AbuseRatesAndHomeEdLAFOIResponses


All LAs in England have been asked for statistics for the prevalance of abuse amongst electively home educated children.

 

The resulsts are being collated in spreadsheets

 

In most instances the LA was asked for:

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

Answers below which do not refer to a question are answering the above.

Other questions asked are mentioned individually.

 

Barking and Dagenham :

 

The answer for both questions A. and B. is that we do not have any recorded.

 

Barnet :

 

"We have checked our records and can confirm that the answer in both questions is zero."

 

Barnsley :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

 

Bath and North East Somerset:

 

"(1) the number of persons in the LA of compulsory school age who are electively home educated

 

52 children home educated

(2)

Of the 52 children home educated, we have had some involvement with 16 children and young people.

2 reported for sexual abuse

2 for allegations of harmful sexual behaviour

6 for neglect

2 for domestic violence

2 for physical abuse

(3) Also, please could you reveal how many (if any) Serious Case Reviews have been started with respect to home educated children in the LA in the last five years?: Nil"

 

Clarification has been requested

 

Bedfordshire :

 

Bedfordshire County Council's submission to the Independent Review of Home Education and the response entered to Q22 "...In the last five years...how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a 'cover' for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect?" The answer provided by Bedfordshire County Council was "at least two".

 

Bexley : replied:

 

A.  None

B. None"

 

Birmingham :

 

A. We cannot accurately respond to A as the EHE officers would not know all cases of concern raised by others, and Social Care do not have the ability to identify all cases by whether a child is EHE. We can confirm that 5 cases have been referred to Social Care for reason of welfare concerns within the past 12 months.

B. 1 case

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."

 

further investigations by AHEd followed:

 

Can you confirm that if another department had concerns about the welfare of a EHE child that the EHE officers would NOT be informed/aware?

"No, we cannot confirm that in every case where there may be welfare concerns held by a department the EHE officers would be informed. In some cases, dependent upon the level of concern, a fully detailed assessment

including lateral checks of other departments may not take place."

Will you tell me how many cases of

a) suspected abuses I mentioned in my request

b) confirmed abuses I mentioned in my request

are known to any dept in the LA

"All suspected abuse and confirmed abuse cases should have been referred to Social Care. At the current time Social Care are not able to analyse their case records by reason of EHE."

Can you tell me of the 5 cases you mention that were referred to Social Care for welfare concerns, how many were founded cases and how many were found not to be of welfare concern.

 

"Our information from EHE officers is that they have made 5 referrals to Social Care for investigation into welfare concerns. One case is ongoing and four cases required Safe and Well visits to be conducted. In these four

cases no further action has been since required."

 

Blackburn with Darwen :

 

"Thank you for your email and in response I can confirm that the answer in relation to the questions asked is Nil and Nil"

 

Blackpool :

 

"A One case. No details will be disclosed as this may identify the individual.

B None"

 

when asked further, Blackpool confirmed that the one case was "evidenced" - ie not an unfounded allegation.

 

Bolton :

 

A1 Less than 3 persons match the above criteria

 

A2 None"

 

and

"Q1 Of the less than 3 cases you mention, can you please clarify if they were suspicion alone or were, on investigation, founded and whether there was more than one child involved A1. Unfortunately further detail cannot be given as individuals would be identified"

 

Bolton changed theie mind about this when an appeal against the decision was made:

"Having reviewed the facts in this case, I consider that there is no significant risk that individuals could be identified from releasing the data you have requested. I therefore consider that to release the information would not prejudice the rights or legitimate interests of the individuals concerned and would not contravene the principles of data protection. The exemption in section 40(2) FOIA therefore does not apply to this information.

 

Decision

My decision is that the information requested is not exempt under section 40(2) FOIA and should therefore be released.

 

The answer to your question is as follows:

 

There has been one electively home educated person in Bolton that meets the criteria in your request. The person concerned was within a sibling group about which concerns had been raised in relation to possible neglect. The concerns were about the sibling group and not specifically about the home educated person. After investigation it was decided these concerns were not founded."

 

Bournemouth :

 

A. 5 (4 proven, one unfounded)

B. No serious case reviews or joint area reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the local authority."

 

The five cases noted relate to individual children rather than families.

 

The cases were broken down as follows:

Domestic Violence 2

Sexual Abuse 1

Physical Injury 2

 

The five cases noted relate to five different children in five different families.

The unfounded incident was recorded under the category of physical injury.

 

 

Bracknell Forest :

 

The reply to both questions in respect of Bracknell Forest Council is NIL."

 

 

Bradford:

 

a. We are aware of two cases currently."

 

Further clarification was requested and answered:

 

"Could you let me know which of the above categories they have been found to be involved in? 

2 are neglect.

 

Could you let me know if this is connected with educational provision?    

It is not in either case.

 

 

  1. Has a question been raised that is currently under investigation by

     Social Services?     Yes.

 

  1. Has a question been raised but not passed to Social Services, and

     if not why not?   No.

 

  1. Has a question been raised and proceeded no further?    No.

 

  1. Has a question been raised but been discovered to be unfounded?  No.

 

We can only judge educational provision.  We are vigilant to issues of forced marriage, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude and if any of the above issues were suspected appropriate action would be taken."

 

 

Brent:

 

"Question A –  NIL

Question B -  NIL"

 

Brighton and Hove:

 

"A. The number of children and young people known to be home educated and also known to be involved in or suspected of involvement in the abuses listed below is 3.

