Dear Ms McAuley, 

Request for Information RFI-9931-24 Re: Children Not In School

Thank you for your request for information relating to Children Not In
School which was received on 07 September 2024.

In accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
the council will respond to your request within 20 working days, saying
whether we have the information that you want, and if there will be any
charges. 

If, for any reason, we cannot provide you with the information, we will
tell you why.

If we need to clarify your request, we will contact you again.

In the meantime, if you need to contact me about your request, please do
so quoting the above reference number.

Yours sincerely,

Fakhara Qanwal

Assistant Assurance Officer

Walsall Council 

0800 0856018

[1]www.walsall.gov.uk 

[2]Walsall Council, Proud of our past, our present and for our future 

Disclaimer: The information in this message should be regarded as
confidential and is intended for the addressee only unless explicitly
stated. If you have received this message in error it must be deleted and
the sender notified. The views expressed in this message are personal and
not necessarily those of Walsall Council unless explicitly stated. Emails
sent or received from Walsall Council may the subject of a request under
data protection, freedom of information or environmental information
legislation and therefore could be disclosed to third parties. We strongly
advise you not to email any information, which if disclosed to unrelated
third parties would be likely to cause harm or distress. If you have an
enquiry related to your confidentiality or data protection, please visit
the council data protection pages on our website

References

Visible links
1. http://www.walsall.gov.uk/

Dear Ms Mcauley,

Freedom of Information Request RFI-9931-24 Re: Children Not In School

Further to your request for information about Children Not In School, I
can tell you the following:

1  How many children of compulsory school age are known to live in your LA
as of 1st September 2024?

This information is already available in the public domain and as such is
exempt from disclosure under FOI Act s21 accessible elsewhere. The ONS
2023 mid year population estimate is publicly available here:
[1]Population estimates for England and Wales - Office for National
Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

2  How many state school places for children of compulsory school age are
there in your LA boundaries?

Primary school places 28,738
Secondary school places 19,074
SEND places 1,007
Total Places 48,819

3  How many independent school places for children of compulsory school
age are their in your LA Boundaries?

This information is not held by the local authority and as such is exempt
from disclosure under FOI Act s1 information not held

4 How many compulsory school age children residing in your LA are
categorised as being children missing education as of 1st September 2024?

398

5 How many compulsory school age children are electively home educated as
of 1st September 2024?

615

6  How many compulsory school age children residing in your LA are
receiving their education outside of a school setting funded by the LA as
of 1st September 2024

Not available in a reportable format.  

7  If a parent moves into your LA and requests a school place using
figures from last 3 years what is the average amount of days it takes from
the parental request until the child is enrolled in a school?

Not available in a reportable format.

8  If a parent was Electively home educating and stops EHE and requests a
school place using figures from last 3 years what is the average amount of
days it takes from the parental request  until the child is enrolled in a
school?

Not available in a reportable format.

9 If a parent withdraws there child from an independent school and
requests a school place using figures from the last 3 years what is the
average amount of days it takes from the parental request until the child
is enrolled in a local school?

Not available in a reportable format.

10  Does the LA facilitate any education for the child between the
parental request and school enrolment?

If no why not?

If a child is still on roll at their previous school the parent should
liaise with the school and they would be able to provide education
resources. All midyear applications are required to be processed within a
maximum of 15 school days as per the School Admissions Code 2021, and in
most cases are completed by the LA within 5-10 school days. The LA does
encourages parents to access online learning resources such as the Oak
Academy during the mid year application process.

 Please note, where the response given is “not available in a reportable
format”, we can confirm that the Council holds some or all of the
information falling within the description specified in your request.
 However, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”)
exempts a public authority from providing the information where the
estimated cost of compliance with the request exceeds the appropriate
limit.  Any estimate must be made in accordance with the limits set in the
Fees Regulations made under Section 12 (5) of the Act.  These Fees
Regulations (SI2004/3244 Freedom of Information and Data Protection
[Appropriate Limit and Fees] Regulation) allow for a refusal where the
cost of compliance, for local authorities such as the Council would exceed
£450 (equivalent to 18 hours of work).  In estimating the cost of
complying with a request for information, an authority can only take into
account any reasonable costs incurred in:

(a) Determining whether it holds the information,

(b) Locating the information, or a document which may contain the
information,

(c) Retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the
information, and

(d) Extracting the information from a document containing it.

For the purposes of the estimate the costs of performing these activities
should be estimated at a rate of £25 per hour.

 The council does not hold this information in a reportable format and
therefore the request is too large since in order to provide the
information that you have requested it would  take more than 18 hours to
locate, retrieve/extract and collate the information, as relevant scripts
would have to be written from the system to extract and calculate the
necessary measures, which would be in excess of 18 hours (equivalent to a
notional cost of £450) of officer time to do so to provide the requested
information.   Disclosure of the information requested in Q 6-9  is
therefore exempt under the provisions of FOIA s12, cost exceeds.

Most of the information that we provide in response to Freedom of
Information Act 2000 requests will be subject to copyright protection.  In
most cases the copyright will be owned by Walsall Council. The copyright
in respect of other information may be owned by another person or
organisation, as indicated.

You are free to use any information supplied to you in response to this
request for your own non-commercial research or private study purposes.
The information may also be used for any other purpose allowed by a
limitation or exception in copyright law, such as news reporting.
 However, any other type of re-use, for example by publishing the
information in analogue or digital form, including on the internet, will
require the permission of the copyright owner.

I hope that the information provided is useful to you. However, if you are
dissatisfied, you should set out in writing your grounds for complaint and
send to: Corporate Assurance Manager, Resources & Transformation, Civic
Centre, Darwall Street, Walsall, WS1 1TP.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a decision.
Please remember that, generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you
have first exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the council. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9
5AF. [2]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

Yours sincerely,

Denise Gold

Assurance Officer

Walsall Council 

0800 0856018

[3]www.walsall.gov.uk 

[4]Walsall Council, Proud of our past, our present and for our future 

Disclaimer: The information in this message should be regarded as
confidential and is intended for the addressee only unless explicitly
stated. If you have received this message in error it must be deleted and
the sender notified. The views expressed in this message are personal and
not necessarily those of Walsall Council unless explicitly stated. Emails
sent or received from Walsall Council may the subject of a request under
data protection, freedom of information or environmental information
legislation and therefore could be disclosed to third parties. We strongly
advise you not to email any information, which if disclosed to unrelated
third parties would be likely to cause harm or distress. If you have an
enquiry related to your confidentiality or data protection, please visit
the council data protection pages on our website

References

Visible links
1. https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
2. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
3. http://www.walsall.gov.uk/