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Dear LS Palmer

Thank you for your e-mail received 18 January 2011 requesting information regarding Child Protection or Child Trafficking for Anthony Douglas .

Michael Fenn in Children Services will arrange for the information to be provided to you no later than 15/02/2011.

Whilst it is the Council's policy to provide information wherever possible, I need to advise you that there are a number of exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. These may prevent me from releasing all or some of the information you have asked for. You will, however be informed if this is the case and why.

Yours sincerely

Remi Ahmed
Corporate Complaints & FOI Team
Barking and Dagenham Direct
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
2nd Floor Roycraft House
Linton Road Barking
IG11 8HE
Phone: 020 8227 5788
Fax: 020 8227 5184

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Dear LS Palmer

Request for information LBBD:51581

Your request for information has now been considered and the information
is below;

The standard letter from the Department of Education states:

"The law is clear: children should live with their parents wherever
possible and, when necessary, families should be given extra support to
help keep them together. In most cases, support from the local authority
enables any concerns to be addressed and children remain with their
families."

S17 of the Children Act places a duty on Children's Services to
assist families in need.

Please could you provide a year by year breakdown since 2003 of how much
of your budget has been allocated for assisting families in need and give
general information as to what that budget is spent on.

Please see attached a breakdown of the Section 17 spend from
2003 till current

Please could you further provide a year by year breakdown of how much
of your budget is allocated to families subject to 'care proceedings'.

We do not assign our budgets in such category even though this will
be inclusive in our total Safeguarding and Rights total budget.

1. All families subject to care proceedings have had the benefit of a
Residential Family Assessment before the child's permanent removal in
accordance with L (A Child) and H (A Child) [2007] EWCA Civ 213 which
held:

"before removing children from their natural families and placing them
for adoption with strangers the court should be astute to ensure that the
case had been fully investigated and that all the relevant evidence
necessary for the decision was in Place, Art 6 of the ECHR required
it.....There would of course be cases in which a s38(6) assessment would
be a waste of public funds: parents who had inflicted injuries on their
child but had failed to acknowledge their responsibility or a woman who
did not accept that a paedophile partner was a risk to the child"

2. All parents who are guilty of abusing/neglecting their children to
the extent that nothing short of removal from the parents will protect
the children from SIGNIFICANT HARM have been convicted of a criminal
offence for abuse/neglect and have been referred to the Independent
Safeguarding Authority.

Please provide a positive or negative affirmation in relation to the
following statements:

3. That since removal of children from the parents no child in the
care of the Local Authority has:
a. Suffered sexual abuse
b. Suffered physical abuse.
c. Suffered emotional abuse.
(In this respect data referring to convictions/complaints of misconduct
of social workers/foster carers/care workers and statistics relating to
child suicides/children running away would provide the relevant
assertion as to whether or not children were suffering 'in care')

4. That since removal of the children from the parents no child in
the care of the Local Authority has been used for medical testing or
registered on any program by the NIHR, MRCN or any other medical research
program without the explicit consent from the biological parent.

5. That since removal of the children from the parents the children
have been raised in the same faith they would have been raised in if they
had not been removed from their parents.

6. That no child has been returned to the care of the local
authority post adoption.

7. That no child in the care of the Local Authority has been
criminalised, ie gained a criminal record having not previously had a
criminal record while in the care of their biological parents.

Unfortunately we are unable to provide answers for Questions 1 -
7. This is because in order for us to answer these questions we would have
to go though each file individually which would exceed the maximum charge
for dealing with FOI requests which is £450 per request. The limit of
£450 equates to 18 hours work @ £25/hr.

If you need any more information, or if I can be of any further help,
please contact me.

If you are not satisfied with the way that I have dealt with your request
you can make a complaint by writing to the Corporate Complaints & FOI
Team, Room 104, Town Hall, 1 Town Square, Barking IG11 7LU. Alternatively
you can make your complaint on-line at [1]www.barking-dagenham.gov.uk or
you can e-mail your complaint to [2][Barking & Dagenham Borough Council request email].

If you are still not satisfied, after following our Corporate Complaints
procedure, you can take your complaint to the Information Commissioner.
Full details of how to do this will be made available on request.

Yours sincerely

Michael Fenn | Senior Information Officer

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham | Room 218 Barking Town
Hall | Barking, Essex | IG11 7LU

Phone: 020 8227 2619 | Fax: 020 8227 2324

Email: Michael.Fenn[3]@lbbd.gov.uk | [4]www.barking-dagenham.gov.uk

Working together for a better borough that is safe, clean, fair and
respectful,

prosperous and healthy, and where our young people are inspired and
successful.

P Protect the environment and save trees; please only print if essential

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References

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