Dear Ms Daley

Thank you for your request for information held by the Council under the
provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which was received
yesterday.

We will contact you again once it has been ascertained what data is held by
Birmingham City Council. In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if
that is the case, we will let you know. A fees notice will be issued to
you, and you will be required to pay before we will proceed to deal with
your request.

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact me quoting the reference number above in
any future communications.

Yours sincerely
Steve Cullen
Data Protection and Freedom of Information Manager
Children, Young People and Families Directorate
Birmingham City Council

Tel: 0121 464 4591
Email: [email address]

Data Protection Act 1998
The information you have provided within your Freedom of Information
request will be held on our database and may also be held within manual
records for a period of 2 years from the date Birmingham City Council
received your request. Any personal data that you provide to Birmingham
City Council will be held in line with the requirements set out within the
Data Protection Act 1998.

Re Use of Public Sector Information
Where Birmingham City Council is the copyright holder of any information
that may be released, re-use for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes is permitted without further reference to the City Council. Where
the re-use is for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, the applicant
should notify the City Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms
for re-use.

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Dear Ms Daley

I am writing in respect of your recent enquiry for information held by the
Authority under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000:

1. Number of school attendance orders issued by Birmingham Local Authority
to families claiming to home educate during 2008.

2. Number of school attendance orders issued by Birmingham Local Authority
to families claiming to home educate during 2008 which resulted in children
being returned to school.

3. Number of educational supervision orders issued by Birmingham Local
Authority to families claiming to home during 2008.

4. Number of referrals to social services of families claiming to home
during 2008 due to welfare concerns.

5. Number of referrals to social services of families claiming to home
during 2008 due to welfare concerns which resulted in children being placed
on the at risk register.

6. Total number of children known to be home education in Birmingham Local
Authority during 2008.

7. Copy of all Birmingham Local Authority responses to the independent
consultation on elective home education chaired by Mr Badman, including the
long questionnaire (not merely the six question public consultation) -
please note that I am aware the Birmingham LA believe that this document
was
not saved when responded to, however, as this is your data I am sure you
will know it can be re-obtained from Mr Badman, using a subject access
request if necessary.

Please find herewith the following:

1. 1 Order has been issued regarding the year 2008. 6 SAO procedures were
commenced with the child being placed prior to the date of issuing of the
order.

2. As above

3. 0 - This LA has not been granted any ESOs in any of the school
attendance cases presented in 2008. The LA has not considered that an order
is appropriate in any of the cases we have presented to the court, and the
court have not directed us to further consider the use of an ESO.

4. 4

5. There is no "At Risk Register" held by any Local Authority, however
individual assessments and plans apply in each case referred to Social
Care.

6. 339

7. As stated in our initial response we found we were not able to save this
response and, once sent, we found we were unable to take a print copy.

We have provided a copy of our response to the national consultation, and
this outlines the Local Authority view.

The draft data used for inclusion was:-

No. of home educated children of primary age registered - 102
No. of home educated of secondary age registered - 237
Total number registered - 339
No. non-registered - unknown
No. of home educated statemented - 21
No. of home educated - 1
No of home educated from black/ethnic minority groups - 95

Whilst we have undertaken a thorough search of the information held by
Birmingham City Council, it may be that, due to the size and amount of
information held by Birmingham City Council, some information may have been
inadvertently missed.

If you have any information which may assist us in determining or locating
any missed information, we would be grateful if you would contact us with
details of this information, so that we can conduct a further search.

If you are not satisfied with the response you may ask for an internal
review. If subsequently you are not satisfied with the Council’s decision
you may apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally,
the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints
procedure provided by the Council. The Information Commissioner can be
contacted at the following address:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545745 Web Address: www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,
Steve Cullen
Data Protection and Freedom of Information Manager
Children, Young People and Families Directorate
Birmingham City Council

Tel: 0121 464 4591
Email: [email address]

Re-use of Public Sector Information
The information provided is subject to Birmingham City Council copyright,
however, it may be re-used for personal, educational or non-commercial
purposes without further reference to the City Council. If the re-use is
for other purposes, such as commercial re-use, you should notify the City
Council in writing to seek approval or agree terms for re-use. Where
Birmingham City Council does not hold the copyright, it has indicated the
copyright holder. Permission for re-use should be sought from them
directly.

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I will be out of the office starting 20/03/2009 and will not return until
24/03/2009.

Whilst I am away from the office for an urgent issues please contact my
assistant, Melanie Sewell, on 464 4591 or via Lotus Notes. All other
matters will be dealt with upon my return to the office on Tuesday
afternoon.

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Dear Ms Daley

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding as I have been away
from the office unexpectedly this week.

Here are the answers I am able to provide for the remaining questions:

5. Any policy documents relating to how the LA follows up on those home
educated children who have reached 16 in order to ascertain if they are
achieving economic well being.

We do not have a specific policy document in this respect, however our
officers will advise parents how to make contact with Connexions and will
encourage this contact. We provide information on the role of Connexions
to all parents registered as EHE will then routinely provide them with
contact details when children are approaching school leaving age. Our
officers also supports many requests for post 16 education references. We
will also be notifying Connexions of all known EHE young people in order
that they can monitor NEET data and provide support to young people s
required.

6. The percentage of home educating families who accept home visits from
the EHE advisor.

This is not data we currently monitor. However our officers estimate that
around 10% of families refuse home visits completely and a further 20%
refuse particular visits, or prefer not to have, and/or avoid visits
further on into the review process.

7. A copy of the Local Authority response to the long questionnaire on
elective home education chaired by Mr Badman and any other documents that
were sent to the review. If you cannot find a paper copy then please obtain
one from Mr Badman, using a subject access request.

