EHE abuse stats

Dear Mr Blunt

I acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information requested dated 28th
March, 2009. Allowing for the 20 working day deadline (including the
Easter Break), a response will be sent to you on or before 29th April,
2009.

Yours sincerely
Sue Bryan

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| [1]Sue Bryan | Directorate and Member Support Officer, Adults and |
| Children, Resources and Performance, [2]West Sussex County Council | |
| Location: Room 216 County Hall |
| Internal: 56807 | External: 756807 | E-mail: |
| [3][email address] |
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Jax Blunt To FOI requests at West
<[FOI #9910 email]> Sussex County Council
<[West Sussex County Council request email]>
28/03/2009 21:44 cc
Subject Freedom of Information
request - EHE abuse
stats

Dear Sir or Madam,

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to know:

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory
school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and
who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child
abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic
servitude.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews
have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

Yours faithfully,

Jax Blunt

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Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for your email of 28th March '09 reqesting information under the
Freedom of Information Act which has been passed to me for a response.

With regard to your first query, I can confirm that the we do not hold
aggregated data falling within the description specified in your request.
On an individual basis the potential impact of EHE on child protection
issues is considered by the Child Protection Conference. Bearing in mind
there is no aggregated data here, and since we have a large number of EHE
children in West Sussex, we estimate the cost of complying fully with your
request would exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The appropriate limit
has been specified in Regulations and for local authorities it is set at
£450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2 1/2
working days in locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
Therefore, under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act we cannot
comply with your request. If however, you are able to breakdown your
appeal for information, we will try and assist you further within the
information sought.

Concerning your second query, there have been no Serious Case Reviews or
Joint Area Reviews with respect to home educated children in this Local
Authority.

If you are unhappy with the way your request has been handled, you may
wish to ask for a review of our decision under our complaints procedure.
Please contact Brian Relph, Principal Manager, Children's Safeguarding or
the complaints section via our website. If you are not content with the
outcome your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information
Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision
unless you have exhausted our complaints procedure. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at The Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9
5AF.
Yours faithfully,
Rosemary Terry

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| [1]Rosemary Terry | Children's Safeguarding Manager, Safeguarding in |
| Education and Allegations Management Team, [2]West Sussex County |
| Council | Location: Room 41, South Wing, Durban House, Durban Road, |
| Bognor Regis, PO22 9RE |
| Internal: 42315 | External: +44 (0)1243 642315 | E-mail: |
| [3][email address] |
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Dear Sir,

Further to your additional enquiry, we are not in a position to assist
you further in this matter. There are on average one or two cases of
children who are EHE and subject to child protection plans, but as we have
said we do not monitor this area specifically. As stated in our previous
response, we estimate the cost of complying fully with your request would
exceed the appropriate limit of £450. The appropriate limit has been
specified in Regulations and for local authorities it is set at £450. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2 1/2 working days in
locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Therefore, under
section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act we cannot comply with your
request.

Yours sincerely
Sue Bryan
Right of Appeal

West Sussex County Council provides you the right to request a review of
this response under its complaints procedure. If you decide to request a
review and are not satisfied with the outcome you then have the right to
direct your comments to the Information Commissioner who will give it
consideration.The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| [1]Sue Bryan | Directorate and Member Support Officer, Adults and |
| Children, Resources and Performance, [2]West Sussex County Council | |
| Location: Room 216 County Hall |
| Internal: 56807 | External: 756807 | E-mail: |
| [3][email address] |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

P Save the environment - think before you print.

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Dear Sir/Madam,

This request has been passed to me by the aforementioned people.
Unfortunately we are unable to access the requested information for a
number of reasons, but the number of hours which this would take is way
beyond an acceptable limit with regard to reasonableness. Also, it is
difficult to ascertain such information when our major databases are not
compatible with each other.

I apologise for not being able to assist further in this matter.

Regards
Stephen Mellor

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| [1]Stephen Mellor | Principal Adviser - Inclusion: Learning: Adults & |
| Children, [2]West Sussex County Council | Location: Child Care Office, |
| 1st Floor, Centenary House, Durrington, Worthing, BN13 2QB |
| Internal: 39788 | External: +44 (0)1903 839788 and 07515 500 667 | |
| E-mail: [3][email address] |
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P Save the environment - think before you print.

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