B. Nil."

Should you have any queries concerning this request please contact me, remembering to quote the reference number shown above."

 

clarification re the 3 cases - requested

Brighton clarified this point - "The three cited cases were 'founded'."

""The three cases involved three separate children. All are subject to a Child Protection Care Plan as being subject to or at risk of abuse."

 

Bristol, City of :

 

"A. The number of persons in the local authority compulsory school age who are being home educatated that have a CP trace are 9. Our records do not show whether they are involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude."

"B None"

 

on further investigation they answered:

 

"At 31-03-09 there were 345 children who were the subjects of Child Protection Plans in Bristol. Of these, 165 were of school age - from year 0 (reception) to year 11. According to the 2007 mid-year population estimates, there were 49,500 children aged 5 to 16 in Bristol. So the ratio of school-aged CP cases to school-aged general population is 1 : 300.

The main categories or reasons for the Child Protection plans of these 165 children were:

Physical harm or abuse 22 - 13.3%

Emotional harm 73 - 44.2%

Sexual abuse 22 - 13.3%

Neglect 48 - 29.1%

TOTAL165

 

Often, children with a Child Protection plan are in sibling groups, so the 165 cases mentioned above relate to fewer than 100 families. Similarly, the 22 instances of children at risk of sexual abuse are likely to be in about a dozen families. The database which contains information on the child protection status of children does not contain information detailed information about their schooling. Therefore it is not possible to show exactly which schools these children attend.

C Murton is interested in the numbers of children of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude;.

My understanding from you is that there are 70 children who are educated otherwise in Bristol. As there is a ratio of school-aged CP cases to school-aged children in the general population is 1 : 300, it is unlikely that there are any school-aged children on with a Child Protection Plan who are educated otherwise

I hope this is of some help.

 

 

Bromley:

 

A. - 1

 

(Further investigation established this to be one founded case of neglect - educational and other welfare)

 

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

No serious case review but a management review undertaken by the LSCB in relation to that case.

 

 

Buckinghamshire:

 

"A - There are 178 children on the home educated list and none had a Child Protection Plan as at 31st March 2009.

B - Nil return.

Executive summaries of serious case reviews are available on the Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board website

(http://www.bucks-lscb.org.uk/Serious_Cas...)."

 

Bury:

 

A. Nil

B.Nil"

 

Calderdale Borough Council:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/8703/response/21687/attach/html/4/FOI%203225%20Appleby%20Questionnaire.doc.html as part of Q response, answers indicate that no cover for abuse and no SCRs for ehe children

 

and in response to FOI query:

"1. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

Answer: 2 - however we do not keep a record of forced marriage or domestic servitude."

(Clarification sought)

and received:

"Following enquiries neither case became subject to a child protection plan."

"2. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

Answer: none"

 

Cambridgeshire :

 

"There are currently 278 children who are registered with us as being home-educated, although it

should be noted that there is no obligation to register this status with the County Council, so I am

unable to say whether this figure accurately represents the total number of children. We do hold

information relating to child protection issues, however, this information is not available in a format that

allows us to identify which home educated children are subject to child protection proceedings. In order

to locate this information, we would require examination of individual child protection records. We have

estimated that locating and extracting the information will cost more than the appropriate limit and are

therefore refusing this request on these grounds under s.12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act."

 

and later:

 

"I write with reference to your follow up email of 29th April, in which you request the following additional

information;

It seems particularly worrying that a local authority cannot readily ascertain whether a certain group of

children appear to be at risk. Baroness Delyth Morgan has claimed that elective home education can

be used as a cover for the abuses mentioned, which is puzzling to me seeing as so many LAs are not

able to collate that information. Can you confirm that it is not possible that Ms Morgan could have come

to that conclusion from information from your LA?

This request has been dealt with in line with the Freedom of Information Act and I can confirm that we

do not hold the information. "

 

Camden :

 

A.

None of the home educated pupils in Camden fall into this category.

B.

No home educated children in Camden have been the subject of a serious case review. As part of a Joint Area Review, a number of case files are reviewed, however none of these have been in relation to home educated children."

 

Cheshire :

supplied a somewhat confusing chart at

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/9848/response/29394/attach/html/2/EHE%20social%20care.doc.html

 

I have asked for clarification and a reply consistent with the question asked but it appears that:

 

There are 244 homed educated children on the books in Cheshire.

Of those, 57 are "known to Social Care"

It would appear that these may be children with SENs, children who have been referred for any number of reasons, children who have been investigated but no problems found etc etc.

There are 47 closed cases - one assumes no problem continues or was found if the case has been closed.

There are 8 cases still open - this does not mean they are proven to be problematic as they may still be under investigation.

The chart does not appear to account for the other two cases that would make up the 57.

 

43 cases are referred to under the heading "Section 17"

12 cases are referred to under the heading "Section 47"

4 cases are referred to under the heading "Disabilities"

These add up to more than 57 so there must be some overlap. Given the number of closed cases it would appear that these were referals that were mainly not founded.

 

"The detail you requested in your original email (how many suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude) is not easily available; we do not gather the information in these categories. Therefore to answer your request in this detail would mean a member of staff going through each child's case file - this will exceed the 'appropriate limits' set out in section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act and guidance from the Information Commissioner.