As I have already stated we do not hold copies of the data and, in line
with Freedom of Information legislation, are only required to provide that
data which we do hold. The term subject access request is applicable to
individuals applying for copies of their own personal information under the
terms of the data protection Act and therefore does not apply to these
circumstances.

Yours sincerely,
Steve Cullen
Data Protection and Freedom of Information Manager
Children, Young People and Families Directorate
Birmingham City Council

Tel: 0121 464 4591
Email: [email address]

Lynn Daley
<request-8665-04d
10743@whatdotheyk To
now.com> [email address]
cc
01/04/2009 12:08
Subject
Re: Freedom of Information request
- Independent Review of Home
Education - LA's questions

Dear Sir or Madam,

Your response to my request is overdue - some of my questions have
still not been answered. If you do not answer I will have to
request an internal review.

Yours sincerely,

Lynn Daley

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Daley

Further to your email below we have noted your comments and re-directed
your request to the relevant directorate. As soon as we receive a response
from them we will contact you.

Regards

Corporate Information Governance Team

Lynn Daley
<request-8665-04d
10743@whatdotheyk To
now.com> FOI requests at Birmingham City
Council
12/05/2009 21:22 <[Birmingham City Council request email]>
cc

Subject
Internal review of Freedom of
Information request - Independent
Review of Home Education - LA's
questions

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Birmingham City
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Independent Review of Home
Education - LA's questions'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/in...

This review was required to be signed off by the lead professional
for children's services and I therefore find it hard to accept that
no record of what was submitted is available. If it was written
'off-the-cuff' then how did the lead professional approve it?

Yours sincerely,

Lynn Daley

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Daley

I am writing further to your email dated 12th May 2009 regarding a Freedom
of Information response that was provided to you about Independent Review
of Home Education.

We have received confirmation from the relevant directorate that the Team
Manager for EHE was responsible to respond to a national enquiry from a
Lead Officer named Mr Badman to provide data that was available from the
EHE team. This information has already been provided to you in your FOI
response.

However the on line response sheet proved to be different to the usual
websheets for such consultations and could not be saved prior to sending
and then on sending was not retrievable. We therefore do not have a copy of
this particular submission.

We can confirm that this issue of difficulty was raised with Mr Badman and
he confirmed that this was the case with the particular response sheet, and
that this had been raised by other Local Authorities. We are sure that he
would confirm this to yourself should you wish to contact him.

As indicated above, the Team Manager has since provided the data he used to
the FOI request and we have confirmed that the comments given were based
upon our comments in the national consultation.

We do not have a Lead Professional as such for EHE. We have designated EHE
Advisors and the Team Manager is the Operational Manager for EHE.

We hope this concludes your request.

If you are not satisfied with the response you may contact the Information
Commissioner at the following address:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545745
Web Address: www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Corporate Information Governance Team

Lynn Daley
<request-8665-04d
10743@whatdotheyk To
now.com> FOI requests at Birmingham City
Council
12/05/2009 21:22 <[Birmingham City Council request email]>
cc

Subject
Internal review of Freedom of
Information request - Independent
Review of Home Education - LA's
questions

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Birmingham City
Council's handling of my FOI request 'Independent Review of Home
Education - LA's questions'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/in...

This review was required to be signed off by the lead professional
for children's services and I therefore find it hard to accept that
no record of what was submitted is available. If it was written
'off-the-cuff' then how did the lead professional approve it?

Yours sincerely,

Lynn Daley

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Daley

I am writing further to your email to us dated 15th May 2009. We have
noted your comments and asked the relevant directorate to re-check whether
they have a copy of the questionnaire which you have requested. We have
had confirmation yet again that they were unable to retrieve or save a copy
after submission as I explained in my previous email to you.

The responses have already been provided to you in your Freedom of
Information request. As we no longer hold a copy you may wish to contact
Mr Graham Badman at DCSF for a copy of the submission review.

We hope this concludes your request.

If you are not satisfied with the response you may contact the Information
Commissioner at the following address:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545745
Web Address: www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Corporate Information Governance Team

Lynn Daley
<request-8665-0
4d10743@whatdot To
heyknow.com> [email address]
cc
15/05/2009
18:46 Subject
Re: Freedom of Information request -
Independent Review of Home Education
- LA's questions

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please allow me to quote from the online review by Graham Badman
which I was able to save onto my computer:

"Please also note that we ask that the Director of Children's
Services and Lead Member for Children and Young People 'sign off'
the questionnaire before it is submitted and you will be asked to
confirm whether that has happened at the end of this
questionnaire."

Are you saying that this was not the case and that your Team Lead
for EHE took it upon themselves to send an unauthorised response to
the review?

Besides which, I fail to see why you cannot ask Graham Badman's
team for a copy of your response so that you can send it to me, as
a council tax payer whom you are supposed to serve.

Yours sincerely,

Lynn Daley

show quoted sections

Dear Ms Daley

Further to your email dated 26th May 2009 and as explained in our previous
responses that we had a problem with the submission to Mr Badman and could
not save or retrieve a copy for our records.

The contents of the comments given to Mr Badman were consistent with the
responses made to the national consultation. The national consultation
responses content was used by the Team Manager for the Mr Badman response
and the Team Manager has confirmed that this was the case.

The national consultation response was completed by our Head of Education
Welfare Services and the comments contained were submitted with the
agreement of the Strategic Director and the Lead Cabinet Member.

We hope this concludes your request.

If you are not satisfied with the response you may contact the Information
Commissioner at the following address:

The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545745
Web Address: www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Corporate Information Governance Team

show quoted sections