The number of Electively Home Educated children known to Social Services.

Dear Mr/Ms Bone,

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 2009/0058469

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

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Dear L Bone,
FOI request 2009/0058469

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 26 June
2009. I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (the Act).

Before answering your request I should like to apologise for the delay in
replying. The Department is aware that it has missed the statutory
deadline for reply and is in breach of its obligations under the Act. I
very much regret this - the Department should meet its obligations under
the Act. While I appreciate that it is in no way a justification I should
like to explain that the Department makes every effort to meet deadlines,
but the delay in responding in this case has been due to the unusual
volume of requests the Department has received in recent months.
The Information Commissioner has been informed of the situation.

You requested:

that you supply the evidence used to support this
statement in paragraph 8.12 of The Report To The Secretary of State
on The Review Of Elective Home Education in England, by Graham
Badman.

"the number of children known to children's social care in some
local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size
of their home educating population"

A copy of information that has already been released to other FOI
requesters is attached. Please note that this information includes open
and closed cases and has undergone limited quality assurance and does not
meet DCSF standards for publication of statistical data. There is a
calculation error in the fourth point of this release. This has however
been released because it is information which the Department holds within
scope of your request, and which does not engage exemptions under the Act.
I understand that the error does not affect the overall findings at
paragraph 8.12.

The Department holds other information within scope of your 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 individuals or families 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.

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: [1][email address]

Any information which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be
protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the
information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission
before reproducing such information.

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,

Sue Thomson
Independent Schools
[email address]
[2]www.dcsf.gov.uk

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2009/0058469.

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References

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