Dear Ms Mcfarlane

Request for Information RFI-9103-24 Re: Residential Children's Homes

Thank you for your request for information relating to Residential
Children's Homes which was received on 13 May 2024.

In accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
the council will respond to your request within 20 working days, saying
whether we have the information that you want, and if there will be any
charges. 

If, for any reason, we cannot provide you with the information, we will
tell you why.

If we need to clarify your request, we will contact you again.

In the meantime, if you need to contact me about your request, please do
so quoting the above reference number.

Yours sincerely,

Fakhara Qanwal

Assistant Assurance Officer

Walsall Council 

0800 0856018

[1]www.walsall.gov.uk 

[2]Walsall Council, Proud of our past, our present and for our future 

Disclaimer: The information in this message should be regarded as
confidential and is intended for the addressee only unless explicitly
stated. If you have received this message in error it must be deleted and
the sender notified. The views expressed in this message are personal and
not necessarily those of Walsall Council unless explicitly stated. Emails
sent or received from Walsall Council may the subject of a request under
data protection, freedom of information or environmental information
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advise you not to email any information, which if disclosed to unrelated
third parties would be likely to cause harm or distress. If you have an
enquiry related to your confidentiality or data protection, please visit
the council data protection pages on our website

References

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1. http://www.walsall.gov.uk/

Dear Ms Mcfarlane,

Request for Information RFI-9103-24 Re:Residential Children's Homes

I write to acknowledge and apologise for the delay in responding to your
request relating to Residential Children's Homes. As you know, the council
is required to respond to all requests for information under the Freedom
of Information Act within 20 working days, unless a ‘qualified exception’
applies that requires the consideration of the Public Interest.

Walsall Council takes its obligations under this legislation extremely
seriously and I am sorry that in this case we have not met this timescale.

I would like to take this opportunity to assure you of our best
intentions in this regard. I can confirm that a full reply to your request
will be sent to you as soon as possible.

If you have any queries in regard to this process, please do not hesitate
to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Fahmida Maknun

 Assurance Officer

Walsall Council 

0800 0856018

[1]www.walsall.gov.uk 

[2]Walsall Council, Proud of our past, our present and for our future 

Disclaimer: The information in this message should be regarded as
confidential and is intended for the addressee only unless explicitly
stated. If you have received this message in error it must be deleted and
the sender notified. The views expressed in this message are personal and
not necessarily those of Walsall Council unless explicitly stated. Emails
sent or received from Walsall Council may the subject of a request under
data protection, freedom of information or environmental information
legislation and therefore could be disclosed to third parties. We strongly
advise you not to email any information, which if disclosed to unrelated
third parties would be likely to cause harm or distress. If you have an
enquiry related to your confidentiality or data protection, please visit
the council data protection pages on our website

References

Visible links
1. http://www.walsall.gov.uk/

Dear Ms Mcfarlane,

Request for Information RFI-9103-24 Re: Residential Children's Homes

Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay you have experienced in
receiving a response to your Freedom of Information Request. As you know,
the council is required to respond to all requests for information under
the Freedom of Information Act within 20 working days, unless a ‘qualified
exception’ applies.

I am however happy to provide the information you requested below. I hope
this information is still of use to you. Please note that the information
given in this response is as at the date of your request.

If you do have any queries or additional questions regarding the
information that has been provided please do not hesitate to contact me
direct on the details at the bottom of this email.

Further to your request for information about Residential Children's
Homes, I can tell you the following:

I seek information on whether there is a demand for a therapeutic
residential children's home within your locality and, if so, what needs
are most prominent to be catered for under this provision.

Could you kindly propose specific areas within the borough where a home
would be suitable or areas to avoid? Your input is highly valued in this
collaborative effort.

Deciding to set up a care home is a significant decision that requires a
lot of research and consideration. Setting up a care home that provides
exactly right kind of care and services to local vulnerable Children and
Young People can be an incredibly difficult process. There are no specific
areas within the borough where a home would be suitable or areas to avoid.
When setting a care facility, it's important to consider how easy it is to
get there, how close it is to loved ones, and how safe children in care
feel.

[1]The Child Welfare Inequalities Project found that Children in the UK’s
poorest communities are over times more likely to enter the social care
system than those from the wealthiest areas. Walsall ranks as the 25th
most deprived local authority and 14th for income deprivation affecting
children (IDACI 2019), placing Walsall within the most deprived 10% of
districts in the country. The high and increasing levels of child poverty
puts additional demands on services and a higher demand for children’s
care homes in Walsall.

Make sure to investigate national, local councils and local authority
regulations, as there are lots of different factors to consider where and
what type of a care home facility is to be set up.

I would like to know the average weekly cost for a young person within
categories 1, 2, 3, and 4 homes as of 2023:

1. Children's Home - standard 2 or 1 bedded (maximum and minimum weekly
cost)

2. Children's Home - standard 3+ bedded (maximum and minimum weekly cost)

3. Children's Home with therapy (maximum and minimum weekly cost)

4. Children's Home with education (maximum and minimum weekly cost)

5. Children's Home with Therapy and Education (maximum and minimum weekly
cost)

Walsall Council can tell you, firstly, in respect of Q1-Q5, we don’t break
down our Children's home placements in the format as requested. It would
take more than 18 hours to go through individual placement agreement for
each placement for 2023/204 to locate, retrieve/extract and collate the
relevant information as requested.

