Staff professional affiliations

The request was successful.

Dear Steiner Academy Hereford,

Please treat this email as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I would be grateful if you could provide details of the professional membership of any Anthroposophical organisations and societies held by the school principal, the school governors, all teaching and support staff, including the school doctor. This need not identify individuals by name, their role or job title would be sufficient.

I am particularly interested in membership of the Anthroposophical Society of Great Britain, the Council for Anthroposophical Health and Social Care and the international General Anthroposophical Society headquartered in Dornach, Switzerland and 'first class' membership thereof.

Yours sincerely,
M. Hayes

Niki Nakamura, Steiner Academy Hereford

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Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms Hayes,

We received your email yesterday having returned to work after the Easter
holidays.  We are considering your request and will reply within the
statutory 20 days.

Yours sincerely,

 

Niki Nakamura

Administrator

 

[1]cid:0791796A-8D8A-4207-A25E-004331C089DB

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL

01981 540 221 

[2]www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

 

 

References

Visible links
2. http://www.steineracademyhereford.eu/

Info, Steiner Academy Hereford

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Hayes,
In response to your FOI request of 12th April 2012, please see our letter hereto attached.

Yours sincerely,

Niki Nakamura
Administrator

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL
01981 540 221 
www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

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Dear Niki Nakamura,

I am writing to request an internal review of Steiner Academy Hereford's handling of my FOI request 'Staff professional affiliations'. Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews. Normally this person would be unconnected with your initial response.

You claim that the school has no interest in staff membership of Anthroposophical organisations and that this is a private matter.

In conducting your review I would be grateful if you would consider the following points:

1. The Steiner Academy Hereford is a member of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship. The membership criteria for the SWSF [1] state that "An Anthroposophical impulse" should lie "at the heart of planning" for member schools. In addition, that member schools are required to have undergone "adequate preparation, including Anthroposophical study".

2. Your application form for staff vacancies [2] invites applicants to describe their awareness of Anthroposophy. Can you confirm that none of the application forms that you currently hold include reference to membership of Anthroposophical organisations? I would reiterate that I am not seeking personal information as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998. Summary or anonymised data would be sufficient.

3. The Council for Anthroposophical Health and Social Care is a professional organisation offering voluntary registration and regulation for practitioners of Anthroposophical medicine. Its members register is available to search online at http://www.cahsc.org/register/ Membership of the CAHSC is therefore de facto not a private matter.

Yours sincerely,

M. Hayes

[1] http://www.steinerwaldorf.org/downloads/...

[2] http://www.steineracademyhereford.eu/ind...

Info, Steiner Academy Hereford

I acknowledge receipt of your request for an internal review which we are now dealing with.
Yours sincerely,

Niki Nakamura
Administrator

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL
01981 540 221 
www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

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Dear Niki Nakamura,

Thank you for your acknowledgement of my request for an internal review of your handling of my FOI request regarding staff affiliations to Anthroposophical organisations.

May I remind you that the guidelines on internal reviews issued by the Information Commissioner's office[1] state that 20 working days would normally be a reasonable time in which to conduct a review and that in no case should this take longer than 40 working days.

As 20 working days have now elapsed, I would therefore be grateful for an update on progress and the arrangements you have made to consider my request.

Yours sincerely,

M. Hayes

[1} http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

Niki Nakamura, Steiner Academy Hereford

Dear Mr Hayes,
I received your request for an internal review on May 6th, and my understanding is that we are obliged to reply to you within 20 WORKING days. There was a bank holiday on May 7th, and we are about to enter our half term holiday. We will be back at school on June 12th, so my intention is to send our reply by June 13th. We have referred this to an outside legal team who have the expertise in this matter.
Kind regards,

Niki Nakamura
Administrator

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL
01981 540 221 
www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

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Dear Niki Nakamura,

Many thanks for your swift response. You are quite correct: I had disregarded the early May bank holiday. I look forward to hearing from you after the half term break.

Yours sincerely,

M. Hayes

Dear Niki Nakamura,

May I remind you that you undertook to reply to my request for an internal review of my Freedom of Information request on staff professional affiliations by June 13th?

