Return Home Interviews (RHIs)

The request was partially successful.

Dear Hull City Council,

I am writing with a freedom of information request for data relating to the content and outcome of Return Home Interviews (RHIs) provided for runaway or missing children by your authority.

When you respond with confirmation that you have received my request, could you please advise whether any clarification is needed in order to complete my request? Please ensure any questions arrive to me prior to the 20 day deadline.

Yours faithfully,

Poppy Damon

Please can you send over answers to the following:
+ How many recorded instances of missing then returned children did you have in your authority per year between Jan 1st 2014-Jan 1st 2019? If you can provide a per month break down please do.
+How many of these instances were children who had runaway more than once? If possible can you send a break down which shows a numbered list to indicate individual children and a second column with how many times they ran away? This would of course not include their name or any details.
+ A summary of the recorded outcomes or actions taken for all completed Return Home Interviews (for example a safeguarding referral, report to the police or to another service). I would like a breakdown of these for Jan 2014-Jan 2019. Ideally this would be laid out by outcome, beside a number of times this was taken. This would sit along side a number of how many RHIs were carried out in total per year. Excel or PDF formats are fine.
+ How many of these return interviews contained content about child exploitation?
+How many times were the police notified of potential child exploitation, following a RHI?
+ Can you send me the hiring requirements for staff employed in-house to carry out RHIs? If you outsource this service please respond with who does this for you.
+If you do not outsource and complete RHIs yourself - could you please provide the aide memoire/guidelines/checklist that you use when completing Return Home Interviews?

Information Governance, Hull City Council

We acknowledge receipt of your request for information which we will
process in accordance with the appropriate legislation below:

Freedom of Information Act
This covers general recorded information that is held by the Council.
Examples: budget information, staff structures, details of contracts etc

From the next working day that the request is received we have 20 working
days to respond. This does not take in to account any clarification we may
require or if we need to consider the Public Interest Test which allows us
up to a maximum of 20 additional working days.

Environmental Information Regulation
This covers all environmental information held by the Council.
Examples: Planning Applications, details of proposed road works, flood
information, pollution information etc.

From the next working day that the request is received we have 20 working
days to respond.

Section 7 of the Data Protection Act (Subject Access Request)
This section of the Data Protection legislation only relates to requests
for information about the requester or a client if you are acting on their
behalf.
Examples: Personnel file, Housing file, Council Tax/Housing Benefit
information etc.

We have 40 days from the date of receipt to respond.

Information Governance Team
Town Clerk's Service
Hull City Council
The Guildhall

 

Information Governance, Hull City Council

2 Attachments

Dear Ms Damon

 

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Information Request - 000508/19

 

With regard to your Freedom of Information request received on 4 March
2019, please find our response attached and below.

 

We must inform you that, in accordance with Section 12 of the Freedom of
Information Act, we are unable to fully answer your enquiry without
exceeding the time/costs limits under the Act.  Where a local authority
reasonably estimates that it would cost more than £450 (or 18 hours of
staff time) to fulfil a request it is not required to do so.

 

Whilst this is a strict interpretation of the Act, the Council policy is
to provide a balance between the needs of the requester and the use of
resources to ensure effective service provision is maintained.  We
therefore provide the following responses to your questions.

 

 

+ How many recorded instances of missing then returned children did you
have in your authority per year between Jan 1st 2014-Jan 1st 2019? If you
can provide a per month break down please do.

 

+ How many of these instances were children who had runaway more than
once? If possible can you send a break down which shows a numbered list to
indicate individual children and a second column with how many times they
ran away? This would of course not include their name or any details.

 

For the first two questions, please refer to the attached spreadsheet (the
answers are separated on 2 different tabs).

 

+ A summary of the recorded outcomes or actions taken for all completed
Return Home Interviews (for example a safeguarding referral, report to the
police or to another service). I would like a breakdown of these for Jan
2014-Jan 2019.  Ideally this would be laid out by outcome, beside a number
of times this was taken. This would sit along side a number of how many
RHIs were carried out in total per year. Excel or PDF formats are fine.

