Child trafficking through Kent County Council

Cassidy, J made this Freedom of Information request to Kent County Council

The request was refused by Kent County Council.

From: Cassidy, J

7 May 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Further a recent article, quoted below, from the Guardian
Newspaper,[1] can you please email me an electronic copy of the
following information:

1)A copy of any or the actual Freedom of Information Act request
made by the Guardian Newspaper, that forms the substantive basis of
said article, together with copies of any and all correspondence
and information shared between yourselves and the Guardian
Newspaper connected to this request, as well as a copy of all the
information disclosed.

“Suspected victims of child trafficking from Asia, Africa and the
Middle East are being smuggled through Britain's leading ports and
airports at an accelerating rate, new figures obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act reveal.”

: Your correspondence :

Please ensure that any of your general correspondence,
acknowledgements or holding letters etc are included or
cut-and-pasted into the body of the email messages, using plain
text, rather than as attachments. As this will mean your
correspondence is much easier to access, read and respond to.

: Accessibility :

When providing any information disclosures please provide it in the
original unrestricted format such as:

a. MS Word .doc or Rich Text Text .rtf format or equivalent
(suitable for disclosure of email messages)

b.Spreadsheets in MS Excel .xls format or equivalent

c.Presentations in MS Powerpoint .ppt format or equivalent

or converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), ONLY if none of the
above formats are available

if you only have a paper version (hard copy) available, please
provide a Digital Photo Copier Scanned version in PDF format. If
you do provide disclosures in PDF from a Digital Photo Copier Scan,
please state that you have done so because no other format, such as
a, b or c above, are available.

If you need to redact text elements of any disclosure can you
please ensure that the rest of text based information remains
accessible to a Screen Reader.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>

Please ensure any electronic disclosures are absolutely free of any
Document Restrictions and Encryption or Passwords, as this is
likely to render them less usable on a general basis and more
specifically, inaccessible to Assistive Technology.

Please do not send any information in compilation archive formats,
such as .zip.

Providing correspondence and disclosed information via these means
will help ensure that text based information is accessible for use
with a Screen Reader or a Magnifier for none text based information
and will prevent any further and separate representations under the
Disability Discrimination Act. If you are unable to meet these
reasonably practicable accessibility requests please state why and
provide a copy of any internal information, such as a policy relied
upon that would explain such a decision.

Reference:

[1] Child trafficking into Britain accelerating, figures show
• Victims hidden in lorries or pass with false papers
• Case workers say rescued are told to flee care centres
14 April 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr...

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From: Cassidy, J

7 May 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

In your response to the Guardian Newspaper related information can
you please confirm or deny
whether or not West Sussex County Council is planning to, is
piloting or is using any multi-agency safeguarding children toolkit
for responding to the trafficking of children? As well as any
information that confirms or denies that it has fully implimented
the national referral mechanism for identifying and recording
victims of trafficking and ensuring that they are provided with
appropriate support wherever they are in the UK., as required from
April 2009, under the Council of Europe Convention on action
against Trafficking in Human Beings and in light of articles such
as:

Sunday, 2 December, 2001
'UK child trafficking rising'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1682754.stm

Wednesday, 30 August 2006
UK warned over child trafficking
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5...

Thursday 20 September 2007
Vanished: the child victims of trafficking
180 children missing from social care after being brought illegally
to UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/sep/20...

Yours faithfully

Cassidy, J

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Kent County Council

8 May 2009

Dear J Cassidy

Thank you for your email.

I acknowledge your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Assuming we hold this information, I will endeavour
to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later than 5th June
2009 (20 working days from date of receipt).

I will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/09/508 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards

Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 694383
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...

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Kent County Council

8 May 2009

Attachment Freedom of Information request Child trafficking through Kent County Council.html
7K Download

Dear J Cassidy

We received your request for information today 8th May 2009. We wondered
if you could confirm whether this request is indeed for Kent County
Council as you have asked for information regarding West Sussex County
Council.

It is unlikely that as Kent County Council we will be able to give any
information about West Sussex County Council.

