UASC reform and LAC (2003)13: Guidance on accommodating children in need and their families and Behre & Ors, R v Hillingdon London Borough Council [2003] EWHC 2075 (Admin)(HC)

Dear Sir or Madam,

Can you please email me an electronic copy of:

1) Any information you hold, including emails and attachments,
reports, briefings, memos, notes of meetings etc. With regards the
'Fir Court Project' as mentioned in the online letter:

"If you are in agreement with this proposal, we could also look at
the evaluation of the Fir Court Project which you agreed to fund
for a further six months."
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/95...

and

2) Any information you hold that discusses the UKAB UASC reform
proposal to disperse Children from English local authorities to
Glasgow, specific to whether the children, would remain entitled to
England and Wales Children Act(s) and subsequent Children (Leaving
Care) Act support? As no other such provision, to the best of my
knowledge appears to exist in Scottish child care law. These duties
apply to Children upon arrival in the UK (England and Wales
specifically) and therefore I am unaware of any reason why these
duties and post 18 year old duties would cease by mere dint of the
Children being dispersed to Scotland. LAC13 (2003) guidance on
these duties is set out in and are also mentioned in detail in the
so called Hillingdon Judgement, which concerns that authorities
unlawful practices.

One of the person's in your authority who may be able to support
responses to this request is the author off the above letter, a
John Donaldson, the of your Head of Immigration & Emergency
Services.

Notes:

LAC (2003)13: Guidance on accommodating children in need and
their families

“where a child has no parent or guardian in this country, perhaps
because he has arrived alone seeking asylum, the presumption should
be that he would fall within the scope of section 20 and become
looked after, unless the needs assessment reveals particular
factors which would suggest that an alternative response would be
more appropriate. While the needs assessment is being carried out,
he should be cared for under section 20.”
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsands...

Behre & Ors, R v Hillingdon London Borough Council [2003] EWHC 2075
(Admin)(HC) confirmed that UASC under 18 should be accommodated as
looked after children under s20 of the Children Act 1989."
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/localauthorities/...

: Your correspondence

Please ensure that any of your general correspondence,
acknowledgements or holding letters etc are included or
cut-and-pasted into the body of the email messages, using plain
text, rather than as attachments. As this will mean your
correspondence is much easier to access, read and respond to.

: Accessibility:

When providing any information disclosures please provide it in the
original unrestricted format such as:

a. MS Word .doc or Rich Text Text .rtf format or equivalent
(suitable for disclosure of email messages)

b.Spreadsheets in MS Excel .xls format or equivalent

c.Presentations in MS Powerpoint .ppt format or equivalent

or converted to Portable Document Format (PDF), ONLY if none of the
above formats are available

if you only have a paper version (hard copy) available, please
provide a Digital Photo Copier Scanned version in PDF format. If
you do provide disclosures in PDF from a Digital Photo Copier Scan,
please state that you have done so because no other format, such as
a, b or c above, are available.

If you need to redact text elements of any disclosure can you
please ensure that the rest of text based information remains
accessible to a Screen Reader.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>

Please ensure any electronic disclosures are absolutely free of any
Document limitations or controls, such as making them Read-only,
Encrypted or Password restricted, as this is likely to render them
less usable on a general basis and more specifically, inaccessible
to Assistive Technology.

Please do not send any information in compilation archive formats,
such as .zip.

Providing correspondence and disclosed information via these means
will help ensure that text based information is accessible for use
with a Screen Reader or a Magnifier for none text based information
and will prevent any further and separate representations under the
Disability Discrimination Act. If you are unable to meet these
reasonably practicable accessibility requests please state why and
provide a copy of any internal information, such as a policy relied
upon that would explain such a decision.

Yours faithfully,

Cassidy, J

Dear Sir or Madam,

Some background information to my request:

"Part of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 applies to Scotland
and stipulates that a
child who was previously looked after and accommodated is entitled
to financial support
from the local authority. Under the Children Leaving Care Act of
2000, social services
departments must provide support for those leaving care, ensuring
their continuing
welfare. The Hillingdon judgement extended this responsibility to
include unaccompanied
asylum-seeking children. Although the Hillingdon judgement was a
landmark case in
England, the great majority of the Children Act 1989, including the
provisions for looked
after and accommodated children, does not apply to Scotland."
http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/childre...

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

Dear Gibson, Robert (SW_HQ),

Thank you for your response.

With regards the information you provided about the “Fir Court
Project”, would it not be possible to just redact the information
you hold, as suggested in my original email?

If you consider that exemptions exist on the “Fir Court Project”
requests please advise what they are and whether any Public
Interest test applies.

If you are minded not to disclose any “Fir Court Project”
information can you please provide a summary of the information you
do hold.

"If you need to redact text elements of any disclosure can you
please ensure that the rest of text based information remains
accessible to a Screen Reader.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader>"
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ua...

Your reasons for non disclosure:

"The “Fir Court Project” referred to in the letter is a project run
by the Mungo Foundation, commissioned by Glasgow City Council. The
project provides supported accommodation for 16-18 year old UASC
males. It has been running for a number of years now. It is not
possible to release all the information held by the Council on the
project as a lot of it includes the personal details of the young
people themselves. In addition, if the project were to be extended,
it may have to be put out to tender and this would involve an
update of some of the information currently held. If you require
further information, then it would be helpful in assisting us to
supply the information you require if you could outline the
particular areas you would like more information on. "
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/12...

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

Dear Gibson, Robert (SW_HQ),

I am still awaiting your reply to the email shown here:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ua...

Yours sincerely,

Cassidy, J

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews. The basis of this review request can be seen
at:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ua...

I am writing to request an internal review of Glasgow Council's
handling of my FOI request 'UASC reform and LAC (2003)13: Guidance
on accommodating children in need and their families and Behre &
Ors, R v Hillingdon London Borough Council [2003] EWHC 2075
(Admin)(HC)'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ua...

Yours faithfully,

Cassidy, J