I have been asked to review this appeal for information and I have carried this out jointly with the Co-ordinator and Advisor for the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities in respect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I would give you below my comments:-

Background

The DCSF Every Child Matters site originally asked for information about home educated children to which Oldham made a submission in February 2009.A later request for supplementary information to this report was made this was :-

“… to identify the number of home educated children who currently fall into categories as stated in the attached letter and return the attached form to Lisa White via mailbox by 1 October 2009”.

There was no response from Oldham to the DCSF in respect of this supplementary information.

Oldham is not listed in the responses that are available on the DCFS website. This can be evidenced from the following page:

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/_download/?id=7366

The Freedom of Information Request

Your request was made on 7 October 2009 on the “whatdotheyknow.com” website as follows :-

“Please supply the local authority's response made to Graham Badman's call on 17 September 2009 for further evidence regarding the report into home education”.

The authority misunderstood this and took this to be the original information they had sent i.e. the February submission and resent that information to you. This was however, not what was required and this was clarified by yourself by steering the authority to the following link:-

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/news-and-communications/la-weekly-email/laemail17september09/#ms883,

It is the Council's response to this request for the supplementary information that was required.

Therefore, theoretically as the Council has not responded to the DCSF in respect of the supplementary information, by virtue of the wording of the FOIA request i.e. “Please supply the Local Authority's response made to Graham Badman's call on 17 September 2009 for further evidence regarding the Report into Home Education” - it does not hold any response to enable this request to be answered. Practically, it may well hold the information that would have been in the supplementary response to the DCSF, if it had made one. If this is the case then this would mean the department could still possibly supply you with that information. I have asked that they look in to at this as soon as possible and they will write to you direct.

I would apologise for any confusion caused.

Should you disagree with the information under this appeal you may complain to the following: -

Information Commissioners Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 9AS

Yours sincerely,

For Borough Solicitor

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