School Placements

The request was successful.

To Whom It May Concern

Please can you provide me with the name of the current educational placement (school) of any young people, 16 years of age and under, with educational health care (EHCP) plans or statements, placed in independent or non-maintained provision?

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like you to supply me with the information requested for the previous academic year – 2019/2020.

I would ask you to provide the information in an excel document, broken down under the following headings:

Category of Need (SEMH, ASD, etc.)
Name of School
Type of placement - (Day or residential placement)
Cost of placement per year

I would be grateful if you could send your response in csv. or Excel format within the 20 day reply period.

Yours faithfully,
Lily Kerrigan

Freedom of Information, Norfolk County Council

Good Afternoon,

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Information Request ENQ-445392-Y6T8B1

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 received on 25 November 2020.

We have up to 20 working days in which to deal with your request; however, the current circumstances relating to Coronavirus (COVID-19) may impact on our ability to meet deadlines and so we may take longer to provide you with a response.

If we require clarification regarding your request, we will contact you to explain this. The 20 working day period will then start from the day that we receive your clarification.

You will also be informed in advance if there is a charge for supplying copies of the information.

Please also be aware that, if the requested information contains references to any third parties, we may need to consult these individuals about the release of their personal data before making a decision whether or not to release the information to you.

We will also provide an explanation if any information is not released to you.

For future reference please note that you can now submit FOI/EIR requests through our new online webform which can be found here.

Should you have any queries regarding your request, please contact the team by email [email address] or by telephone 01603 222661.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Cooper, Business Support Assistant
Information Compliance Team
Dept: 01603 222661
Bay 7-9, Ground Floor, County Hall, Norwich

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Dear Norfolk County Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Norfolk County Council's handling of my FOI request 'School Placements'.

Due to Covid I realise that the information requested has taken longer but I would be really grateful if this request could now be fulfilled as it has been sometime since I initially made the request.

Yours faithfully,

Lily Kerrigan

Freedom of Information, Norfolk County Council

Dear Ms Kerrigan

I apologise for the ongoing delay in response to your enquiries. We are working through a backlog as quickly as we can with a reduced level of resource. I reviewed this case yesterday and am now awaiting the departments sign off of the proposed final response. I will therefore dispatch a response to your enquiry as soon as practicable.

Kind regards

Senior Information Compliance Officer
Information Compliance Team, Insight and Analytics, Strategy and Transformation
Tel: 01603 638017 | Dept: 01603 222661
Bays 7,8 & 9, Ground Floor, South Wing, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich

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Freedom of Information, Norfolk County Council

1 Attachment

 
 
Dear Lily Kerrigan
 
Freedom of Information Request ENQ-445392-Y6T8B1
 
I refer to your request for information dated 25 November 2020. I
apologise for the delay in responding
 
You asked for:
 

* Please can you provide me with the name of the current educational
placement (school) of any young people, 16 years of age and under,
with educational health care (EHCP) plans or statements, placed in
independent or non-maintained provision?

 

* Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like you to supply
me with the information requested for the previous academic year –
2019/2020.

 
        I would ask you to provide the information in an excel document,
broken down     under the following headings:
 
Category of Need (SEMH, ASD, etc.)
Name of School
Type of placement - (Day or residential placement)
Cost of placement per year
 
Our response:
 
Please find attached an excel document with the information you requested.
 
We have broken down the information to the extent that it has been
provided, on the basis that any further breakdown would potentially enable
individuals to be identified and/or lead to commercial prejudice with
regard to costs of individual placements.
 
Exemption 40(2)
 
The County Council considers that the exemption under Section 40(2) of the
Act applies in this case. Section 40 provides that if the information
constitutes personal data about a third party and any of the data
protection principles would be contravened by the release of the
information, the County Council is not required to provide the
information.
 
The information requested relates to a very small group of individuals
within a highly specific set of circumstances and could be used to
identify them, therefore placing them at risk
 
These individuals have a reasonable expectation that personal information
pertaining to them is not released without their consent for such
information to be released. This consent has not been provided. We
consider that releasing this information would therefore breach the fair
processing principle contained within the Data Protection Act.
 
We do not feel in this instance that there is any overriding public
interest consideration that would justify the disclosure of such personal
information.
 
Exemption 43(2)
 
Section 43(2) provides exemption to disclosure if its disclosure would, or
would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person
(including the public authority holding it).
 
Releasing this information about individual suppliers could be damaging to
the commercial interests of those suppliers and may give their competitors
an unfair advantage in future tender bids.
 
Furthermore, revealing this information would be damaging to Norfolk
County Council’s commercial interests, in as much as it could lead to
price fixing, or collusion preventing Norfolk County Council from
achieving best value for the people of Norfolk.
 
Public Interest Test Reasons
 
The Council has considered whether the public interest is maintaining this
exemption is outweighed by the public interest in disclosure.
 
This Council has considered the following reasons in favour of disclosure:

* Promoting accountability and transparency by public authorities for
decisions taken by them.
* Promoting accountability and transparency in the spending of public
money.

 
Balanced against this are the following reasons against disclosure:

* Releasing this information could give competitors an unfair advantage.
* Norfolk County Council has a duty to achieve best value in procuring
services for the people of Norfolk by procuring the right level of
service for the best possible price.  This could be prevented by
releasing this information.

 
On balance the Council considers that the public interest in maintaining
the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
 
If you are dissatisfied with our handling of your request you have the
right of appeal through the Council’s internal review procedure by setting
out the grounds of your appeal in writing to:
 
[1][Norfolk County Council request email]
or Information Compliance Team
County Hall
Martineau Lane
Norwich
NR1 2DH
 
An appeal should be submitted within 40 working days of the date of this
notice and should be identified as "FOI Appeal".
 
If you are dissatisfied after pursuing the complaints procedure, you may
apply to the Information Commissioner under Section 50 of the Act for a
decision whether your request for information has been dealt with in
accordance with the requirements of Part I of the Act.  Refer to the ICO
Website at: [2]https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ for advice on how to report a
concern.  Or you can write to them at:
 
First Contact Team
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane, Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
 
Yours sincerely
 
Senior Information Compliance Officer 
Information Compliance Team, Insight and Analytics, Strategy and
Transformation 
Tel Dept: 01603 222661
Bays 7,8 & 9, Ground Floor, South Wing, County Hall, Martineau Lane,
Norwich 
  
 
 
 

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