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 Ms Norman

Request pursuant to Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Request No 11792

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)   I would like to know which department within Bedford Borough Council
local authority deals with elective home education?   

Answer: Early Help and Intervention Service

1)    I would like to know who is currently employed in this team, and who
the team leader is.  

Answer: One Officer has responsibility for EHE (along with other
responsibilities). This Person reports to a team manager who reports to
the Head of Service.

2)    I would like to know who they report to.

Answer: See answer 1.

3)    What form of contact they use with families the first time they
contact them.

Answer: Letter/email/phone call  depending on request.

i)             Please supply copies of policies and procedures used for
elective home education, for staff use or supplied to Home educators. 

Answer: See PDF document attached.

B)   Has the LA made the team dealing with elective home education aware
that there is no requirement to investigate a case or for the LA to seek
to satisfy itself that a suitable education is being provided when they
know the reason why a child has ceased to attend school? The specified
reason being, parents have given legal notification to a school that they
are educating otherwise than at school. 

Answer: Yes

C)   I would like to know how many children are currently known as being
electively home educated in ‘’ local authority. 

Answer: 240

D) How many pupils have been de-registered from school to be electively
home educated?

Please provide numbers for: July 2015, July 2016 and July 2017. Please
categorise these into:

- Children with no known SEN

- Children with SEN

- Children de-registered from special schools

- Children with care plans

Answer:

Numbers of children starting a period of elective home education within
the academic years 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17

  2014/15 2015/16 2016/17
Children with no known SEN 45 17 66
Children with SEN 18 4 22
Total 63 21 88
Children de-registered from special schools 0 0 x
Children with care plans x x x

*Where a child has started multiple periods of EHE within the academic
year they have only been counted once.

* Current SEN and CP status has been used, Not the status as at the start
of the EHE period.

x – Information exempt due to low numbers.

Pursuant to Section 17 (1) of the Act the Council

1.              States that this is exempt information.

2.              Specifies, that the exemption in question is the subject
of an absolute exemption contained within Section 40 (Personal
Information) of the FOI Act (FOIA).

An explanation follows below.

We are unable to provide the exact figure (5 or fewer) or any further
information due to low numbers in the cohort and the possibility of a
child/young person being identifiable.

- Children under services such as; CAHMS

Answer: We do not hold this information. 

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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