After a 372% increase in 2 years how many foreign born children are now attending Oldham schools?

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council did not have the information requested.

Dear Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council,

Oldham Council produced a document titled "Link_Governor_Report_9_May_2017___PDF" in 2017 which was publicly accessible via the Oldham Council website. The main focus of this document was "An Overview of EAL Performance from Early Years to Key Stage 4" contained in this document was information that showed the number of foreign born children in Oldham schools had increased by 372% in just two financial years from 318 in 2013/14 to 1182 in 2015/16.
Oldham Council's local plan update document also from 2017 and also publicly available contained the statement that "Oldham's older population (65+) is higher than the Greater Manchester and England averages" parts of this statement are misleading and parts are wholly untrue. At the time the local plan update was produced 17.9% of the population of England fell into the 65 or older age bracket whereas 15.8% of the Oldham population fell into the 65 or older age group which made Oldham’s aged population 11.7% lower than England’s. As Oldham Council was aware the Greater Manchester average was and is greatly skewed by the inclusion of the university city of Manchester and to a lesser degree Salford. These cities have fewer OAP’s because of student numbers and unsuitable city centre housing and these are the only two of the ten Greater Manchester authority areas with less OAP’s than Oldham. Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan all have considerably more OAP’s than Oldham. DWP figures show that between August 2013 and August 2017 the number of state pension claimants in Oldham fell by 562.
Oldham Council's publicly available "Oldham in profile" document from February 2018 states "Oldham is predominantly white (77.5%) with Pakistani heritage (10.1%) and Bangladeshi heritage (7.3%) as the largest non-white minorities. Oldham has a higher proportion (22.5%) of non-white residents than Greater Manchester (16.3%) or England (14.3%). This value has increased significantly from 13.9% in 2001" This information is from the 2011 census and is seven years out of date a seven year period which has seen the highest rates of immigration in Oldham ever recorded.

Questions
(1) How many foreign born children attended Oldham schools in the financial years 2016/17 and 2017/18.
(2) Why is information relating to the huge increase in foreign born children in Oldham schools only available in obscure documents the Council never expect the public to see and is the Council deliberately withholding the information from the public?
(3) Why is the Council misleading the general public on the impact the aged population is currently having on Oldham services during a period when numbers have been in steady decline?
(4) Why is the Council misleading the general public on the ethnic makeup of Oldham's population in 2018 by using data they know to be outdated and subsequently inaccurate?

Yours faithfully,

Damon Ashworth

Information Manager, Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council

Dear Sir/Madam,

I acknowledge with thanks your request for information; this request has been considered as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

As such, your request may take up to 20 working days to be processed and has been passed on to an appropriate officer.

Please be advised that if an exemption applies to the information that you have requested, the statutory period may be exceeded in accordance with the provisions of that Act.

Should you have any queries, please contact: [Oldham Council request email]

Yours faithfully,

Information Manager

Information Management Team
Corporate & Commercial Services
Oldham Council
Level 11
Civic Centre
West Street
Oldham OL1 1UL

[email address]

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Paula Green (ECS), Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council

Dear Mr Ashworth

 

Please find below a response to your FOI request.

 

Questions;

(1) How many foreign born children attended Oldham schools in the
financial years 2016/17 and 2017/18.

 

The only information the Local authority collect is School Census data.
This can be found at the below link as it is sent to the Department for
Education annually;

[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

 

 

(2) Why is information relating to the huge increase in foreign born
children in Oldham schools only available in obscure documents the Council
never expect the public to see and is the Council deliberately withholding
the information from the public?

(3) Why is the Council misleading the general public on the impact the
aged population is currently having on Oldham services during a period
when numbers have been in steady decline?

(4) Why is the Council misleading the general public on the ethnic makeup
of Oldham's population in 2018 by using data they know to be outdated and
subsequently inaccurate?

 

The Local Authority does not record the information requested in questions
2-4, therefore this cannot be supplied.

 

 

Kind regards

 

 

Paula Green

Education Provision Manager

Education Support Services

Oldham Council

Civic Centre, West Street, Oldham

Tel – 0161 770 4213

E-mail – [2][email address]

 

 

[3][IMG]

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References

Visible links
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.oldham.gov.uk/e-mail_strap_line

Damon Ashworth left an annotation ()

Labour Oldham Council have no desire to be helpful because people will be shocked to learn that between spring 2013 and spring 2017 the number of foreign born children in Oldham schools increased by a staggering 777%. The sheer arrogance of Oldham Council to respond with a virtual shrug of the shoulders after being accused of presenting misleading information and untrue information on and to Oldham’s population really does speak volumes. Pupil nationality data for 2017 can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

Nazim mohammed (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Oldham Council is probably the most dishonest Council in the UK.

Many of the staff have criminal records such as benefits fraud, employing illegal migrants and covering up fraud.

Just Google "steven spy oldham council" and you will find out about the weekly negative news Oldham council provide.