In answer to your second question no serious case reviews have been reported in respect of children in elective home education in Cheshire East or Cheshire West and Chester. "

 

Cheshire also said

 

"In the areas covered by Cheshire East Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council there was at the time of your initial request, 244 children who are in elective home education. Of those 244 children 57 children were known to social services - this meant that social services have had cause to investigate (section 47 of the Children's Act 1989) or the child is 'in need' (section 47 of the Children's Act 1989). 4 of the 244 children educated at home had disabilities. 8 cases were still being investigated and were therefore at this time recorded as 'open'.

Every referral made to Children's Social Care is considered individually according to the information presented and gathered around the children's wellbeing and any risks that may be apparent. It is therefore not possible or appropriate to conclude from the information above that referrals were 'unfounded' or to assume that such referrals were related to the Elective Home Education circumstances of the Children. For example referrals may have been made before the child was Home Educated or by individuals that had no knowledge of the Home Education arrangements.

In the context of the above, a response to your other queries on; whether the proportion of referrals that turn out to be 'unfounded' is peculiar to Home Educated Children, and if the number of 'false' referrals reflects a policy that causes such a position - is not possible because it is based on an inappropriate interpretation of the initial data provided.

For the avoidance of doubt I can confirm that there is no Policy in Cheshire East Council that recommends or promotes referrals of Home Educated Children to Children to Social Care."

 

City of London :

 

A.

Nil

.

B. Nil.

 

Cornwall ;

replied:

 

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

 

The Council's Safeguarding Manager in the Children, Schools and Families Directorate has said that this information is not routinely reported to the Safeguarding Unit so the Council does not hold this information.

 

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.?

 

 

The Council's Safeguarding Manager has said there are none that she is aware of.

 

Number of elective home educated children 2009:

Under 5          3

5-10            130

11-15          216

16+                0

 

(A further question has been asked about who holds the information re QA)

 

Cornwall als said: "The CSF

cannot comment on how Ms Morgan may have come to her conclusions and

have no data or correspondence on this issue recorded. We have nothing

further to add to this request at this time."

 

Coventry :

 

Coventry answered 0 to both questions 51 and 52 of the 60 Qs sent to LAs by Badman

 

"Q51 Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a 'cover' for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect?"

 

"Q52 Please use this space to add detail to the answer you have just given. Please include the number of Serious Case Reviews you know about that have a home education element."

 

Croydon :

 

"We have conducted a search into our records and confirm that there was

one record of elective home education with a child protection referral

(now closed) and one on-going with a child protection plan in place."

 

Cumbria :

 

"The number of young people of compulsory school age who are electively home educated, or claim to be electively home educated who have been found to be involved in child abuse such as neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude is zero (0). This information was checked as part of the current DCSF Consultation February 2009"

2. There have been no seriours case reviews.

The Joint Area Review (JAR) was a review of Children's Services as a whole and was carried out in 2005 with the report coming out in Autumn 2006. It was a review of systems and case notes within Children's Services; it was not a review of particular child cases as such but of case notes. The JAR is exempt under FOIA Section 21 - Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means. The JAR is available on the Council's web site.

 

Darlington :

 

"None of the children currently registered for elective home education are either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

There have been no serious case reviews or joint area reviews conducted on electively home educated children residing within the borough of Darlington."

 

Derby City

Referred me to the relevant section of their Review response, copied here.

 Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a 'cover' for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect?

There have been less than 5 cases where children have been subject to Child Protection Plans where they have been home educated. The concerns are that these children are not monitored by a multi-agency core group and there are doubts about whether parents are equipped to educate their children. 

Please include the number of Serious Case Reviews you know about that have a home education element.

No serious case reviews have involved children who have been home educated

 

Derbyshire :

Derbyshire replied on the first working day after the request was made, with a full response, not just an acknowledgement!

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

None that we are aware of.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

None that we are aware of."

 

Devon :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

 

Doncaster :

"In order to determine whether any electively home educated children have been or suspected to be involved in any of the aforementioned issues a total of 227 files will need to be reviewed.

We estimate that each home educated child's file will require a 15-minute investigation per file. As details of 227 files require review in order to determine this information this would result in a total time of approximately 56 hours and therefore classed as excessive.

We can advise you that we are able to check 70 of the above mentioned files for the information you have requested within the set time limits, if this amount information would be useful to you we would be grateful if you could advise and will be happy to collate these figure and respond to you appropriately.

In response to question 2 of your request we can advise you that there have been no serious case reviews which have reported with respect to home-educated children in the LA."

 

Dorset County Council

No child abuse or SCR stats i.e. no cases of abuse But Extra note from 2007 EHE guidelines from Dorset: Q6 "Some access to the children needs to be considered as child protection is an overwhelming consideration"

 

Dudley

 

A.  0

B.  0

 

Durham

A.

Nil. In relation to Question A, of those parents electively home educating who are known to the Local Authority, the answer to the question is nil. However, parents are not obliged to notify the local authority that they are home educating so our response is only based on those that we are aware of.

B.

Nil."

Ealing :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

 

 

East Riding of Yorkshire :

I confirm that the Council holds some information in relation to point a) of your request and this is set out below.

 

Over the past 5 years there have been 245 pupils electively home educated.

 

However in relation to point b) in this instance the information cannot be communicated to you. This is because the information regarding home education is not recorded against information such as child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. To cross reference this information would mean manually checking the appropriate system for each of the 245 cases.

