Looked after children
Dear Sir or Madam,
Under the freedom of information act I would like to know numerical
statistics in order by year during the period of 1998 to 2008 (or
as far back as you can go without charging me) for the following;
1) how many children were taken into local authority care on
interim care orders and emergency protection orders under the
catagory of emotional harm during the above period ? i do not wish
you to include any children for any other catagories of harm/abuse.
2)Out of these children who were taken into care for emotional harm
how many of them were specifically for domestic violence between
their parents? again i do not wish you to include children who had
violence directed at them as that would fall into a different
catagory being physical abuse.
3)Out of these children who were put into care for domestic
violence how many were returned to family or extended family ?
4)Out of these how many children were put on full care orders?
5)of the children put on full care orders how many were adopted
during these periods.
Yours faithfully,
Angela Wileman
Brent Council - INFORMATION REQUEST
Our Reference: 541177
====================================================
Dear Ms. Wileman
Thank you for your request for information received on 1 October 2009. We
aim to respond to your request within 20 working days.
However, whilst we may send the formal notification of the decision to the
email address you have provided we will not send the information requested
to that address. This is because we are aware that doing so will
automatically result in the information being published on the
whatdotheyknow website. Publication of information in this way may
constitute an unauthorised re-use (under the Re-use of Public Sector
Information Regulations 2005) and may infringe copyright. I would therefore
be grateful if you will provide me with an alternative disclosure address.
This can be a postal address, fax number or an email address, as long as it
does not result in automatic publication and re-use.
If you wish to apply for permission to re-use any of the requested
information you may do so by writing to the IT Standards Manager at Brent
Council, Floor 5, 349-357 High Road, Wembley HA9 6BZ , telephone 020 8937
1402, e-mail [Brent Borough Council request email]
If you wish to appeal against the requirement to provide an alternative
disclosure address you can do so by writing to the IT Standards Manager at
the address given above.
You also have a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner. However,
the Information Commissioner will not normally consider an appeal until you
have exhausted your rights of redress and complaint to the Council. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted as follows: Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9
5AF; Telephone: 01625 545 700, www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
Yours sincerely
Stephen F Williams,
For Brent ITU
[email address]
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The use of Brent Council's e-mail system may be monitored and communications read in order to secure effective operation of the system and other lawful purposes.
Dear Sir or Madam,
Considering this sort of information is available to all the public my quantative research will eventually end up in the public domain regardless. You are the first person and only department that has refused to disclose its information on a public website. Are you saying that you will now not let the public view this sort of information you have?
I note that your department gave satisfactory information on children on the child protection register not so long ago on this website. This information was given by a Karen Taylor on 20th August. Posting my private email now would also affect my data protection.
I would like you to pass my request onto your manager for review of your suggested action.
Yours faithfully,
Angela Wileman
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 Brent Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Looked after children'.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/lo...
I find it very disturbing that collective information on the extent of the problem due to domestic violence and emotional harm is not supported or required by the childrens services. This is a matter of public interest due to children being removed from particulary mothers who are victims of domestic violence. I amongst others and womens aid are concerned that orders are not placing children at home with DV victims barring the DV abusers but instead children are taken into care and sometimes adopted.
Please identify cases 98-2008 where the harm found by the Court was considered to be attributable to domestic violence.Also how many children were adopted due to this and how many orders placed the children at home or into care.
If you cannot provide this information i wish to start an internal review as requested to see how we can get this information.
Yours faithfully,
Angela Wileman
Dear Ms Wileman,
I apologise, there appears to be a misunderstanding. The Council has not and is not refusing to respond to your request which it accepts is valid and it is processing.
The Council does have an issue with using the "whatdotheyknow" email address. By using this email address, all responses are automatically uploaded on the website without any apparent control.
The making of an FOI request cannot invalidate the Council's rights to control further use of its own information or abrogate any duty it may owe to third party copyright holders. The concern is that disclosing information in the manner requested would make the Council complicit in any such breach.
We have advised you of the means and circumstances in which we consider it reasonable to communicate the information requested.
We will therefore proceed to respond to your request within the 20 working day period, but not the information requested to the "whatdotheyknow" email address. Any information that you are entitled to receive in the response will be retained to be communicated to you by means which are reasonable. This could be another email address."
Rajesh Seedher
IT Standards Manager
Information Technology Unit
Business Transformation Department
Brent Council
Telephone 020 8937 1402
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 Brent Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Looked after children'.
Please could you either provide the information requested via WhatDoTheyKnow which is my preferred means of communication or provide a valid refusal notice making clear which exemptions within the FOI act you are relying on to withhold the information.
The act of releasing a document under FOI does not affect that document's copyright status. It is not reasonable for the council to consider what an individual might do with information released after it has been provided to them.
I would also ask the council to consider if they really would be prepared to spend public money taking action against anyone re- publishing their statistics on looked after children
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/lo...
Yours faithfully,
Angela Wileman
Brent Council - INFORMATION REQUEST
Our Reference: 541177
====================================================
Dear Ms. Wileman
Following correspondence with the Information Commissioner the Council has
reviewed its position on responding to WDTK email addresses. Accordingly
and further to your request for information received on 1 October 2009 I
am writing to inform you that unfortunately the information you requested
cannot be supplied as it is not held by Brent Council. Please accept my
apologies for the delay in doing so.
This is because the classification you have used 'emotional harm' is not
used.
We can however provide the following statistics in relation to section 44
emergency protection orders and section 38 interim care orders. The code
for these is n1 abuse and neglect.
98/99 99/00 00/01 01/02 02/03 03/04 04/05 05/06 06/07 07/08 08/09 09 to
15/10/09
25 13 25 16 23 34 24 30 23 16 20 6
Please note that the information provided may be subject to copyright and
you may require further permission from the Council to re-use it. If you
require further guidance please write to the IT Standards Manager (contact
details below).
If you are dissatisfied with the response or how the Council has handled
your request you can complain to the Council by writing to the following
address: IT Standards Manager at Brent Council, Floor 5, 349-357 High
Road, Wembley HA9 6BZ, telephone 020 8937 1402, e-mail [Brent Borough Council request email].
It is the Council's policy to ensure that, where practicable, your
complaint is dealt with by someone who was not involved in the original
decision.
You also have a right of appeal about our decision to the Information
Commissioner, however, the Information Commissioner will not normally
consider an appeal until you have exhausted your rights of redress and
complaint to the Council. The Information Commissioner can be contacted as
follows:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF; Telephone: 01625 545 700,
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
Yours sincerely
Stephen F Williams,
for Brent ITU
[Brent Borough Council request email]
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The use of Brent Council's e-mail system may be monitored and communications read in order to secure effective operation of the system and other lawful purposes.
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