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HOME EDUCATION STATS AGAIN

Tania Berlow made this Freedom of Information request to Bath and North East Somerset Council

The request was partially successful.

From: Tania Berlow

12 July 2009

Dear Sir or Madam
I have read the past FOI requests and I have more questions.

You say there are 16 children in 17 families where there are or
have been safeguarding concerns.

please could you elaborate on this to make it more meaningful?

IS this in the past year or a larger time frame?

I would like to know whether these cases were substantiated or
simply referred to you and subsequently unsubstantiated?

also your figures add up to 14 not 16 children please explain?

Lastly, of these 50 or so home educating families known to you how
many are known only because they have special educational needs?

Yours faithfully,

Tania Berlow

Link to this

From: Information Governance
Bath and North East Somerset Council

13 July 2009

Thank you for your information request, which is now being processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Â
You can expect to receive our full response in due course.

Dear Sir or Madam I have read the past FOI requests and I have more
questions.

You say there are 16 children in 17 families where there are or
have been safeguarding concerns.

please could you elaborate on this to make it more meaningful?

IS this in the past year or a larger time frame?

I would like to know whether these cases were substantiated or
simply referred to you and subsequently unsubstantiated?

also your figures add up to 14 not 16 children please explain?

Lastly, of these 50 or so home educating families known to you how
many are known only because they have special educational needs?

Yours faithfully,

Tania Berlow

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From: Information Governance
Bath and North East Somerset Council

30 July 2009

Dear Ms Berlow,

Thank you for your email of 12 July 2009. We can now respond as follows.

Q1. You say there are 16 children in 17 families where there are or have
been safeguarding concerns. please could you elaborate on this to make it
more meaningful?

We would firstly clarify that there were in fact there were 17 children
from 15 families. This reflects the fact that there were siblings involved
in two cases.

Concerns were broken down in to the following categories:

Physical - 3

Neglect - 5

Emotional - 5

Sexual - 4

Q2. Is this in the past year or a larger time frame?

Records are from July 2004 - March 2009.

Q3. I would like to know whether these cases were substantiated or simply
referred to you and subsequently unsubstantiated?

The level of involvement varies. There are initial contacts / observations
on Care First for all the children. We are not sure how you would
classify "genuinely substantiated" as some of the children made
disclosures of sexual abuse but we have no information as to whether any
further action was taken in relation to the abusers.

Q4. also your figures add up to 14 not 16 children please explain?

Please see response to Q1.

Q5. Lastly, of these 50 or so home educating families known to you how
many are known only because they have special educational needs?

Unfortunately we have no way of knowing how many are known only because
the children have special educational needs.

If you have any further queries please get in touch.

If you are unhappy with the response to your request, you may ask for an
internal review. Please contact the Council's Head of Audit, Risk and
Information, Mr Jeff Wring at the Guildhall, High St, Bath BA1 5AW
[1]mailto:[email address].

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to appeal directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
[2]www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

Amanda Osborne, Information Compliance Manager

Risk and Assurance Services

Bath & North East Somerset Council

Telephone: 01225 396872

Facsimile: 01225 477387

[3]www.bathnes.gov.uk

Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and
visit.

Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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From: Tania Berlow

30 July 2009

Dear Information Governance,

are you saying that within the Home Education Dept of Education
Welfare that of the 50 or so children you do not know if any had a
previous SEN or whether any are considered to have special
educational needs even if they do not have a statement?

also 'substantiated' means that concerns were raised by a neighbour
or teacher etc about neglect /physical /sexual or emotional abuse
and the social services team went out to investigate (as has
happened to myself twice in the last 6 years ) but after that first
contact there were no further concerns-i.e. nothing of note and
social services had no more involvement (malicious referral?). Any
substantiated concerns in a family who were also home educating
would have to be known by not only the EHE team but also by social
services surely?
Lastly in the case of a child stating they had been victim to
sexual abuse , there must have been further action taken because if
the perpetrator stayed in the family or that child stayed in the
family with the perpetrator that would make no sense.So either the
children were taken into care or the perpetrator left the family.
maybe this was an allegation and did not become proven and
therefore social services, whilst noting a possible issue in the
past would have to close the case? Would the EHE department not
know if they were visiting a family about whom there were concerns
in the past or present?

please clarify again.

Yours sincerely,

Tania Berlow

Link to this

From: Information Governance
Bath and North East Somerset Council

5 August 2009

Dear Ms Berlow,

In response to your most recent query:

Q1. Special Educational Needs

Action has been taken in respect of 6 of these children which indicates that they may have special educational needs.

Q2. 'Substantiated' concerns

It is not possible to state with certainty whether these concerns were 'substantiated' or 'unsubstantiated'. To explain, safeguarding covers a range of concerns re the care and welfare of children, and this will include issues regarding their neglect and emotional wellbeing. These particular safeguarding concerns are far less tangible than a physical or sexual assault and therefore harder to confirm responsibility for. Our involvement will include an assessment of the child's and family's needs and we will provide services to meet those needs to improve the outcomes for those children/young people.

Amanda Osborne, Information Compliance Manager
Risk and Assurance Services
Bath & North East Somerset Council
Telephone:Â 01225 396872
Facsimile:Â 01225 477387
www.bathnes.gov.uk
Â
Making Bath & North East Somerset an evenÂ better place to live, work and visit.
Â
Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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From: Tania Berlow

5 August 2009

Dear Information Governance,

thank you for telling me that currently of 50 children registered,
there are 6 who have SEN.

I still need to clarify the neglect /abuse statistic however.

You say in the last 5 years there have been 17 children. Maybe
'substantiated' is too legal a word and implies a court judegment
deciding parental guilt . This is not what I mean.
I want to differentiate and make sure that these cases were on
going concerns and not simply an initial assessment due to a
referral. A once off. No further action taken.

Every time someone raises a question about any child, social
services would have to at least visit once to acertain if there is
an issue. I myself have been maliciously referred to Social
services by an ex partner for both neglect and physical abuse.
Social services came round once in both instances.Listened to
myself and my daughter and that was all that happened- i.e. NO
further action.Hypothetically, could my daughter , appear in your
stats ?I hope not.
I hope you now understand exactly what I am trying to acertain in
my question- were all of these 17 cases on going concerns with full
social services involvment or were they merely an intitial
assessment that did not go any further than that?
I ask because Bath and NE Somerset's statistics are so out of line
with the rest of the figures that have been returned from other
Local Authorities- see here-
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=r...

Yours sincerely,

Tania Berlow

Link to this

From: Information Governance
Bath and North East Somerset Council

10 August 2009

Dear Ms Berlow,

Thank you for your email of 5 August 2009.

We can confirm that following on from an initial assessment which is completed in 7 days, only 2 had lengthier interventions.

Regards,

Amanda Osborne, Information Compliance Manager
Risk and Assurance Services
Bath & North East Somerset Council
Telephone:Â 01225 396872
Facsimile:Â 01225 477387
www.bathnes.gov.uk
Â
Making Bath & North East Somerset an evenÂ better place to live, work and visit.
Â
Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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