Thank you for your e-mail requesting information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 / Environmental Information Regulations 2004.

We will proceed with the request which we received today. It is our
intention to have the information delivered to you as soon as possible
otherwise within the statutory 20 working days.

In consideration of the request, which may be subject to any exemptions/
exceptions the Council may rely on to refuse the request, some of which
are absolute and some of which only apply where the public interest in
maintaining the exemption/exception outweighs that in disclosing the
information.

Please note that should you be requesting information under the
Environmental Information Regulations although we provide free access to a
wide range of information through our website, access to any public
registers which we hold and for inspecting information at our offices, we
are allowed to charge you a reasonable fee for providing certain
information.  If applicable, we will issue you with a fee notice.  This
will detail the tasks involved in responding to the request, and
associated costs.  Further information is available on the EIR page of
Bedford Borough Council’s website at the following link:

[1]http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...

Please note that once a response has been forwarded to you an anonymised
summary of all requests appear on the Bedford Borough website at the
following link:

[2]http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...
Our current practise is that the information will be available to view on
the web for 2 years.

Any future correspondence you may have with the Council in relation to
this matter should be emailed to [3][Bedford Borough Council request email] .

Any emails containing personal or sensitive data will be sent as ‘secure
e-mails’.  In order for you to access a secure email you will be asked to
create an account and log into the Council’s secure e-mail reply service. 
If you do receive a secure email there will be instructions explaining how
to do this.

“Confidentiality: The information contained in this e-mail and any
attachment may be confidential and may contain legally privileged
information. It is intended only for the use of the named recipient. If
you are not the named recipient, please notify us immediately and delete
it from your system. In such an event, you should not disclose the
contents of this e-mail to any other person, or print it.”

References

Visible links
1. http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...
2. http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...
3. mailto:[Bedford Borough Council request email]

Bedford BC - OFFICIAL-Unsecure

Dear J Carter

Request pursuant to Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request No 11881

I refer to your recent enquiry for information held by the Council. 

Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, the authority must
state whether or not the information exists and I confirm that we do hold
the information you requested.

Please find the information you requested enclosed. 

You requested:

A)   Can you please categorise how those known to the team dealing with
elective home education became known? E.g. School, Doctor, self-referral,
concerns about the educational provision reported etc.  

Answer:  We do not hold/record this information, but majority come from
school or parent.

i)             Does the local authority seek to satisfy itself that the
educational provision the parent(s) are providing is suitable to the
child's age, aptitude, ability and any SEN as soon as they become aware
that parents are electively home educating, regardless of how they become
known to the local authority? 

Answer: Contact and send voluntary questionnaire

ii)            How many instances have there been in the years (from
January 1st to December 31st) 2015, 2016, 2017 and to the date of this FOI
where the person dealing with elective home education has or has had
concerns that a 'suitable' education is not being provided?  

Answer: 12 since March 2017. Information prior to that not available as
was operated in a different way by a different team.

B) I would also appreciate it if this information could be broken down
into categories:

1)    whether they feel that no education is taking place?

Answer: All 12

2)    whether they feel that the philosophy of education is inadequate -
for example in the case of autonomous or child led learning, that the
particular child is not appearing to be learning 'enough'?

Answer: N/A

3)    whether there are concerns because the family have not implemented a
structured approach?

Answer: N/A

4)    or whether the fact that the national Curriculum is not being
followed is causing concern?

Answer: N/A

5)    a qualified third party is not involved in the child’s education?

Answer: N/A

6)    An educational report has not been provided by a third party such
as; a teacher etc.

Answer: N/A

B)   I would like to know of these children, how many of these concerns
were proven?

Answer: All 12

i)             Of the children in the above 4 categories, please indicate
if further steps have or are being taken - for example, referred to CME or
issued with a School Attendance Order. Please break it down into each year
asked for. 

Answer: 10 out of 12 returned to approved form of education

ii)            Please indicate how many of these went to court in 2015,
2016 and 2017.

Answer: None

iii)           Please also indicate if any Education Supervision Orders
are currently in court for this population? 

Answer: None

Finally, please provide all recorded documentation relating to elective
home education including policies, procedures (2013 - present) and
recorded communications relating to elective home education (2016 -
present), including any e-mail attachments. This does not include
communications between the Elective Home Education team and electively
home educating parents.  

Answer: Policy attached.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your
own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for
the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial
publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.  For
further information regarding Re-use of Public Sector information please
see link below.

If after viewing the information you are for whatever reason unhappy with
our response to your application you are entitled to pursue any
dissatisfaction through the Council's Internal Review Procedure.  Pursuant
to Section 17 (7) of the Act the procedure provided by the Council for
dealing with complaints about the determination of this request for
information is the Council’s FOI Complaints Procedure, a copy of which can
be obtained on request or is set out at: 
[1]http://www.bedford.gov.uk/council_and_de...

Yours sincerely
Daniela

Daniela Hanson
Freedom of Information Administrator (Children's Services)
Support Services
Children's Services
Bedford Borough Council, Borough Hall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP
Tel: 01234 276749 (Internal 44749)
[2]www.bedford.gov.uk 

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