 

15/4/09 - East Riding replied further (after an amended request):

 

"Further to your email below officers can now provide you with a response based on the last 12 months only.

Question A - Only one person on the Home Educated list has been referred to the Coouncil with a suspicion of abuse.

Question B - None"

16/4/09 - East Riding replied to a further question:

"I can confirm that the one case was unfounded."

 

East Sussex :

" I have been advised by colleagues in our Children's Services department that information about children educated other than at school, and information about children with a child protection plan, are held on two separate databases. To provide the information you have requested we would need to manually match information from the databases and an officer with specialist knowledge of child protection would need to review the matched cases to identify which children fit the categories you have specified (these are not categories used by the Council). This would result in creation of new information, which we are not required to do under the FOI Act. I attach the relevant text below:

I have been further advised that there have been no Serious Case Reviews regarding home educated children. Your reference to Joint Area Reviews is not understood in this context."

when asked therefore to provide answers to Q51 and Q52 of the 60 Q survey by Mr Badman, they eventually replied;

"East Sussex received two versions of the questionnaire that you are referring to.

- The first version was a web-version, which we were unable to save electronically and therefore did not complete.

- The second version was a word document, which we were able to complete, save and return. This version consisted of 26 questions only.

Questions 51 and 52 did not exist in the version of the questionnaire that we responded to. Rather than return a nil response to your request on these grounds, we mapped your query against the version of the

questionnaire that we did complete to find the most relevant questions.

On this basis we told you how we had answered question 22.

We told you that we answered question 22: "We do not collect this data".

Our actually wording was: "The authority does not keep this data". The

error was down to miscommunication, and for this I apologise."

 

Enfield :

In relation to the questions , over the last three years, there have been the following issues in relation to elective home education.

Three children have been involved with Enfield Social Services. 2 have moved out of borough (1 of which is still being monitored by Enfield Social Services and child still subject to Child Protection Plan) and 1 has been integrated back into school. One other child was accommodated because of neglect.

 

1 Serious Case Review (child death)

 

Essex county:

 

 

extract from 60Qs sent to LAs by Badman:

 

"Q51 Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a 'cover' for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect?

 

 

 

None

 

 

Q52 Please use this space to add detail to the answer you have just given. Please include the number of Serious Case Reviews you know about that have a home education element.

 

 

None

 

Gateshead :

The answer to both questions is none

 

Gloucestershire :

  1. - We have no known electively home educated children in the categories specified in (A).

    B.

    - There has been one Serious Case Review in Gloucestershire for children who were registered as electively home educated. You can find the executive summary of that Review at

www.gscb.org.uk/home/subcommittees/serious.htm

 

also:

 

Gloucestershire County Council holds information relating to those who are electively home educated for the last three years. Within that period we have no known electively home educated children in the categories specified by you in your original request.

 

Please note that the details of those who are electively home educated are only held if the parents wish to register them, and then the only details held are those the parents choose to give.

 

Greenwich :

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

2 children from the same family were subject to neglect, we have none

of the other incidents recorded or found.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

I can confirm that in the last few years there has never been a SCR in relation to a child who is educated at home. In 2007 the Joint Area Review report have reported with respect to multi -agency support for families and young people who are educated at home.

 

Hackney :

 

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

They are 45 families, of which 35 children are of secondary age and 22 of primary age (57 children in total are home educated). We have NONE that have been suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

There have been NO serious case reviews or joint area reviews with regard to EHE children.

 

Halton :

 

There have been no s47 (Children Act) investigations in relation to

electively home educating families in Halton.  The question does not specify

a period of time and our  answer is based on the period of time the current

Manager has worked at Halton BC i.e. 4 yrs and not on a review of records

prior to this.

There have been no Serious Case Reviews where the children are elective home

educated, in the same period.

 

 

Hammersmith and Fulham :

"No persons in the local authority of compulsory school age and currently home educated, or claiming to be, have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

No Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have been reported with respect to children currently home educated in the LA."

when asked about cases over the past 5 years, interestingly they made an online error and posted an internal memo on WDTK

"As was predicted, follow-up from C Murton.

Liz - is there you feel should be added to a further refusal response, eg "to our recollection, however, in the last 5 years there have been no .."?

Jon/Alison - would that even be advisable? Should I simply repeat the refusal? Any advice?

Thanks,

Broady Terry"

but then responded to the request with:

"I have spoken with the department who provided the response and they have confirmed that while they are able to report on current cases (of which there have been none), data on cases for the past 5 years is not held in a way which can be easily retrieved. To find if children have been subject to joint review or serious case review would involve going back through all the individual files for the past 5 years to check. It is for this reason that the response claims s.12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, in that to carry out this exercise would exceed the Appropriate Limit as set by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees Charges) Regulations 2004.

I am sorry that this was not made clear in the original response."

 

So it seems most probable that no-one at this LA recalls any cases over the past 5 years but don't feel able to offer that information!

Interesting that they also predicted the follow-up question but didn't bother to be more generous in their original reply in order to avaoid that!

 

 

Hampshire :

 

Said it was too expensive to answer question A.

and

"With regards to question B we have responded to this part of your request in full.

 

No Hampshire Serious Case Review has reported on a child or young person who was electively home educated e.g. who was being educated other than at school and therefore not on any Hampshire school role."

