Dear John Dye

Freedom of Information Act 2000/Environmental Information Regulations 2004
Information Request ENQ-708672-D4X3P9

Thank you for your request for information received on 30/05/2024.

We have up to 20 working days in which to deal with your request.

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

We will inform you in advance if there is a charge for supplying copies of any information, and we will provide an explanation if any information which we hold is not released to you.

If the requested information contains references to any third parties, we may need to seek their views before we can decide whether or not to release the information to you. In such cases we will not share your own personal details with third parties.

Should you have any queries regarding your request, please contact the team by email at [Norfolk County Council request email] or by telephone on 01603 222661.

Please also note for future reference that requests can be submitted online. Further information and the online request form can be found via the following link:
About the FOI Act and making a request - Norfolk County Council

Yours sincerely

Information Governance Team
Strategy and Transformation Department
County Hall , 5th Floor

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Dear John Dye

 

Freedom of Information Request ENQ-708672-D4X3P9

 

I refer to your request for information dated 30 May 2024.

 

In considering the full scope of your request the Council has concluded
that the work involved would exceed the “appropriate limit” for
compliance. Further explanation of this follows.

 

Notwithstanding the above, in accordance with our obligation to provide
advice and assistance under section 16 of the Act, we have provided
information that proved to be available within the appropriate limit and
have indicated below where further breakdowns of this information would
require significant further investigation, exceeding the ‘appropriate
limit’. 

 

 

You asked for:

 

 1. Please confirm whether you pay Cambian Group and/or Witherslack Group
for services in SEND education (4-19) and/or fostering, children's
home or secure accommodation placements. This can be a simple Yes/No
answer for each organisation. Please also detail the number of
children and young people, ideally divided by each organisation and by
SEND education (4-19) and/or fostering, children's home or secure
accommodation placements. If this is too sensitive/onerous, please
simply break the number down by number of children and young people
receiving SEND education (4-19) and/or fostering, children's home or
secure accommodation placements

 

 2. Please detail the amount of money spent in the last two financial
years with for profit providers of SEND education (4-19) and
fostering, children's home or secure accommodation placements. Please
provide this in a spreadsheet split out between SEND and education and
fostering, children's home or secure accommodation. If this is too
onerous, I will accept one year's spend

 

 3. If any of the above is too onerous, I will settle for confirmation of
whether the authority uses Cambian Group and/or Witherslack Group and
an overall figure for spend on all for profit providers of all of the
services outlined above.

 

 

Our response:      

 

Your request has been considered and is refused under section 12 of the
Act.  In accordance with the Act, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

 

This is because the cost of locating and retrieving the information
exceeds the "appropriate limit" of £450 as stated in the Freedom of
Information & Data Protection (Appropriate Limit & Fees) Regulations 2004
(calculated at 18 hours x £25 an hour = £450).

 

As you have indicated in your request, parts 1 & 2 are significant tasks
which exceed 18 hours of officer time to locate and retrieve the data
requested. To illustrate this, the Education elements in respect of
fostering, secure children’s homes, is not held in a reportable format and
would have to be manually investigated.

 

With regard to part 3 of your request, we hope the following is helpful,
but again, there are elements within this part of your request that would
require manual searching of data entries in order to establish the detail
you have requested, i.e. identifying and collating data with regard to
“for-profit”-only organisations.

 

 

Confirmation of whether the authority uses Cambian Group and/or
Witherslack Group

 

The County Council does use Cambian Group and Witherslack Group schools.

 

 

Overall figure for spend on all for profit providers of all of the
services

 

We cannot provide details split between SEND and education and fostering,
children's home or secure accommodation as the County Council does not
record this information in centrally held records, and in order to collate
the detail you request we would need to undertake this work manually,
exceeding the 18 hour “appropriate limit” for this element alone. We hope
the following is helpful.

 

 

┌────────┬────────────────────┬──────────────────┬───────────┐
│ Year │External residential│External fostering│ Education │
├────────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────┼───────────┤
│2022/23 │£19,715,174 │£16,431,748 │£41,861,653│
├────────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────┼───────────┤
│2023/24 │£27,569,908 │£17,763,646 │£48,621,553│
└────────┴────────────────────┴──────────────────┴───────────┘

 

Please note that the information in the above table is regarding all
external services for children and so will include not for profit groups
such as charities, voluntary organisations and community interest
companies etc. Both areas of these spend include a 50% share of joined
funded social care and education placements and so there may be some
duplication within these figures. The external residential and fostering
spend is for all children and not just those with SEND.

In order to identify whether a provider is a “for-profit”, or not for
profit organisation it would require data entries to be manually checked.
Therefore to locate and retrieve the information for “for-profit” only
would be a significant task exceeding the 18 hour “appropriate limit”.

 

As reviewing each data entry is the only option, we cannot advise of a way
this request could be refined to reduce the time taken and cost to within
the “appropriate limit”. 

 

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 appeal 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

 

Saskia Walsh, Information Compliance Officer

Information Governance
Team Tel: 01603 222661

5th Floor, County Hall

[3]Norfolk County Council[4]    [5]Twitter[6] [7]Facebook[8] [9]Web

 

[10]Campaign Logo

 

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