Casework Practice and Procedure
Narish Kalia made this Freedom of Information request to Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.
Dear Sandwell Borough Council,
Under the Freedom of Information Act
Please supply details of which Team Managers and which Operations Managers from Sandwell Children’s Social Services Referral and Assessment Team were on duty during the period 18th October 2011 to 5th November 2011.
Please confirm if Team Managers on Emergency Duty Service still have access to their emails and are able to continue working on their own caseloads.
Please supply details of what office policy or practice is in place for dealing with enquiries sent to Team Managers while they are on sick, annual leave, or on Emergency Duty Service.
Yours faithfully,
Narish Kalia
Thank you for contacting Sandwell Council.
Your request has been passed to the relevant service area, who will contact you shortly.
Please quote your reference number INT1-165305963 on all future correspondence.
Regards
Corporate Contact Centre
Customer Services
Transform Sandwell
Please find attached a letter from Sandwell Council in response to your recent contact.
This letter will advise you of the timescales for response and will provide our contact details should you need to get in touch.
If you cannot open the attachment please download the FREE adobe reader that can be found at www.adobe.com
Please do not reply to this e-mail but instead use the contact details found in the letter.
Dear Mr Kalia
I would like to apologise for the delay in responding to your Freedom of
Information requests, please find attached the response to each of the
five requests that you have made.
1. FOI - 25th November 2011
Your request was for Sandwell to supply you with performance targets
and/or number targets for Sandwell Children Social Services Referral &
Assessment Service and if these targets were achieved for the years 2007,
2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. In relation to these years you requested that
there be a breakdown by ethnicity and gender.
The Council is declining to respond to this request of cost grounds.
Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for
public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of
dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for local
government is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one
person spending 18 hours in determining whether the Council holds the
information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
We estimate that it will take us in excess of 18 hours to determine
appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract the information in
reference to your request. Therefore, your request will not be processed
further.
To provide this information, the Council would have to identify the
relevant performance targets for the financial years 2007/08, 2008/09,
2009/10 and 2010/11. The referral and assessment service does hold details
of Performance Indicators for these years, but the statistical information
is not broken down to provide information relating to ethnicity and
gender. To provide the information you have requested, it would be
necessary to identify the individual cases referred to within the
statistics and to extract the relevant information. This would involve the
interrogation of roughly (insert amount) case files and if we estimate
that it would take five minutes in each case, it would clearly exceed the
cost threshold to provide the information you have requested.
If you are able to reduce the scope of your request, such as requesting
details of targets and performance without requesting that they are broken
down by gender and race, the Council would be willing to accept any such
enquiry as a new request.
2. FOI - 4th November 2011
Your request is for Sandwell to confirm if any Equality Impact Assessments
have been carried out in relation to the Referral & Assessment Service. I
would like to confirm that there has been no such assessment undertaken in
respect of the Referral and Assessment Service as there has not been a
restructuring of the service provision that would require an Equality
Impact Assessment to be undertaken.
3. FOI - 10th November 2011
Your request is for Sandwell to provide you with the policies, procedures
and guidelines issued to Social Services Child Protection Team and any
policies, procedures and guidance issues under the Gender Equality Duty,
The Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998. I have attached the
Sandwell Safeguarding Children's Board procedures in respect of Child
Protection enquiries which take into account the Acts that you have
outlined and also the overarching national guidelines which also
incorporate the Acts as you have requested.
4. FOI - 10th November 2011
Your request is for Sandwell to supply policies, procedures and guidelines
issued to Sandwell Children's Services Referral and Assessment Service in
respect of cases that were initially progressed as S47 and then
de-escalated to progress as S17. I have attached the Sandwell Safeguarding
Children's Board procedures in respect of Child Protection enquiries, the
overarching national guidelines and the also the Child in Need S17 policy.
5. FOI - 11th November 2011
Your request is for Sandwell to provide you with the details of the Team
Managers and Operations Managers from the Referral and Assessment Service
who were on duty during 18.10.11 - 05.11.11 and also to confirm if Team
Managers in the Emergency Duty Service are able to access emails and
continue working on their caseloads. You have also requested the policy or
practice that is in place for dealing with enquiries sent to team manager
who are on annual leave, sick etc.
The managers in Referral and Assessment Service during the period 18.10.11
- 05.11.11 were:
Diane McKinley - Operations Manager
Donessa Gray - Operations Manager
Lisa Hampton - Team Manager
Julie Poole - Team Manager
Emma Blakemore - Team Manager
Sylvia Gordon - Team Manager
Lynne Brannigan - Team Manager
Manjit Dutt - Team Manager
Becky Norris - Team Manager
Julie Richards - Team Manager
Some of the above managers were in the service for the entire period of
request and others were in for certain periods.
I can confirm that the managers at the Emergency Duty Service can access
the email system, the nature of this role is that they do not have a
caseload but respond to the emergencies that are referred into the service
on the night that they are on Duty.
The practice in place in the Referral and Assessment Service for a manager
who is on annual leave, course etc is that they have cover arrangements
from another manager for their team, this manager will cover day to day
queries/ issues that arise in the team they are covering. If a manager is
off on sick leave the Operations Manager will ensure that appropriate
cover arrangements are in place for that team.
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
request, and should be addressed to:
Freedom of Information Unit
Sandwell Council House
Freeth Street
Oldbury
West Midlands
B69 3DE
Email – [1][Sandwell Council request email]
If you are not content with the outcome of an internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
Regards
Diane McKinley
Operations Manager - Referral and Assessment
[2]sandwell_mbc
Sandwell Council...working for you
T: 0845 3528561
F: 0845 3528646
E: [3][email address]
Sandwell Council
Oldbury
West Midlands
B69 3DE
W: [4]www.sandwell.gov.uk
Dear Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Casework Practice and Procedure'.
The answer implies that all staff members were working 24 hours 7 days a week during the entire time period and does not take into account days not worked (ie weekends, sick etc.)
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ca...
Yours faithfully,
Narish Kalia
Thank you for contacting Sandwell Council.
Your request has been passed to the relevant service area, who will contact you shortly.
Please quote your reference number INT1-197204316 on all future correspondence.
Regards
Corporate Contact Centre
Customer Services
Transform Sandwell
Dear Mr Kalia,
I refer to your request for a review of the Council's response to your
Freedom of Information enquiry entitled:
"Casework Practice and Procedure".
The Council has provided a full response to this particular request within
the review undertaken by Stuart Taylor in response to your email to me
dated 18th February 2012.
If you would like me to attach this review to this request (I will remove
your email address) then please let me know.
If you have any outstanding concerns regarding the handling of your
Freedom of Information enquiry, you are entitled to approach the
Information Commissioner's Office. The Commissioner's contact details can
be obtained from the following link:
[1]https://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/contact_us...
Yours sincerely,
Nigel Parr
Nigel Parr
Data Protection/Freedom of Information Officer
[2]sandwell_mbc
Sandwell Council...working for you
Sandwell Council
Oldbury
West Midlands
B69 3DE
W: [3]www.sandwell.gov.uk
T: 0121 569 3248
F: 0121 569 3182
E: [4][email address]
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