 

The key judgements and evidence to be used in Joint Area Reviews and Annual Performance Assessments were set out in the Every Child Matters: change for children programme (December 2004).

 

The JAR of Hampshire Children's Services 2007 did not investigate or report specifically on home educated children and any associated risks."

 

Later Hampshire provided further information:

 

we asked

"Please would you supply me with the council's answer to the

 

review questions 51 and 52? "

 

Hampshire replied:

"In the Independent Review of Home Education in England questionnaire

that was received and completed by Hampshire County Council there was no

questions 51 or 52. The situation is further complicated by the fact

that the copy we were asked to complete had two questions numbered 22

and 23.

However it appears clear from your previous communication that the

question you are specifically interested in is the first question 22 in

the review document

Thinking about your local area in the last five years how many cases

have you come across that use the premise of home education as 'cover'

for child abuse, forced marriages or other aspects of child neglect?

I can confirm that Hampshire Children's Services' response to this

question of the Independent Review of Home Education in England was

zero."

 

Haringey :

 

"Excluding those listed as being home educated whilst the school they attend completes its independent school registration, there are on average 45 elective home educated children per year that are known to the local authority. Of these there are 4-5 cases/ 2-3 families per year referred or already known to Children and Families for the reasons given, which is on average 10% of children and young people known to be home educated.

 

There have been no serious case reviews in relation to home educated children resident in our local authority."

 

Pdf file further detailing Haringey abuse stats.

 

 

Harrow :

 

1. Nil

2. Nil

 

 

Hartlepool :

 

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated: Response: 11

 

and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. Response: Nil.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA. Response: Nil."

 

 

Havering :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

 

 

Herefordshire :

 

"1. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school

age who are, or claimed to be, Effectively Home Educated and who have

been either suspected of or found to be involved in child abuse, child

neglect , forced marriage , sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

Answer:- 2

 

 

2. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have

 reported with respect to home educated children in the LA. Answer nil.

Further to your email of 30 April seeking clarification of the

information provided to you, we can confirm that one child was not found

to have suffered abuse. With respect to the other child, there is

concern that there may have been abuse and investigation and assessment

continues. The child now has a plan in place to keep them safe."

 

 

Hertfordshire :

 

 

"1. Hertfordshire County Council holds records of one case of a person in the local authority of compulsory school age who claimed to be Electively Home Educated and who have been suspected of being involved in child abuse, child neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

 

2. No Serious Case Review or Joint Area Review have been reported with respect to home educated children in Hertfordshire County Council."

 

further clarification has been requested

 

 

Hillingdon :

 

1.

 

NIL

2.

 

NIL

 

 

Hounslow :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

 

 

Isle of Wight :

 

1. Data is not

collected regarding the reason of elective home education however, out of the 183

children on the EHE register, less than 5 are known for one of the reasons

stated above.

Isles of Scilly :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

Islington :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

 

 

Kensington and Chelsea :

>1.

 

We currently have 35 children of compulsory school age where parents have elected to educate them at home.

None have been identified as being abused, neglected or subjected to forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

2.

None."

 

 

Kent :

 

To enable us to correctly answer your request, I have been asked to seek

clarification on the following:

a. Is this reference to the parent or the child who is being educated at

home. I.e. child as abuser or being abused?

b. With reference to Joint Area Reviews, can he confirm that he is

referring to the inspection framework for LAs?

 

Replied:

 

Thank you for your reply,

a. I confirm that my request relates to children who are abused not

child as abuser.

b. I confirm that I am referring to the inspection framework for

LAs.

 

KCC response:

 

A. Although local records indicate the status of all Children Educated at Home, the KCC central system does not record information relating to abuse or claims of abuse. These matters would be dealt with at an individual pupil level. As such, it would be extremely time consuming to pull this together for the purpose of this request. We estimate that this would exceed the £450 cost limit (equivalent to 18 hours work at the £25 hourly rate set by the Ministry of Justice). Therefore under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we are not obliged to comply with your request and are exercising our right to refuse to deal.

We are in the process of enhancing our central records to enable this to be collated more readily, but as we would currently have to do this via files, we hope this will be completed by September. If you wish to reapply for this information we will be happy to reconsider your request after September.

B. There has been one Serious Case Review over the last five years. This did not directly relate to a child educated at home it did however, concern a younger sibling.

Based on the information supplied by the Local Authority during the Joint Area Review in 2008, the JAR report noted as follows:

from Paragraph 26 in Safeguarding Section:

There are effective systems of support in place for children absent from school for medical reasons. Good procedures are in place for children to be suitably educated at home, including those children and young people with statements of educational need. Clear protocols and tracking processes are in place for missing children and children missing education.

from paragraph 45 in children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities section:

Provision for those being educated at home is regularly and rigorously reviewed.

 

 

Kingston upon Hull :

 

We have not identified any home educated individuals who were suspected

or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual

exploitation or domestic servitude and there are no relevant Serious

Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews.

 

 

Kingstonupon Thames :

>A. No children or young people meet this criteria.

 

B. No Serious Case Reviews have been reported for home educated children. Joint Area Reviews do not deal with individual cases.

 

 

Kirklees :

 from 60 questionnaire

"Q51 Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have

you come across that use the premise of home education as a 'cover' for child

abuse, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect?

 

 

None

 

Q52 Please use this space to add detail to the answer you have just given.