The statutory limit of 40 working days will fall, I believe, on Tuesday July 10th.

Yours sincerely,

M. Hayes

Niki Nakamura, Steiner Academy Hereford

Dear Mr Hayes,
Thank you for your reminder. I am still awaiting a reply from the legal team we have referred this to, and I have been in contact with them to progress this matter. I will do everything to ensure you receive a reply by the statutory date.
Thanks for your patience

Niki Nakamura
Administrator

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL
01981 540 221 
www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

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Niki Nakamura, Steiner Academy Hereford

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Hayes,

 

Re: your FOI enquiry of April 12^th 2012, and your subsequent request for
an internal review of your FOI request 'Staff professional affiliations'
of May 6^th, I have received the following response from Mike Rowan,
Interim Legal Project Manager at Herefordshire Council:

 

I have reviewed your refusal letter and handling of this FOI request.

 

Thank you sending me your recruitment application forms to enable me to do
this.

 

I am satisfied the school does not hold the information requested and
therefore uphold your original decision.

 

If you are not content with this reply, you have the right to apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information
Commissioner can be contacted at:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

Niki Nakamura

Administrator

 

[1]cid:0791796A-8D8A-4207-A25E-004331C089DB

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL

01981 540 221 

[2]www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

 

 

References

Visible links
2. http://www.steineracademyhereford.eu/

Dear Steiner Academy Hereford,

Thank you for your email of 22nd June with the result of your internal review regarding my FOI request on staff membership of Anthroposophical organisations.

Since my original request I have discovered that the governors report for the school year ending August 2010 includes the information that one of the sponsor governors, John Syed, is a member of the Anthroposophical Society. This suggests this his membership is relevant to his role as a governor. Although it is not clear whether Mr Syed is still in post, this also indicates that examination of your staff recruitment forms during the internal review may not have been sufficient to establish whether or not you hold the information I requested.

I also note with interest that the Principal spoke at the Anthroposophical Society AGM on May 5th 2012 on the subject of state funded Steiner Academies.

I have written to the Information Commissioner's Office for advice. In the meantime I would be grateful for any further assistance or information you can offer.

Yours faithfully,

M. Hayes

Info, Steiner Academy Hereford

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Hayes,

We do not have "application forms" for governors as this is a completely voluntary role. I can categorically state that whether a person is a member of a particular organisation or not is of no import to any of the roles within the school including that of governor, and is not recorded within any personnel files held by the school. I am therefore at this point in time unable to help you further with this particular line of enquiry.

Please note that the school closed on July 13th and will not reopen until September 5th, so any FOI enquiries will be dealt with once we reopen. I will be out of the office from today until August 13th.

Thank you

Niki Nakamura
Administrator

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL
01981 540 221 
www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

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M. Hayes left an annotation ()

I note that Steiner Academy Hereford have modified the staff application form to remove mention of Anthroposophy. The previous version asked applicants about their "awareness of Anthroposophy". The new version, dated 12th June 2012, instead asks about "awareness of the pedagogy of the Steiner-Waldorf Curriculum".

Niki Nakamura, Steiner Academy Hereford

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Hayes,
In response to your FOI enquiry of April 12, and following your complaint made to the ICO, please find attached our reply.
Kind regards,

Niki Nakamura
Administrator

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL
01981 540 221 
www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

Dear Niki Nakamura,

Many thanks for your reply of October 31st confirming that 3 members of staff are recorded as having been members of the Anthroposophical Society.

I regard my original request as only partially successful in that you omitted to mention the role or job title of those concerned. Nevertheless, it seems appropriate to close my complaint with the ICO.

Thank you also for your invitation to visit the school. I shall let you know in due course whether I'm able to take you up on this offer.

Yours sincerely,

M. Hayes

Niki Nakamura, Steiner Academy Hereford

Dear Mark,
I can let you know that the three members of staff are teachers.
We look forward to meeting you at some point.
Best wishes,

Niki Nakamura
Administrator

Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire, HR2 8DL
01981 540 221 
www.SteinerAcademyHereford.eu

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