Badman Report into Elective Home Education

Dear C Blades

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon as
possible. For information, the departmental standard for correspondence
received is that responses should be sent within 20 working days as you
are requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number
2009/0065566.

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Dear Sir/Madam
I am replying to your email received 21 July.

I should like to apologise for the delay in replying. I am currently
dealing with your request but will not be able to forward you a reply
within the 20 day deadline. I realise this will mean it will miss the
statutory deadline for reply and will be in breach of the Department's
obligations under the Act. I very much regret this - the Department
should meet its obligations under the Act.

While I appreciate that it is in no way a justification I should like to
explain that the Department makes every effort to meet deadlines, but the
delay in responding in this case has been due to the unusual volume of
requests the Department has received in recent months. The Information
Commissioner has been informed of the situation.

I will forward a reply to you as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,

Josephine Bell
Independent Schools Partnerships and Strategy Team
[email address]
[1]www.dcsf.gov.uk

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0065566.

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
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References

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Dear Mr/Ms Blades,
Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 21 July.

Before replying I should like to apologise for the considerable delay you
have experienced. I am also aware of your request, forwarded 10
September, for an internal review of this case because of the delay
incurred. However, the Department normally considers requests for an
internal review once the decision has been received and if you remain
unhappy with this reply you have the right to request an internal review,
details are at the end of this email.

I can assure you that the Department does take the matter of delays
seriously. At an internal review panel held in May on a home education
case, the panel acknowledged that a breach of the Act had taken place in
that a response had not been made within 20 days. It considered what
action had been taken at the time to deal with the particular request
within the deadline, namely that action had been considered by the Deputy
Director responsible for home education to designate resources from
elsewhere in the Division. However, due to high volumes of work and
unexpected long term illness, additional staffing was unavailable at the
time. It was agreed that a weekly meeting, chaired by the Deputy Director
would taken place to enable discussion of all current cases in order that
new cases are dealt with in a timely manner and the backlog of old cases
was addressed. This has improved the situation, though regrettably, even
with additional staffing now being made available, it is still extremely
difficult to respond to all the requests within the legal timeframe. As I
am sure you will appreciate, the Department has a finite amount of
resources, all of which is publicly funded, and therefore we have to
ensure resources are allocated in a way that is even-handed across all
areas of business.

You requested

In the annex to the Badman Report labelled "5. Known to social
care" it states that "25 of the 90 LAs asked responded". Could you
please tell me:

A. Which were the 90 LAs that were asked to respond.

B. Which were the 25 LAs that did respond.

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

A copy of the list of 90 and 25 local authorities is enclosed.

The information supplied to you is protected by the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988. Any documents produced by government officials will be
covered by Crown Copyright. You are free to use the information for your
own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for
the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial
publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder and is
regulated by the Reuse of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005. You
can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright at:

Office of Public Sector Information
Information Policy Team
Kew
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DU

Email: [1][email address]

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you should
make a complaint to the Department by writing to me within two calendar
months of the date of this letter. Your complaint will be considered by
an independent review panel, who were not involved in the original
consideration of your request.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint to the
Department, you may then contact the Information Commissioner's Office.
Yours sincerely,

Josephine Bell
Independent Schools Partnerships and Strategy Team
[email address]
[2]www.dcsf.gov.uk

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0065566.

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
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Dear Ms Blades

I refer to your request for internal review which was received on 11
September 2009.

Before informing you of the outcome of the internal review I should like
to apologise for the delay in replying. The Department is aware that there
has been a very considerable delay. I much regret this. While I appreciate
that it is in no way a justification I should like to explain that the
Department makes every effort to respond quickly to requests for internal
reviews, but the delay in responding in this case has been due to the
unusual volume of requests the Department has received in recent months.

On 21 July 2009 you made the following request:-

In the annex to the Badman Report labelled "5. Known to social
care" it states that "25 of the 90 LAs asked responded". Could you
please tell me:

A. Which were the 90 LAs that were asked to respond.

B. Which were the 25 LAs that did respond.

We replied on 6 November 2009, attaching the information held by the
Department.

The Department has now completed its internal review process and has
carried out a thorough review of the case, chaired by a senior officer who
was not involved with the original request.

The panel noted that your request for internal review was received in the
Department before you had received our final reply. On that basis, it was
decided that the internal review could only consider the issue of the
Department missing its statutory deadline for reply. The panel discussed
the following points/issues -

. The panel discussed that you have requested internal reviews on
three other cases. As with this case, the internal review requests were
received in the Department before you had received our final reply. It
was agreed that the other cases be considered on the same basis as this
case.

. The panel noted that in all cases we have apologised for the
delay in replying, accepted that the delays should not have happened and
explained the complaints procedure.

. The panel agreed that it would be appropriate for the Department
to again acknowledge that a breach of the Act had taken place and to
apologise for that fact, but again to point out that the delays were
unavoidable.

. The panel agreed that four separate responses should be sent to
you.

It was agreed therefore that a letter be sent to you, acknowledging the
considerable delays you have experienced. Please see the letter attached
at Annex A.

If you are unhappy with this decision, you have the right to appeal
directly to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner can
be contacted at:

The Case Reception Unit

Customer Service Team

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Further information about the Information Commissioner's complaints
procedure can be found on the Information Commissioner's Office website:
[1]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Yours sincerely

Penny Jones

Deputy Director

Independent Education and Schools Governance Division

Annex A

Dear Ms Blades

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 21 July
2009. Our reply was issued on 6 November 2009 and I would like to
apologise for the delay in replying.

The Department is aware that it has missed the statutory deadline for
reply and is in breach of its obligations under the Act. I can assure you
that the Department does take the matter of delays very seriously and is
always concerned about delays in responding to individual requesters,
recognising the inconvenience and frustration which this may cause.

As we have previously explained, during this period high volumes of work
and unexpected long-term illness meant that I was unable to allocate
additional staffing to this area of work. It was decided that I would
chair weekly Freedom of Information request meetings, so that new cases
would be dealt with in a timely manner and the backlog of old cases
addressed.

Although the weekly meetings and the availability of additional staffing
improved the situation, it was still extremely difficult to respond to all
requests within the legal timeframe and delays were unavoidable.

The Department has a finite amount of resources, all of which is publicly
funded, and therefore we have to ensure resources are allocated in a way
that is even-handed across all areas of business.

Yours sincerely

Penny Jones

Deputy Director

Independent Education and Schools Governance Division

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

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1. http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...