Please include the number of Serious Case Reviews you know about that have a

home education element.

No response "

 

 

 

Knowlsey :

 

A.

 

None.

B.

 

 

 

None.

 

 

 

Lambeth :

 

 

 

 

 

Lancashire :

 

1.

There are no known cases of child protection concern in respect of electively home educated (EHE) children.

If the Elective Home Education Service had any suspicions of child protection concern regarding a particular child, the case would be referred to the Integrated Assessment & Support Team, whereupon an investigation would be conducted. However, the County Council's Social Services casework database does not have a resource code for EHE children, and the Elective Home Education Service does not keep a record of any such referrals. As such, the only way to ascertain how many referrals to Social Services of EHE children had been made due to suspicions of child protection concern would be a manual social services record check against all EHE children from the last 3 years. This would require a manual search and cross-referencing of many hundreds of individuals' details and records, across several social services offices throughout the County, plus interrogation of the casework database...

2.

There are no such cases

 

 

 

Leeds:

awaiting data

 

 

 

Leicester City :

awaiting data

 

 

 

Leicestershire county

 

wrote in their 6Q consultation response:

"Some people have expressed concern that home education could be used as a cover for child abuse, forced marriage, domestic servitude or other forms of child neglect.  What do you think Government should do to ensure this does not happen?

Answer:  There is no evidence in this local authority that home education is used as such a cover."

 

and to the 60Q Questionaire:

 

 

Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a 'cover' for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect?

 

 

 

Nil

 

There have been a few cases where a home educated child has been the subject of child protection concerns: this is probably statistically inevitable. There is no evidence that Home Education has been used in a deliberate attempt to cover up child abuse.  There have been no Serious Case Reviews with home education as an element.

 

 

 

Lewisham :

 

 We confirm that no information is currently held in relation to your specific request A, this information is currently not recorded and held in a readily accessible format. For your specific request B, we confirm that no cases were reported of this nature.

We hope you will find this information helpful.

 

 

 

Lincolnshire :

 

A.

- The number of pupils who are currently registered with Lincolnshire County Council as Electively Home Educating (EHE) as of today's date is 432.

- Children's Services do not separately record this information. Details would be held on the 432 individual files. It would be necessary to review each file in order to comply with yur request. We estimate that it would take approximately 30 minutes to review each file to check for the information you have requested....

 

B.

- Lincolnshire County Council do not have any Serious Case Reviews involving a child who was electively home educated.

 

 

 

Liverpool : 

 

There are currently 40 children on the secondary school age register, one is expected to return to school after Easter, but also expect 2 more children to join this list before the end of this month. 

There are 21 primary school age children on this list and again one child returning to school straight after Easter. 

Presently there are no children who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude on the register of home educated children and no Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the Local Authority. 

 

 

0x01 graphic

 

 

 

Luton :

 

 

replied  (Clarification sought and refused)

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are,

or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or

found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or

domestic servitude.

There is one electively home educated child about whom possible child

protection concerns were registered.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported

with respect to home educated children in the LA.

 

 

None

 

 

Manchester

 

There are no individuals, of compulsory school age who are electively home educated, who have been suspected or found to be involved in child abuse,neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. Therefore on this occasion the Council does not hold the information you have requested.

 

 

 

No Serious Case Reviews or the Joint Area Review in April 2006 have reported on home educated children. 

 

 

 

Medway

"Medway would only be aware of this information if a referral had been made to investigate a case of suspected abuse."

and

"We have n

ot been asked to undertake any serious case reviews into these circumstances."

 

 

 

Merton :

 

At 31/3/09 we have 36 children registered as home educated. 

We have had not had any serious case reviews.

The number of home educated children that are the subject of a child protection plan at 31/3/09 is five or less.  Please note that because the number of children is five or less, the exact figure will not be provided.  This information is considered exempt under section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act, 2000, as disclosure could contravene the Data Protection Act, 1998.  This is because this information consists of sensitive personal data, and when it relates to only a small number of individuals, they are potentially identifiable. 

 

In order to comply with the Freedom of Information Act, you are advised that this letter acts as a refusal notice to providing the exact number of home educated children subject to a child protection plan.  However, I hope that the information that we have provided is useful to you. "

 

A further request has been made of Merton Council:

 

A reply has been received from C Luckhoo:

 

"At 31/3/09 we have 36 children registered as home educated.

To clarify your question below, if the number were zero then we would

report it as zero.

If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours Sincerely

Chrissy Luckhoo"

 

and an appeal against limited supply of info resulted in 

"My decision is that your appeal is unsuccessful. Whilst I accept that other organisations may reach different conclusions, I consider that the disclosure of information broken down to the degree that you have requested may enable some people to identify those children affected."

 

 

 

Middlesbrough :

QA.

 

Response: Middlesbrough Council does not hold the information you

requested. The information you requested above are criminal acts and as

such the information is held by

Cleveland Police.

 

QB.

 

Response: None"

 

 

 

Clarification was sought:

Can you explain why you asked me to clarify the target group if

believe you don't hold the information anyway?

Can you confirm that if the LA are informed about

allegations/suspicions of the issues I mentioned in relation to an

electively home educated person of compulsory school age, that they

would not record that information?

Can you confirm, that in light of Baroness Delyth Morgan's

assertion that elective home education can be used as a cover for

the abuses/issues mentioned, that her view could not have been

informed by data supplied by your LA?

