Mark Walker Date: 16^th November 2009

Email: [FOI #20064 email] Our ref: FOI.09.5277

Dear Mr Walker

Freedom of Information Request

I refer to your recent Freedom of Information Request. Your request asked for the following information: -

Your request

By letter of 30 September 2009, The Secretary of State Ed Balls appointed Maurice Smith to enquire into the "promotion of racism in schools". Part of the review is aimed at determining whether members of the British National Party (BNP) should be allowed to work as teachers or in the wider school workforce.

1. Has your authority ever found a member of the BNP or any other political Party guilty of a disciplinary offence related to their Party membership in the last three years? If so please give information as to when and how many.

2. Has any parent complained to you regarding the Party membership of any employee or the expression of political views within School classrooms under your authority during the last three years?

3. What safeguards do you currently have in place to prevent members of any political Party promoting their views within Schools?

Council's response

I can confirm the following information with regards to your FOI request above.

1. Has your authority ever found a member of the BNP or any other political Party guilty of a disciplinary offence related to their Party membership in the last three years? If so please give information as to when and how many.

The Council is not aware of any member of staff who has been disciplined in relation to their membership of a political party.

2. Has any parent complained to you regarding the Party membership of any employee or the expression of political views within School classrooms under your authority during the last three years?

The Council is not aware of any complaints from parents regarding an employee's party membership. However it is the individual schools, which would hold this information, and this question should perhaps be re-directed to them.

3. What safeguards do you currently have in place to prevent members of any political Party promoting their views within Schools?

The Human Resources Manual for Schools refers to the Council's employee code of conduct, which deals with "Political Neutrality" and "Behaviour at Work and Outside Work".

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 re 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

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Information Commissioner's office (ICO)

Should you remain dissatisfied, you can appeal against our final decision by writing to the Information Commissioner to have your case independently reviewed.

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 the number below:

Yours sincerely

Graham Fells

Acting Head of Employee Support & Development

Tel: 424 7323

Email: [email address]