Reference: RFI 2130
Looked after children
Request:
Under the freedom of information act I would like to know numerical statistics in order by
year during the period of 1998 to 2008 (or as far back as you can go without charging me)
for the following;
1) how many children were taken into local authority care on interim care orders and
emergency protection orders under the category of emotional harm during the above
period ? i do not wish you to include any children for any other categories of harm/abuse.
2) Out of these children who were taken into care for emotional harm how many of
them were specifically for domestic violence between their parents? again i do not wish
you to include children who had violence directed at them as that would fall into a different
category being physical abuse.
3) Out of these children who were put into care for domestic violence how many were
returned to family or extended family?
4) Out of these how many children were put on full care orders?
5) of the children put on full care orders how many were adopted during these period
Response:
I am writing to inform you that your request for information will not be fully processed as
the cost of locating and retrieving this information exceeds the “appropriate limit” stated in
the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004 and therefore
under Section 12(1) of the Act the Council is not obliged to comply with your request.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal
Notice.
The reason for this is that to provide the information requested would involve a manual
trawl of files, e.g. to search only 45 children’s files for 2007/08, would take half an hour per
file.
However, in accordance with our duty to advise and assist, the attached information can
be supplied within the time limit:
Please see accompanying document:
FOI Request.xls
The information supplied to you is owned by the council unless otherwise stated and may be protected by
copyright. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research or for the
purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use of a commercial nature will require the permission of the
Council. Further enquiries in this respect should be directed to Head of Legal Services, North Tyneside
Council, Quadrant The Silver Link North, Cobalt Business Park, North Tyneside, NE27 0BY
Date: 26-10-09
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