 

 

 

Middlesborough replied again:

 

"I will start by addressing the first point in your email. Prior to

starting any search for information requested via a Freedom of Information

request it is necessary to obtain full details/facts of the information

being requested. If this is not clear in the initial request, we will

contact the requester to obtain further clarification prior to the request

being progressed. This is why we wrote to you on 7th April. You

responded on 7th April with further information and we then proceeded to

search for the information you requested.

Following a search for the requested information following receipt of your

clarification, it became apparent that we do not hold the information. I

have provided a link below to the local authority guidelines issued by DC

SF in relation to Elective Home Education.

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/localauthorities/...

The following explanation may help you to understand why we don't hold the

requested information.

Parents may decide to exercise their right to home educate their child

from a very early age and so the child may not have been previously

enrolled at school. They may also elect to home educate at any other stage

up to the end of compulsory school age. Parents are not required to

register or seek approval from the local authority to educate their

children at home.

Whilst local authorities are notified by schools of pupils that have been

withdrawn from school, the reasons for this are not provided. The Local

authority would act upon receiving such information from schools by

contacting the parent(s) to try to arrange a meeting/home visit to discuss

the matter with a view to establishing whether or not a suitable

alternative home education is being provided. Unfortunately under the

current guidelines, parents are under no obligation to agree to a meeting

or to give a reason why they wish their child to receive home education.

Once a local authority Achievement Service receives notification from a

school that a child has been withdrawn, checks would be carried out with

various other agencies such as Police, the local authority Intervention

and Safeguarding Service etc. to find out if the family/child are known

for any reason that should cause a concern. At this point if a child is

known by another agency, a decision would be taken by the local authority

as to whether the case should be referred to the appropriate organisation

e.g. Police, the local authority Intervention and Safeguarding Service

etc for investigation. Any referral would be logged on an individual's

file however, the case would be managed solely by another organisation or

a joint working approach may be adopted between relevant agencies. If a

case is referred to another organisation for investigation, the local

authority Achievement Service would have no further involvement other

than to determine whether the parent is providing an alternative suitable

home education for the child. To make it clear, at no time would any

criminal proceedings or details of the nature you refer to, be recorded in

the local authority Elective Home Education system other than to confirm

that the child/family are known to another organisation e.g. Police/

Intervention and Safeguarding Service and whether the case has been

referred accordingly. These procedures have been put in place since the

Serious Case Reviews that have been publicised during 2008 and to date no

concerns have been raised by other agencies in relation to the

safeguarding of children who parents have elected to home educate. Prior

to this no other relevant records were kept by the local authority.

It is therefore not possible for the local authority to provide

information on the number of suspected cases linked to home education

relating to the issues you requested (child abuse, neglect, forced

marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude), due to the fact that

the reason for elective home schooling is not always determined and due to

the fact that we do not hold such detailed information on record.

Finally I refer to the last paragraph of your email concerning Baroness

Delyth Morgan. The Freedom of Information Act only applies to information

held, I therefore cannot comment on what Baroness Delyth based her

views/findings on."

 

 

 

Milton Keynes

 

a)

 

 

Milton Keynes Council has 118 families who have elected to home educate their children,

 

 

however we do not hold information relating to whether they have been either suspected or

 

 

found to be involved in the above categories. If those working with this group have concerns

 

 

they would pass their evidence to the appropriate child protection professionals who are

 

 

responsible for coordinating the appropriate responses and support.

b)

 

 

There have been none.

"

A further request has been made to Milton Keynes

and the reply:

"Milton Keynes Council can confirm that none of the children who are currently home educated have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic abuse."

Newcastle upon Tyne

 

"A.

 

2 cases - 1 in relation to child abuse and 1 in relation to neglect

B.

 

0 cases

 

 

clarification has been requested

 

 

Newham :

 

"Part A Question

The answer to Part A is that

 

the Local Authority does not have a complete picture

of

the number of pupils who are home educated. Parents who have always home

educated their children (ie whose children have never been to state school) are not

required to inform the Local Authority. There are currently 59 children known to be

home educated in Newham.

The Authority has a duty under Section 175(1) of the Education Act 2002 to

safeguard and promote the welfare of children. This section states:

“A local education authority shall make arrangements for ensuring that the functions

conferred upon them in their capacity as a local education authority are exercised

with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.”(Children Act2004, Ch.31, Pt.2, Section 10)

 

Where a home educated pupil is on a Child Protection Register, it may well appear to

 

the local authority that an adequate education is not taking place.

 

Part B Question

How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.?

Our response to Part B question is none."

 

after further questioning Newham eventually replied:

"I have conducted a Stage 2 internal review and searched our records again in order

to respond to this part of your request. Our initial response and Stage 1 response

stated that there were currently 59 children known to be home educated in Newham.

We therefore supplied the information requested in relation to the number of children

home educated. However, we may not have been clear in our response to this part

of your request. I therefore can confirm that we do not currently have any children

with a Child Protection Plan who are home educated."

 

 

Norfolk :

"There have been no cases where there has been a direct link between

someone becoming home educated and being involved in child abuse,

neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. We

have about 6 children per year who NCC would say are neglected insofar

as their parents deregister them in order to avoid court proceedings but

do not actually take any responsibility for their education.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have

reported with respect to home educated children in the LA?

