AAC Devices

The request was successful.

Dear Somerset County Council,

I am an academic researcher, attempting to assess the provision of
 augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices in 
Education in the UK (devices used to aid communication, typically
 for people with difficulty speaking). Could you please send me 
a list of augmentative and alternative communication devices 
purchased by or within your authority between 31st March 2006 
and 1st April 2012? (So we are including both for children and adults, and both educational and social reasons)
We would like the information broken down by both product name (So 
for example Dynavox Xpress, iPod touch with TapToTalk, BigMack) and 
by year. Ideally you would include the price paid, but we can deduce that from the
 products if necessary.

 This is a follow up study - the first one consisted of several
 hundred freedom of information requests to NHS Trusts in England, Scotland, and Wales to find the 
provision of AAC. Our consolidated data is in the 
following format (This is comma separated, we can happily send
 excel documents and other examples):



Date Purchased, Supplier, Model, Number, Unit Cost, Total Cost

23/04/2007, Platon Medical Ltd, TRUTONE ELECTROLARYNX COMPLETE KIT,
1, £395.00 , £395.00

17/05/2007, Speechmark Publishin Ltd, FRENCHAY E-TRAN FRAME & A4
INSTRUCTION CARD IN WALLET, 1, £85.00 , £85.00

14/12/2007, Techcess Limited, TELLUS SMART (INC MIND EXPRESS
REALSPEAK & PCS SYMBOLS, 1, " £1, 795.00 ", " £1, 795.00 "

24/01/2008, Inclusive Technology Ltd, GO TALK 9+, 1, £99.00 ,
£99.00

14/02/2008, Kapitex Healthcare Ltd, SERVOX DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
AID, 1, £490.00 , £490.00

14/02/2008, Kapitex Healthcare Ltd, PRODUCTS UP TO 25, 6, £18.50 ,
£111.00

15/02/2008, Dynavox Systems Ltd, DYNAVOX V 512MB WITH CARRY CASE
WIFI USB BLUETOOTH, 1, " £5, 000.00 ", " £5, 000.00 "

15/04/2008, WINSLOW, SWALLOW REMINDER BROACH, 1, £57.95 , £57.95

25/07/2008, Kapitex Healthcare Ltd, SERVOX DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
AID, 1, £535.00 , £535.00

29/08/2008, SMARTBOX, THE GRID 2 SOFTWARE, 1, £360.00 , £360.00

29/08/2008, QUALITY ENABLING DEVICES, PING PONG SWITCH, 1, £195.00
, £195.00

29/08/2008, SMARTBOX, PRODUCTS BETWEEN 25 - 100, 1, £49.00 , £49.00


and this format would be ideal - although we are very happy to reformat 
anything that you send over and we can supply templates if you would like.

As a supplemental question, we are separately investigating if the LEA has, or had, a policy that requires children who use electronic devices to leave the devices at school overnight and/or over weekends and/or during school holidays and/or when the child leaves school.


Yours faithfully,


Dr Joseph Reddington

Somerset Direct - FOI, Somerset Council

Dear Dr Reddington

Thank you for your email

I have logged this for you now, your reference number is 2127732

Kind regards

Somerset County Council

Tel: 0845 345 9166
Email: [email address]

Southwest One (Working in partnership with Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and Avon and Somerset Police)

www.southwestone.co.uk

South West One Limited - Registered in England and Wales with number 6373780.

Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hants PO6 3AU

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Information Governance, Somerset Council

Dear Dr Reddington

 

Thank you for your request made under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) 2000.

 

We are currently dealing with your request and will be in touch shortly
concerning disclosure of the information you have requested.

 

The legislation obliges us to provide you with this information within 20
working days, so our response will be sent to you by 04-09-2012.

 

Please be aware that we now publish all responses to requests for
information made under the FOIA, without any details of the requestor, on
the Council’s website.

 

Please see:

 

[1]http://www.somerset.gov.uk/disclosurelog

 

Yours sincerely

 

Information Governance Team

Client Services Team /  A2W

County Hall

Taunton

Som

TA1 4DY

 

Tel: 01823-357194

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EDUC/ FOI, Somerset Council

Dear Dr Reddington

Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  We
are currently dealing with your request and will be in touch shortly
concerning disclosure of the information you have requested.

The legislation obliges us to provide you with this information within 20
working days, therefore our response will be sent to you no later than
4^th September 2012.

Yours sincerely

Michèle Weaver
Information Officer
Business and Information Governance Group

Tel: 01823 355959
mail: [email address]

 

This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to
whom it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material
and should be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection
Act 1998. If this email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or
RESTRICTED in the header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines,
if not protectively marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.

If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately.
If you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute,
copy, print or rely on any of the information contained in it or attached,
and all copies must be deleted immediately. 

Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses,
any attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our
anti-virus software has failed to identify.  You should therefore carry
out your own anti-virus checks before opening any documents.  Somerset
County Council will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer
viruses emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this
email.

All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in
accordance with relevant legislation.

EDUC/ FOI, Somerset Council

Dear Dr Reddington

I have been asked to clarify whether communication devices for staff are
to be included in our response.

Until we hear back from you the clock has effectively been stopped and the
due date will be extended accordingly.

Yours sincerely

Michèle Weaver
Information Officer
Business and Information Governance Group

Tel: 01823 355959
mail: [email address]

 

This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to
whom it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material
and should be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection
Act 1998. If this email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or
RESTRICTED in the header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines,
if not protectively marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.

