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Ms Tania Berlow Date: 25^th September 2009

Dear Ms Berlow

Freedom of Information Request

I refer to your recent Freedom of Information Request about elective home education. I will now respond to each question in turn:-

Your request

1. I would like to know of these children how many are there where the visiting

person has concerns that a 'suitable' education is being provided?

Zero

2. I would also appreciate it if this information could be broken down into

categories: 1) Whether they feel that no education is taking place? 2) Whether

they feel that the philosophy of education is inadequate - for example in the case

of autonomous or child led learning, that particular child is not appearing to be

learning enough'? 3) Whether there are concerns because the family have not

implemented a structured approached? 4) Or whether the fact that the national

Curriculum is not being followed is causing concern?

N/A

3. If there are children in the above 4 categories, please indicate if further steps

are being taken - for example, issuance of a School Attendance Order?

N/A

4. Please also indicate if any Education Supervision Orders are currently in court

for this population?

N/A

5. Please can you confirm whether any children who fit into the above categories of

concern about 'educational provision suitability' would also therefore be referred

to Social Services?

N/A. However, if there were concerns over a child's safety or welfare then they would be passed to the Referral and Assessment Service.

6. Lastly is it possible in your Local Authority that Social Services are involved with

a family but that the EHE department do not know of this involvement (this

involvement would be on an on-going basis rather than a one off referral which

is found to be of no genuine concern)

No. The Education Welfare Office would be aware of involvement of social services since the two areas work very closely together.

I hope this information is of assistance to you.

Copyright procedure

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use this information for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and news reporting. Any other re-use of this information, for example commercial publication requires the permission of the Council as the Copyright holder. All re-use requests will be treated under the Re-Use of Public Information Regulation 2006.

Appeal procedure

Should you wish to appeal against this decision you can write to the Records Management Team Leader to have your case reviewed by our Internal Review Panel. This should be sent to us within four weeks and must clearly state the reasons for your appeal and your FOI reference number. The Records Management Team address is as follows: Town Hall and Civic Buildings, Westoe Road, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE33 2RL.

Information Commissioner

Should you remain dissatisfied with the final outcome of your appeal you can write to the Information Commissioner to ask for an independent review of your case.

The Information Commissioner is the Government's Independent Body responsible for overseeing the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

Please do note that the ICO will only review cases that have exhausted the Council's internal appeal procedures. All correspondence to the ICO must quote the Council's reference number and your reasons for your appeal.

The ICO's contact details are as follows: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF. More information can be found on the ICO's website at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

If you have any further queries about this matter then please do not hesitate to contact me on my direct telephone number below:

Yours sincerely

Peter Cutts

Head of Social Inclusion and Achievement

Email: [email address]

Tel: 0191 424 7697