement of gifted and talented pupils"

Please publish this data, in particular which primary schools in Southwark SE15, SE5 and SE22 are succeeding and which are failing to address underachievement of G&T pupils.

Firstly, I would like to apologise to you for the time it has taken to respond to your request. This was because I have unfortunately been away ill for some time.

As I explained in my phone conversation with you on Wednesday 23 September, the authority does not keep data on underachievement in schools. Officers visit schools and discuss their data, including tracking data to look at how they identify and provide for those children who are not making the appropriate levels of progress. This data is not retained by the authority, but by individual schools.

In the past, schools shared data with the London Regional Partnership. This provided information about the performance of pupils in different groups such as ethnicity and gender for both the individual school and the authority as a whole. The information was password-protected with individual school data available only to the school concerned. The purpose of this data was to enable the local authority to check for underachieving groups of pupils across the borough, and for schools to do the same within their own institution.

However, government funding for the various regional partnerships ceased in March 2009. I have been unable to find details of any successor programmes.

This information is being provided as a statutory obligation under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 1998.

You are free to use the information provided for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, requires the permission of the copyright holder. You may apply for permission to re-use this information by submitting a request to [Southwark Borough Council request email]; you can find details on these arrangements at http://www.southwark.gov.uk/YourCouncil/Copyright. Detailed advice about the Reuse of Public Sector Information Regulations (PSI) 2005 is available from the Office of Public Sector Information at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/index.htm.

If you have any queries or concerns then please contact us using the above details.

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make an appeal for a review of our decision, you should write to the Corporate Access Information Manager at:

Corporate Access Information Manager

Southwark Council

160 Tooley Streetl

PO BOX 64529
London
SE1P 5LX

Email: [Southwark Borough Council request email]

If you are not content with the outcome of your appeal you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot make a decision unless you have first exhausted our internal appeal procedure and you should contact him within 2 months of the outcome of your internal appeal.

Further information on the Freedom of Information Act is available through the Information Commissioner at the:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire.

SK9 5AF
Telephone: 01625 545 700
Internet: www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Sean Harrington

Information Governance Officer - Children's Services