Data Sharing on Elective Home Education

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Dear West Sussex County Council,

Department for Education recently published guidelines for Local Authorities on Elective Home Education here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

Paragraph 4.4 states that "Some local authorities already actively encourage referrals from doctors and hospitals of children whom there is reason to think may be home educated.” DfE cannot tell me which Local Authorities have such agreements in place already.

Under FOIA, please could you state if you have any such data sharing agreements with medical bodies on home education or if you ”actively encourage referrals”? If so, please may I have a copy of the agreement or similar materials.

Also, please could you supply any correspondence you have had with Department for Education on the above guidelines? If this would exceed the cost limit, then please only answer the above part.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Andrew Brown

Freedom of Information Act,

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Dear Mr Brown,

 

Thank you for your enquiry, which has been forwarded to the appropriate
officers for a response. The usual timescale for a response is twenty
working days, that is by or on 25 June 2019.

 

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Yours sincerely,

 

Duncan Macdonald

Customer Relations Officer

 

 

Freedom Of Information |  [1]West Sussex County Council | Location:
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E-mail: [2][email address]

 

[3]Email Strapline

 

 

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Andrew Parker,

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  • Attachment

    East Surrey and Sussex Overarching Information Sharing Protocol v2.0 20180108.docx

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Dear Mr Brown,

 

I refer to your request of 25^th May 2019 submitted to our offices with
has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. 

 

You requested;

 

Under FOIA, please could you state if you have any such data sharing
agreements with medical bodies on home education or if you ”actively
encourage referrals”? If so, please may I have a copy of the agreement or
similar materials.

 

We have now completed a search of information you have requested and I can
confirm the Authority holds some information relevant to the request. 

 

We do not have data sharing agreements with medical bodies which describe
sharing data for the specific purpose of highlighting those in EHE.

 

We  promote cooperation within agencies and attached is an overarching
protocol with health organisations.

 

In addition, a document entitled  ‘West Sussex Information Sharing
Agreement for Safeguarding Partners and Agencies Children and Young
People’ which facilitates  data sharing between partner agencies, relevant
persons and bodies with responsibility for delivering services for
children and young people aged pre-birth to 18 and their families or
carers to provide and improve services,  is currently being updated but a
final draft is not yet available.

 

 

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Kind regards

 

 

 

[2]Andrew Parker | Manager : Pupil Entitlement Investigations

Pupil Entitlement: People Services.

[3]West Sussex County Council |

Location: 2rd Floor, Centenary House, Worthing, West Sussex, BN13 2QB

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