If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately.
If you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute,
copy, print or rely on any of the information contained in it or attached,
and all copies must be deleted immediately. 

Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses,
any attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our
anti-virus software has failed to identify.  You should therefore carry
out your own anti-virus checks before opening any documents.  Somerset
County Council will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer
viruses emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this
email.

All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in
accordance with relevant legislation.

Dear EDUC/ FOI,

Including staff would be fine - although I suspect that would be a fairly small number...

:)

Yours sincerely,

Joe

EDUC/ FOI, Somerset Council

Dear Dr Reddington

I have been informed by my colleague who is looking at this Freedom of
Information request that due to the fact a majority of the staff work term
time only we will be unable to meet the deadline of 4^th September. 
However, we will endeavour to get the information to you as soon as is
possible after that date, but no later than 28^th September.

Yours sincerely

Michèle Weaver
Information Officer
Business and Information Governance Group

Tel: 01823 355959
mail: [email address]

 

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EDUC/ FOI, Somerset Council

2 Attachments

<<CYP - 2127732 - response.doc>> <<CYP - 2127732 - attachment 1 of 1.xls>>
Dear Dr Reddington

Please find attached our response to your recent FOI request.

Yours sincerely

Michèle Weaver
Information Officer
Business and Information Governance Group

Tel: 01823 355959
mail: [email address]

 

This email, and any attachments is intended solely for the individual to
whom it is addressed. It may contain personal and / or sensitive material
and should be handled according to the principles of the Data Protection
Act 1998. If this email carries a protective marking of PROTECT or
RESTRICTED in the header it should be handled according to HMG guidelines,
if not protectively marked it can be regarded as UNCLASSIFIED.

If this Email has been misdirected, please notify the author immediately.
If you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, distribute,
copy, print or rely on any of the information contained in it or attached,
and all copies must be deleted immediately. 

Whilst we take reasonable steps to try to identify any software viruses,
any attachments to this email may nevertheless contain viruses which our
anti-virus software has failed to identify.  You should therefore carry
out your own anti-virus checks before opening any documents.  Somerset
County Council will not accept any liability for damage caused by computer
viruses emanating from any attachment or other document supplied with this
email.

All GCSx traffic may be subject to recording and / or monitoring in
accordance with relevant legislation.

Dear EDUC/ FOI,

Thank you for this - we look forward to the rest of the data :0)

Yours sincerely,

Joe

EDUC/ FOI, Somerset Council

1 Attachment

Dear Dr Reddington

Please find attached the second spreadsheet setting out the communication devices used/purchased by our SEN team in response to the above FOI request.

This now completes this request but if you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Michèle Weaver
Information Officer
Business and Information Governance Group

Tel: 01823 355959
mail: [email address]

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Dear EDUC/ FOI,

Thank you very much - although I think I'm still waiting for part of the request - did you answer the "As a supplemental question, we are separately investigating if the
LEA has, or had, a policy that requires children who use electronic
devices to leave the devices at school overnight and/or over
weekends and/or during school holidays and/or when the child leaves
school." part?

Yours sincerely,

Joe

EDUC/ FOI, Somerset Council

Dear Dr Reddington

I'm afraid the colleague who was dealing with your request has now gone on leave, and, not having been involved with the progress of your request until now, I am trying to track down the relevant person(s) who might be able to supply the additional information you have asked for.

I will of course get back to you with any information that is supplied to me as soon as I can, but unfortunately I cannot give you a specific deadline by which this will happen.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause - many thanks for your patience meanwhile,

Deborah Latham
Business, Information and Governance Group
Somerset County Council
01823 355686
[email address]

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EDUC/ FOI, Somerset Council

Dear Dr Reddington

Further to your email below, the information regarding the part of your request that you have highlighted below has now been obtained.

Our 'Augmentative and Alternative Communnication (AAC) Aid Protocol' is available on the Somerset Learning and Achievement website - please go to http://www.six.somerset.gov.uk/eis/conte... and click on the first link on this page. Under the heading 'Insurance, maintenance and technical support' in this document' on pages 6-7 specific reference is made to insurance and the need for parents to inform the Local Authority if they are taking the aid abroad etc.

Our Specialist Communication Advisor in Augmentative and Alternative Communication is not aware that we have ever had a policy which stipulated that children had to leave their aids in school.

Further to the advice in the Protocol, our Learning Sensory Strategy Manager has reiterated that if the school has the extra insurance from County called 'Balance of Risk' (please see http://www.six.somerset.gov.uk/bluebook/... for further information on this insurance) then anything up to the value of £2500 is insured anywhere in the country but not abroad. She has also stated that the process of insuring them with County for accidental damage and loss/theft is being explored but is not yet in place. Parents are asked to look at insurance and add items to the home insurance where they are looking to take them on holiday or outside of County. In relation to going abroad, many parents are happy to take the low tech version of the child's communication system. The aids always go home.

Apologies for the delay in the full completion of the response to your Freedom of Information Request. If we can be of any further help, please let us know.

Many thanks,

Deborah Latham
Business, Information and Governance Group
Somerset County Council
01823 355686
[email address]

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Dear EDUC/ FOI,

That's lovely - thank you very much :)

Yours sincerely,

Joe