Dear Sir or Madam,

This request relates to the following statement made by Graham
Badman on behalf of the DCSF and reported in the media yesterday
(11 June 2009): "Children educated at home are twice as likely to
be on social services registers for being at risk of abuse as the
rest of the population."

I hereby request under the Freedom of Information Act full details
of the statistical evidence on which Mr Badman bases this
assertion.

In particular, please supply copies of all statistical returns from
English local authorities and other agencies to the DCSF which
indicate the educational status (school or electively home
educated) of school aged children on their "at risk" registers.

If, for any reason, Mr Badman's contention was not based on direct
evidence from English local authorties, please supply copies of the
comparative evidence on which he based his statistically based
assertion that "children educated at home are twice as likely to be
on social services registers for being at risk of abuse as the rest
of the population".

If, for any reason, Mr Badman's contention was not based on
statistical evidence from any source, please provide copies of any
anecdotal "evidence" suppled to him by English local authorities
and other agencies which formed the basis for his statistically
based assertion that "children educated at home are twice as likely
to be on social services registers for being at risk of abuse as
the rest of the population".

Finally, please confirm that Mr Badman's contention, and all
evidence used to support his contention, relates only to children
of compulsory education age, since electively home educated
children are by definition all of compulsory education age.

Yours faithfully,

A White

Dear A White

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
2009/0052752.

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Dear Mr White,

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 12
June 2009. You requested - in relation to the statement reported in the
media that "Children educated at home are twice as likely to be on
social services registers for being at risk of abuse as the rest of the
population" - 'full details of the statistical evidence on which Mr
Badman bases this assertion' .

You also asked for 'copies of all the statistical returns from English
local authorities and other agencies to the DCSF which indicate the
educational status (school or electively home educated) of school aged
children on their "at risk" registers'.

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

A copy of the information which can be disclosed in response to your
first request is enclosed in the Annex.

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: [email address]

The Department holds further information within scope of your second
request but it is being withheld because the following absolute
exemptions under the Act apply to it:

Section 40. Having carefully reviewed the information in scope of your
request, the Department considers that the absolute exemption at section
40 of the Act is engaged because the some of information requested
constitutes personal data, disclosure of which would contravene the data
protection principles. Data are 'personal data' if, taken with 'other
information' they enable a living individual to whom the data relate to
be identified.

Section 41 (information provided in confidence) is engaged because this
information was imparted in circumstances whereby those providing it did
so in the expectation that it would remain confidential because of its
very nature. The Department therefore considers that disclosure of it to
the public would constitute an actionable breach of confidence.

In addition the following qualified exemption, requiring a public
interest test, is engaged:

Section 38(1)(a) and (b) this section 38 provides that information is
exempt if its disclosure under the Act would, or would be likely, to

(a) endanger the physical or mental health of any individual; or

(b) endanger the safety of any individual.

This exemption is subject to the public interest test which means that
even where prejudice or likely prejudice can be demonstrated, it is
still necessary to consider whether in all the circumstances of the case
the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public
interest in disclosure. This exemption covers events that could
reasonably be expected but do not have to be definitely foreseeable.

The case for disclosure of information protected by this exemption rests
mainly on the desirability of greater openness for the purposes of
increasing public understanding and trust, and on encouraging greater
accountability.

Conversely, it is reasonable to expect that the release of any
information which might lead to the identification of the families of
those registered as at risk might result in a deterrent effect to
participation in, and co-operation with, the appropriate safeguarding
processes in the future, leading to increased risk to vulnerable
children. Under certain circumstances unlawful action might be taken
against those thought to be in some way culpable. Such action could
never be justified, nor would release of information leading to
identification or possibly to misidentification of individuals. The most
effective precaution which could be taken to prevent anticipated danger
to individuals lies in not disclosing information which could put them
at risk.

Having carried out the balancing test, the Department takes the view
that it is not in the public interest for the any of the further
information to be released.

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

Andrew Partridge

Information Rights Manager, DCSF

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Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for providing some limited information in response to my
FOI request.

Claimed exemptions aside (which I will challenge via an internal
review in the first instance), you have not answered my specific
request for statistical evidence in relation to school aged
electively home educated children on local authority "at risk"
registers. Instead, you responded with limited information about
children known to "social care" which was not what was asked.

The national media have reported a contention by Mr Badman that
electively home educated children are disproportionately "at risk",
a contention which may as well be a fabrication (by Mr Badman
and/or LAs) in the absence of observable hard evidence open to
public scrutiny.

I trust you will now be able to respond with the relevant
statistics about children "at risk" (those known to social care are
not defined as "at risk") as provided by LAs to Mr Badman. If
unable to do so, the statistics collected directly from LAs and
analysed by Action for Home Education must stand as definitive
evidence of the fact that home educated children are far less
likely to be "at risk" than those who are schooled. See
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=r...

I now look forward to your response to my actual questions.

Yours faithfully,

A White

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Department for
Children, Schools and Families's handling of my FOI request
'Comparative statistics requested: school pupils and home educated
children on "at risk" registers'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

Yours faithfully,

A White

Dear Mr White

I am sorry not to have replied before now. The issue which you raise
will be considered at the Internal Review of our response to your
earlier request. The Review is being arranged as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Partridge
Information Rights Manager, DCSF

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Dear Andrew Partridge,

Why is this internal review taking so long?

Yours faithfully,

A White

Dear A White,

Please find attached the response to your request for an internal review
into your correspondence, reference 2009/0052752.

Yours sincerely,

Josephine Bell
Independent Schools Partnerships and Strategy Team
[email address]
www.dcsf.gov.uk
<http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/system/style/new/...>

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number
2009/0062926.

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