Home education and abuse - statistics

The request was partially successful.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to know:

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory
school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and
who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child
abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic
servitude.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews
have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

C Murton

FOIRequests, Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council

Dear Sir or Madam

REF: 2009/COR0205 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION - INFORMATION REQUEST

I acknowledge your request received on 30 March 2009.

Your request is being considered and you will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, subject to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third party.

If appropriate, the information may be provided in paper copy, normal font size, or electronically. If you require alternative formats, e.g. language, audio, large print, etc. then please let me know.

For your information, the Act defines a number of exemptions which may prevent release of the information you have requested. There will be an assessment and if any of the exemption categories apply then the information will not be released. You will be informed if this is the case, including your rights of appeal.

If the information you request contains reference to a third party then they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken on whether or not to release the information to you. You will be informed if this is the case.

There may a fee payable for this information. This will be considered and you will be informed if a fee is payable. In this event the fee must be paid before the information is processed and released. The 20 working day time limit for responses is suspended until receipt of the payment.

If you have any queries do not hesitate to contact me.

Further information is available from the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, Telephone: 01625 545 700, http://www.ico.gov.uk

Yours faithfully

Alison Ross-Dow
Senior Information Management Officer
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham
Information Management Team/Finance & Corporate Services
2nd Floor, Hammersmith Town Hall Extension
King Street
London W6 9JU
DL: 020 8753 2455

www.lbhf.gov.uk

Director of Finance & Corporate Services: Jane West

Broady Terry, Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council

24 April 2009
Dear C Murton,
REF: 2009/COR0205 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST
Your request for information has now been considered and our response is as follows.

No persons in the local authority of compulsory school age and currently home educated, or claiming to be, have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

No Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have been reported with respect to children currently home educated in the LA.

We can only report on records held relating to children currently home educated. All pupil details, including their child protecfion status, is held on individual files. The cost of complying with a request to extract this information from archived files would, we estimate, exceed the appropriate limit. S.12 of the Act recognises that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the process of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit - as set by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees Charges) Regulations 2004 this is 18 hours. For requests which will exceed 18 hours to administer, the authority may refuse the request or levy a charge at £25 per hour for staff time. It is our policy to refuse requests which exceed the 18 hours.
The administration costs include:

(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.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

You have a right of appeal against this decision. If you wish to do so you may write to
the Information Manager, Business Technology, 2nd Floor, Hammersmith Town Hall Extension, London W6 9JU

Once you have exhausted the complaints procedure you may appeal to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, Telephone: 01625 545 700, http://www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Terry Broady
Schools information & external relations manager
Hammersmith & Fulham Children's Services
Cambridge House
Cambridge Grove
London W6 0LJ
Tel 020 8753 3668
Fax 020 8753 3708
[email address]

-----Original Message-----
From: C Murton [mailto:[FOI #9882 email]]
Sent: 28 March 2009 20:34
To: FOIRequests
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Home education and abuse - statistics

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to know:

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory
school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and
who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child
abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic
servitude.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews
have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

C Murton

hide quoted sections

Dear Broady Terry,

Thank you for your reply.
You wrote "No persons in the local authority of compulsory school age and currently home educated, or claiming to be, have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude." Can you tell me if this has also been the case for the past 5 years?

Yours sincerely,

C Murton

Dear Sir or Madam,

Sorry, I only just noticed that your second part of the answer also only refers to current cases - can you tell me if any such instances have occurred in the past 5 years?

Yours sincerely,

C Murton

Broady Terry, Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council

As was predicted, follow-up from C Murton.

Liz - is there you feel should be added to a further refusal response, eg "to our recollection, however, in the last 5 years there have been no .."?

Jon/Alison - would that even be advisable? Should I simply repeat the refusal? Any advice?

Thanks,

Broady Terry

-----Original Message-----
From: C Murton [mailto:[FOI #9882 email]]
Sent: 24 April 2009 16:52
To: Broady Terry
Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request - Home education and abuse - statistics

Dear Broady Terry,

Thank you for your reply. You wrote "No persons in the local
authority of compulsory school age and currently home educated, or
claiming to be, have been either suspected or found to be involved
in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or
domestic servitude." Can you tell me if this has also been the case
for the past 5 years?

Yours sincerely,

C Murton

-----Original Message-----

24 April 2009 Dear C Murton, REF: 2009/COR0205 FREEDOM OF
INFORMATION REQUEST Your request for information has now been
considered and our response is as follows.

No persons in the local authority of compulsory school age and
currently home educated, or claiming to be, have been either
suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced
marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

No Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have been reported
with respect to children currently home educated in the LA.

We can only report on records held relating to children currently
home educated. All pupil details, including their child protecfion
status, is held on individual files. The cost of complying with a
request to extract this information from archived files would, we
estimate, exceed the appropriate limit. S.12 of the Act recognises
that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for
information if the process of compliance would exceed the
appropriate limit - as set by the Freedom of Information and Data
Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees Charges) Regulations 2004
this is 18 hours. For requests which will exceed 18 hours to
administer, the authority may refuse the request or levy a charge
at £25 per hour for staff time. It is our policy to refuse requests
which exceed the 18 hours. The administration costs include:

(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.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter
acts as a Refusal Notice.

You have a right of appeal against this decision. If you wish to do
so you may write to the Information Manager, Business Technology,
2nd Floor, Hammersmith Town Hall Extension, London W6 9JU

Once you have exhausted the complaints procedure you may appeal to
the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, Telephone: 01625 545 700,
http://www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Terry Broady Schools information & external relations manager
Hammersmith & Fulham Children's Services Cambridge House Cambridge
Grove London W6 0LJ Tel 020 8753 3668 Fax 020 8753 3708 [email
address]

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be
published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about...
-------------------------------------------------------------------

hide quoted sections

FOIRequests, Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council

Dear Sir or Madam

I have spoken with the department who provided the response and they have confirmed that while they are able to report on current cases (of which there have been none), data on cases for the past 5 years is not held in a way which can be easily retrieved. To find if children have been subject to joint review or serious case review would involve going back through all the individual files for the past 5 years to check. It is for this reason that the response claims s.12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, in that to carry out this exercise would exceed the Appropriate Limit as set by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees Charges) Regulations 2004.

I am sorry that this was not made clear in the original response.

Yours faithfully

Alison Ross-Dow
Senior Information Management Officer
London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham
Information Management Team/Finance & Corporate Services
2nd Floor, Hammersmith Town Hall Extension
King Street
London W6 9JU
DL: 020 8753 2455

www.lbhf.gov.uk

Director of Finance & Corporate Services: Jane West

-----Original Message-----
From: C Murton [mailto:[FOI #9882 email]]
Sent: 24 April 2009 16:55
To: FOIRequests
Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request - Home education and abuse - statistics

Dear Sir or Madam,

Sorry, I only just noticed that your second part of the answer also
only refers to current cases - can you tell me if any such
instances have occurred in the past 5 years?

Yours sincerely,

C Murton

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be
published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about...
-------------------------------------------------------------------

hide quoted sections

Dear FOIRequests,

Thank you for your response.

I cannot afford to pay for an historical search so will not pursue this further. I am interested however to see that Broady Terry speculated that by memory the department would guess that there had been no cases over the past 5 years. Of course I do not take this as statistically accurate.

Yours sincerely,

C Murton