 

+ How many of these return interviews contained content about child
exploitation?

 

+ How many times were the police notified of potential child exploitation,
following a RHI? 

 

In response to questions 3, 4 and 5, it is estimated that your request
will be above the £450 time/cost limit because of the amount of time
needed to provide the level of detail you have requested.  There are 1,028
return home interviews to read at approximately 6 minutes each which
equates to 102.8 hours plus a Word document 97 pages in length.

 

+ Can you send me the hiring requirements for staff employed in-house to
carry out RHIs? If you outsource this service please respond with who does
this for you.

 

Staff who undertake the Return Interviews in Hull are professionals from a
range of services already working with vulnerable young people.  Teams
include VEMT team, REFRESH, HYJS, TYS/YDS and Early Help.  External
support with RI process is offered by Cornerhouse and some education
establishments where staff have undertaken the training.

 

The requirements include experience working with vulnerable young people
and in dealing with a range of risks and concerns.  All professionals are
expected to be able to identify cause for concern and are experienced in
offering advice and support, including follow up work if required.

 

The department provides a full days training around missing and return
interviews.  A process for providing updates is being developed to be
offered to workers who have completed the main training with a view to
keeping knowledge current.  Staff from other agencies involved will be
invited to attend such updates.

 

There are two professionals based within the VYP approach who are employed
specifically to work with children who go missing.  One is provided
through Children’s Social Care and is attached to the VEMT team, this was
created as an internal post and the post holder was selected from a range
of experienced family practitioners who expressed an interest.  The second
is employed directly by Youth Services, this person will have gone through
the departments recruiting process following advertisement of the post. 
Both were recruited based on their previous experience working with
children/YP and their families.

 

The process for return discussions is very much considered part of the
daily work that these professionals/teams undertake with vulnerable young
people and we endeavour to find the best placed person to complete the RI
from the range of services available.

 

For regular missing YP we endeavour to identify a consistent person to
complete each discussion.

 

+ If you do not outsource and complete RHIs yourself - could you please
provide the aide memoire/guidelines/checklist that you use when completing
Return Home Interviews?

 

Please find attached the return interview template, although this looks
slightly different when completed within our Liquid Logic system.

 

A new template is being developed based on our learning so far.  The new
template will include risk indicators and a section to record follow up
work/referral recommendations based on the discussion and information
gathered.

 

 

We hope that you will be satisfied with our response and should you
require any further information then please do not hesitate to contact
us. 

 

 

Although information supplied in response to your request may be in a
Microsoft Excel and Word format please feel free to contact us should you
wish the information to be supplied in an alternative more
readable/reusable format.

 

 

Should you wish to complain about our response in any way this must
initially be done by e-mailing [1][Hull City Council request email] or by
contacting us at The Information Governance Team, The Guildhall, Alfred
Gelder Street, Hull, HU1 2AA.

 

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal review then you
may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the
government body established to enforce the legislation.

 

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Web site: [2]https://ico.org.uk

Report a concern: [3]https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Email: [4][email address]

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate)

 

ICO states that any emails you choose to send to them, or that they send
to you, are not secure as email messages can be intercepted.  ICO asks
that you include a contact telephone number on any emails you send to
them. 

 

This information may be subject to copyright. The Freedom of Information
Act does not give you an automatic right to re-use this information in a
way that would infringe copyright, for example, by publishing it or
distributing copies.  You are free to use it for your own purposes
including any non-commercial research or private study or for the purposes
of news reporting.

If you wish to re-use this information and this was not specified in your
initial application please contact us to discuss conditions for re-use. In
most cases we will permit use and re-use in accordance with The Open
Government Licence which can be found at
[5]www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

 

Information Governance

Town Clerk's Service

Hull City Council

Tel: 01482 300300

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