We also received a similar request from you yesterday and would like
confirmation that this request if proper to Kent County Council is not a
duplicate to yesterday's (copy attached).

If you can clarify your request as soon as is convenient we will be happy
to process it.

Many thanks

Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 694383
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...

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From: Cassidy, J

8 May 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Apologies, a similar but separate request was also sent to them.
With regards the request sent to yourselves, please consider all
references to West Sussex County Council to have meant Kent County
Council.

I do a very mcuh appreciate your quick response asking for this
clarification.

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

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Kent County Council

8 May 2009

Dear Mr Chapman

Thank you for your email and clarification.

I acknowledge your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Assuming we hold this information, I will endeavour
to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later than 8th June
2009 (20 working days from date of receipt).

I will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/09/510 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards
Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 694383
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...

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Kent County Council

8 May 2009

Dear J Cassidy

I do apologise for the incorrect name on the previous acknowledgement, all
other information contained in this email is correct.

Thank you for your email and clarification

I acknowledge your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. Assuming we hold this information, I will endeavour
to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later than 8th June
2009 (20 working days from date of receipt).

I will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information
or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing
the information. Please quote our reference - FOI/09/510 - in any
communication regarding this particular request.

Best regards
Corporate Access to Information Team, Chief Executive's Department
Kent County Council, Legal & Democratic Services, Room 1.94, Sessions
House, County Hall, Maidstone. ME14 1XQ.
Tel: 01622 696265 or 01622 694261 - Fax: 01622 694383
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...

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Kent County Council

1 June 2009

Attachment FW FOI 09 020 CFE Response to request received 8 January 2008.txt
3K Download View as HTML

Attachment 09.020.xls
16K Download View as HTML

Dear J Cassidy

Thank you for your request for information made under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

Please find attached the FOI request made by the Guardian Newspaper and
our response as requested.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...
s/complaints-procedure.htm#foi on our website. Please quote reference
FOI/09/508.

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner's website
http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Best regards

Michelle Hunt
Access to Information Co-ordinator
Communication & Information Governance
Children, Families & Education Directorate
Kent County Council
Room 2.35, Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ
External: 01622 696692
Internal: 7000 6692
Email: [email address]

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Kent County Council

4 June 2009

Attachment Re Freedom of Information request Child trafficking through Kent County Council.html
3K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request Referral and Assessment process.html
8K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request statistics unaccompanied asylum seeking children UASC.html
8K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request UASC age assessment Kent 25 05 09.html
8K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request Social Workers conducting age assessments of young people claiming asylum.Kent 25 05 09.html
15K Download

Attachment Freedom of Information request age assessment of unaccompanied children seeking asylum and the available guidance 26 05 09 Kent.html
9K Download

Dear J Cassidy

Thank you for your requests for information made under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

As the requests listed below are of a similar nature and all relate to
UASC, we have combined them to calculate the total amount of time it will
take to extract and collate the information in answer to all 6 requests.
We estimate that this will exceed the £450 cost limit (equivalent to 18
hours work at the £25 hourly rate set by the Ministry of Justice).
Therefore under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are
not obliged to comply with your request and are exercising our right to
refuse to deal.

FOI/09/510 - Child trafficking
FOI/09/538 - Referral and assessment process
FOI/09/569 - Statistics
FOI/09/573 - Age Assessment
FOI/09/574 - Age Assessment
FOI/09/585 - Age Assessment.

If you are unhappy with this response, and believe KCC has not complied
with legislation, please ask for a review by following our complaints
process; details can be found at this link
[1]http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...
on our website. Please quote reference: FOI requests for UASC.

If you still remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who oversees compliance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000. Details of what you need to do, should
you wish to pursue this course of action, are available from the
Information Commissioner*s website
[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

Best regards

Michelle Hunt
Access to Information Co-ordinator
Communication & Information Governance
Children, Families & Education Directorate
Kent County Council
Room 2.35, Sessions House
Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ
External: 01622 696692
Internal: 7000 6692
Email: [email address]

References

Visible links
1. http://www.kent.gov.uk/council-and-democ...
2. http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...

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