Therefore, it would exceed the appropriate limit specified in the Freedom
of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees)
Regulations 2004. For the council, this limit is currently set at £450.
This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in
determining whether the council holds the information and then locating,
retrieving and extracting the information.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 sets out that were the
council considers that the appropriate limit is likely to be exceeded it
is not obliged to respond to the request. As a result, we will not be
processing your request further as it is refused.

Furthermore, Weekly costs for Children's Home Placements are not only
dependent the ages of the children or young people but also dependent on
the needs and complexities they may bring. Fees paid for children's home
care services for children and young people by those providers based on
the identified services delivered for each placement. Walsall Council
(WMBC) does hold that information. Therefore, the information you have
requested is not recorded or held information and is therefore exempt from
disclosure under section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act.

In addition to this, Section 43(2) of the Act sets out an exemption from
the right to know if release of the information is likely to prejudice the
commercial interests of any person (a person may be an individual, a
company, the public authority itself or any other legal entity). Section
43 is a qualified exemption; it is therefore subject to the public
interest. That means we are also obliged to consider whether the ‘public
interest’ in withholding the information outweighs the ‘public interest’
in disclosing it.

For the Council commercial interest relates to the ability to participate
competitively in commercial activities, i.e. the purchase and sale of
goods or services and it is the Council’s view that the price or amount
that the Council has paid for services is directly linked to the Council’s
ability to participate competitively in the marketplace and is therefore
likely to have an adverse effect on ‘public purse’.

The Council operates within competitive environment and the release of
rates paid is likely to have a direct impact on future charges levied on
the Council by other firms in this market for this type of work by
distorting the market and making it inherently uncompetitive.  If this
information were to be released into the public domain, suppliers of these
services will undoubtedly be encouraged to raise their prices resulting in
a ‘ratchet effect and a direct prejudice of the Council’s ability to
bargain. It is inevitable that where suppliers are privy to information
setting out how much the Council has been paying in order to house
children in these homes, they are highly likely to use this information to
judge ‘the depth of the Council’s purse’ and seek to demand higher fees in
the future for similar work. 

In considering whether the public interest would be serviced by releasing
this information we have given due regard to the presumption of disclosure
of publicly held information and the ongoing duty of public bodies to
facilitate accountability and transparency in the spending of public
money. However, we have also given regard to an overriding duty to
preserve the ‘public purse’ and wherever possible seek to make the most
effective use of public money to obtain value for money. Disclosure of the
information in this case is therefore likely to hinder the ability of the
Council and other public authorities to be able to negotiate commercial
agreements, by damaging their ability to carry out business deals and
negotiations effectively, contrary to the interests of the taxpayer and
the local community.

It is therefore the Council’s view that withholding this information,
under s.43(2) is a reasonable and appropriate measure to ensure that
increased pressure is not exerted on Council budgets by the release of
such information. Therefore, this part of the request is refused.

Finally, please provide a transparent breakdown of the factors
contributing to the costs of categories 1, 2, 3, and 4 placements and
advise how many children are currently placed in residential homes?

1). Location.                                                   
                                                                    

2). Care Home and its
Facilities.                                                                                                                            
 

3). CYP needs and their care
requirements.                                                                                                                  

4). Individual Placement Agreement and its variation        

71 children and young people are currently placed in children’s homes as
of early of June 2024.

Most of the information that we provide in response to Freedom of
Information Act 2000 requests will be subject to copyright protection.  In
most cases the copyright will be owned by Walsall Council. The copyright
in respect of other information may be owned by another person or
organisation, as indicated.

You are free to use any information supplied to you in response to this
request for your own non-commercial research or private study purposes.
The information may also be used for any other purpose allowed by a
limitation or exception in copyright law, such as news reporting.
 However, any other type of re-use, for example by publishing the
information in analogue or digital form, including on the internet, will
require the permission of the copyright owner.

I hope that the information provided is useful to you. However, if you are
dissatisfied, you should set out in writing your grounds for complaint and
send to: Lead Assurance Officer, Business Change, Civic Centre, Darwall
Street, Walsall, WS1 1TP.

If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a decision.
Please remember that, generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you
have first exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the council. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information
Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF.

Again I would like to offer my apologies for any inconvenience the delay
to your request may have caused you

Yours sincerely,

Fahmida Maknun

Assurance Officer

Walsall Council 

0800 0856018

[2]www.walsall.gov.uk 

[3]Walsall Council, Proud of our past, our present and for our future 

Disclaimer: The information in this message should be regarded as
confidential and is intended for the addressee only unless explicitly
stated. If you have received this message in error it must be deleted and
the sender notified. The views expressed in this message are personal and
not necessarily those of Walsall Council unless explicitly stated. Emails
sent or received from Walsall Council may the subject of a request under
data protection, freedom of information or environmental information
legislation and therefore could be disclosed to third parties. We strongly
advise you not to email any information, which if disclosed to unrelated
third parties would be likely to cause harm or distress. If you have an
enquiry related to your confidentiality or data protection, please visit
the council data protection pages on our website

References

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1. https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
2. http://www.walsall.gov.uk/