Dear Ms R,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Although you have indicated that you wish to make a request for
information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), your email
contains an
enquiry rather than a request for recorded information held by the
Council.

The Freedom of Information Act gives people the right to access
information that is held on record by public authorities. If we have
records containing the information that you are seeking, we must provide a
copy of those records to you (unless one of the exemptions within the Act
applies).  The Act does not give people a right to be given answers to
questions that they would like to put to a local authority.

Where a 'request for information' contains an enquiry, rather than a
specific request for recorded information we deal with such requests as a
'normal course of business' enquiry rather than a formal request for
information under the FOIA.

This is in accordance with the guidance given in the Information
Commissioner's Office (ICO) publication 'Freedom of Information &
Environmental Information Regulations - Hints for Practitioners handling
FOI/EIR requests', which states on page 6 "Requests which are not for
recorded information, but instead ask
questions, are not requests for recorded information and therefore should
be treated as routine correspondence."

However, as you have not provided enough details for us to investigate
this matter, I will not be forwarding your e-mail to the Child Protection
Team. 

If you wish to report child abuse or neglect or if you are worried about a
child for any reason - please provide us more detail about the child/
children in question.

[1]www.haringey.gov.uk/index/children_and_families/childrensocialcare/protectingvulnerablechildren.htm

Report child abuse or neglect

If you are worried about a child for any reason, contact us and talk about
your concerns. Please do not keep your worries to yourself.

To report child abuse or neglect please call us on

020 8489 4592 / 4582 / 4470 during office hours (Monday to Thursday 8.45am
to 5pm ; Friday 8.45am to 4.45pm).

020 8348 3148 Out of Office hours (including weekends). Please only use
this number only if you are calling outside normal working hours

Regards,

 

Ms Sirkku Pietikäinen

Feedback and Information Officer

Feedback and Information Team

Haringey Council

River Park House

225 High Road

London N22 8HQ

Tel: 020 8489 2552

Fax: 020 8489 3992

 

 

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Dear Ms R,

We are not able to deal with your request under the Freedom of Information
Act because it is not clear what information you are seeking or which part
of Haringey Council might hold the information. You asked: How many
children attending your schools, are known to be living with satan/devil
worshipping families? You did so in the context of raising child
protection concerns. Our child protection service may be aware of children
living in such circumstances; however, I do not think that the mere fact
that the parents or carers had those views would be sufficient in itself
to give rise to child protection concerns. Do you mean how many of the
children known to our child protection services are living in those
circumstances?

Alternatively, you may think that the individual schools may be aware of
the beliefs of the families that attend their school. It is possible that
some parents/carers may provide this information when they are asked about
their religion by the school their child attends. I do not think that this
information would be held centrally by Haringey Council and therefore you
would need to approach the schools directly to ask for this information.
However, I do not think that this is something that would be known to the
school unless volunteered by the parents or unless it came to light in the
context of child protection concerns.

Perhaps you could provide a bit more detail about the information that you
are seeking and why. We can then consider if we should refer your request
for a response and who might hold the information.

If do have any concerns about a child in Haringey, please let us know the
details so that we can investigate.

To report child abuse or neglect please call us on

020 8489 4592 / 4582 / 4470 during office hours (Monday to Thursday 8.45am
to 5pm ; Friday 8.45am to 4.45pm).

020 8348 3148 Out of Office hours (including weekends). Please only use
this number only if you are calling outside normal working hours

Yours,

Anita Hunt | Feedback & Information | Haringey Council | 020 8489 2547

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Dear Ms R

I refer to your 2 emails sent this morning (Tue 26/01/2010 00:00 and Tue
26/01/2010 00:04).

I am afraid that your request is still not sufficiently clear for us to
deal with. You should be aware that the Freedom of Information Act allows
public authorities to reject FOI requests that are unreasonably burdensome
and have no serious purpose or value. We are also able to reject requests
that would take so long to comply with that the costs of complying with
the request would exceed £450. Both of these scenarios are likely to
apply to your request as it stands.

We have not yet recorded your request as a formal FOI request because we
needed clarification from you before we could proceed. If you would like
to proceed with you request as stated, please let us know and we will
issue a formal "refusal notice". At that point, you can ask for an
internal review.

Please see the following link to the child protection procedures that we
follow in this council: [1]http://www.londonscb.gov.uk/procedures/. You
will find information about child protection policy and procedure there;
this may include information about "Satanists/Devil Worshippers" and child
protection.

This section of our website will give more information about how Haringey
council comes into contact with children and their families:
[2]http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/childre....

If you would like to raise a more focussed question having reviewed this
information, please get back to us.

I must stress again, if you think that a child is in danger you must
report that to the proper authorities who can then investigate. You have
been given the contact details for our child protection team. You could
also contact the [3]NSPCC.

Regards,

Sirkku Pietikäinen

Feedback and Information Officer

Feedback and Information Team

Tel: 020 8489 2552

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential, may be
subject to legal privilege and are intended only for the person(s) or
organisation(s) to whom this email is addressed. Any unauthorised use,
retention, distribution, copying or disclosure is strictly prohibited. If
you have received this email in error, please notify the system
administrator at Haringey Council immediately and delete this e-mail from
your system. Although this e-mail and any attachments are believed to be
free of any virus or other defect which might affect any computer or
system into which they are received and opened, it is the responsibility
of the recipient to ensure they are virus free and no responsibility is
accepted for any loss or damage from receipt or use thereof. All
communications sent to or from external third party organisations may be
subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant
legislation.

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References

Visible links
1. http://www.londonscb.gov.uk/procedures/
2. http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/childre...
3. http://www.nspcc.org.uk/HelpAndAdvice/he...
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/HelpAndAdvice/he...