the 25 local authorities in the Badman Review

Dear Tania

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
2009/0067708.

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Dear Berlow,

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon as
possible (where a response is required). For information, the
departmental standard for correspondence received is that responses
should be sent within 15 working days or 20 working days if you are
requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0074742

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Dear Ms Berlow,
Thank you for your recent email, dated 27 August, requesting an internal
review of previous correspondence. Could you please advise the case
reference number that would have been assigned to the correspondence in
question, in order that we may consider an internal review of that case.

This current request has been allocated the reference number
2009/0074742.
Yours sincerely,

Josephine Bell
Independent Schools
[email address]
[1]www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/

Dear Ms Berlow,
Thank you for your requests for information, which were received on 28 July (2009/0067708) and 3 September
(2009/0075962).

Before replying I should like to apologise for the considerable delay you have experienced. I am also aware of
your request, forwarded 27 August, for an internal review of the above earlier case because of the delay
incurred. However, the Department normally considers requests for an internal review once the decision has been
received and if you remain unhappy with this reply you have the right to request an internal review, details are
at the end of this email.

I can assure you that the Department does take the matter of delays seriously. At an internal review panel held
in May on a home education case, the panel acknowledged that a breach of the Act had taken place in that a
response had not been made within 20 days. It considered what action had been taken at the time to deal with
the particular request within the deadline, namely that action had been considered by the Deputy Director
responsible for home education to designate resources from elsewhere in the Division. However, due to high
volumes of work and unexpected long term illness, additional staffing was unavailable at the time. It was
agreed that a weekly meeting, chaired by the Deputy Director would taken place to enable discussion of all
current cases in order that new cases are dealt with in a timely manner and the backlog of old cases was
addressed. This has improved the situation, though regrettably, even with additional staffing now being made
available, it is still extremely difficult to respond to all the requests within the legal timeframe. As I am
sure you will appreciate, the Department has a finite amount of resources, all of which is publicly funded, and
therefore we have to ensure resources are allocated in a way that is even-handed across all areas of business.

I will deal with both of your above requests for information jointly, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

It may help if I first clarify the questionnaires that were sent to local authorities as part of the review into
elective home education. All top tier local authorities (150) were sent the local authority questionnaire
(Annex D of Graham Badman's report). 90 responses were received. A second questionnaire was sent to the 90
local authorities who responded. 25 responses to this second questionniare were received.

Under section 21 of the Act, the Department is not required to provide information in response to a request if
it is already reasonably accessible to you. You may be aware that we have placed some information, previously
disclosed to correspondents about the home education review, on to the disclosure log on the Freedom of
Information link on the front page of the Department's internet site ([1]http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/ ).
The lists of 90 and 25 local authorities who responded to the respective questionnaires are available on the
disclosure log at

[2]http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage...

A list of the local authorities who agreed to a further in-depth interview is attached. Four local authorities
were visited and took part in an in-depth interview. They were North Yorkshire, Wandsworth, Birmingham and
Staffordshire.

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: [3][email address]

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,

Josephine Bell
Independent Schools Partnerships and Strategey Team
[email address]
[4]www.dcsf.gov.uk

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0067708.

show quoted sections

Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/
2. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage...
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage...
3. mailto:[email address]
mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/