There have been no Serious Case Reviews relating to home educated

children. NCC attends, on average, two Child Protection Conferences a

year where the child is home educated."

 

_________

Norfolk replied to a request for a copy of the 60 question submission:

"Reason for Refusal

The exemption applies for the following reasons:-

(a) The disclosure of information contained in questions 3, 13, 15,

18, 21, 23 (part 1) and 24, would inhibit the free and frank exchange of

views for the purposes of deliberation (Section 36 b(ii)). If this

information were disclosed, replies to consultations such as this in the

future would not be made so fully as we would have to be more

circumspect in the way we would reply.

(b) The disclosure would otherwise prejudice the effective conduct of

public affairs. The disclosure of this information would mean that

relations with Home educators would be damaged, and the ability of the

relevant officers to perform their roles would be prejudiced (Section

36(c)).

Public Interest Test Reasons

The Council has not yet reached a decision that the public interest in

maintaining this exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

I expect that a decision will have been reached by 14 May 2009. If this

timescale needs to be revised, you will be notified of the reasons and

provided with a revised timetable."

 

 

How intriguing - they think that something they have said will damage their relationship with HEers!

 

 

 

North East Lincolnshire :

" 1.

 

 We currently have 50 children registered as Educated Other Than At School, of those 50, 4 have been subject to Child Protection enquiries or investigations.

2.

Nil."

when further asked:

"Thank you for supplying this information. Can you please clarify whether the four cases you cite were suspicions or whether upon investigation or enquiry they were founded?",

NE Lincs replied:

 

"In response to your email sent on 22nd April 2009, all of the four cases mentioned were previous Child Protection concerns, and were not related to the time of home education."

 

 

 

 

North Lincolnshire :

 

a) There have been no persons of compulsory school age who are, or claim to be, electively home-educated and who have been suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude in our authority.

b) There have been no Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews that have reported in respect to home-educated children in our authority.

 

 

North Somerset :

 

North Somerset Council does not have any EHE pupils who have either been suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

 

How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Review have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

 

and later wrote

"

Further to your request, please see our response below:

 

 

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory

 

school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and

 

who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child

 

abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic

 

servitude.

 

 

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews

 

have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA

 

As no time frame was stipulated upon your request North Somerset Council has viewed 10 years worth of information and can confirm the answer to the above questions is None."

 

 

 

N/A"

 

 

North Tyneside :

 

A.

 

Response:

None

 

B.

 

Response:

None"

 

 

 

North Yorkshire :

"In North Yorkshire, there are 164 children who are electively home educated. Of that number, two are logged on our database under the category of abuse or neglect. We do not hold data on the other categories referred to in your request - forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

In reference to your second question, I confirm that none of the four Serious Case Reviews which are published on the North Yorkshire Safeguarding website refer to any home education issues. The Joint Area Review report for 2006, which is published on the North Yorkshire County Council website, also does not contain any reportage on home education issues."

clarification has been sought

 

Northamptonshire :

"QA the answer is 3 and

 

QB is 0 - there have been no Serious Case Reviews around home schooling."

 

 

Can you please clarify your response. I would like to know if the 3 cases you cite were

 

suspicion only or founded’,

 

"Our Response

Two were confirmed and one was suspected."

 

 

Northumberland county:

"Q1) The number of persons in the local authority(LA) of compulsory school age who are

electively home educated

A) 57 young people are currently home educated

 

 

Q2) The number of persons in the LA who claim to be electively home educated; who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced

marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude?

A) Zero - Our teacher advisors would work closely with Children's Services if there were Child Protection concerns and home education would be advised against.

 

Q3) How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews have been reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

A) Zero - Again our teacher advisors would work closely with Children's Services if there were Child Protection concerns and home education would be advised against."

 

 

 

Nottingham City

There were sixty-three home education cases that warranted further investigation by children's social care. However, in order to identify how many of those sixty-three investigations resulted in findings that matched your criteria it would be necessary to interrogate each file individually.

Please find below a table detailing the total number of Child Protection Plans in place as of 31st May 2009 which you may find useful.[ AHED note: nb these are all children - not just  - or maybe not at all - EHE children]

 

Child Protection Plans by abuse Category as at 31/03/09

Emotional abuse

48

Emotional/Physical abuse

93

Emotional/Sexual abuse

1

Neglect

106

Neglect/Emotional abuse

62

Neglect/Emotional/Sexual abuse

13

Neglect/Physical abuse

22

Neglect/Physical/Sexual abuse

1

Neglect/Sexual abuse

12

Not recorded

1

Physical injury

23

Physical/Emotional/Neglect

16

Physical/Emotional/Sexual abuse

4

Physical/Neglect/Sexual/Emotional

1

Physical/Sexual abuse

3

Sexual abuse

12

 

 

 

Total

 

 

 

418

 

When asked how many school pupils had a child protection plan as of 31/3/09, Nott. City LA could only say that 213 "school aged" children had a CPP and that it would cost over £3000 to check if any of these were home educated. This does mean however that 205 of the above mentioned CPP's were for non school aged children.

 

 

Nottinghamshire

 

I can inform you that of the 326 children who are educated at home none fall into the categories you have listed.

I hope this information is useful. "

 

strangely I have had this response today 6/5/09 from Nottinghamshire:

"Further to your request regarding the above I can now respond as follows:

1. There are currently two children in the local authority of compulsory

school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and

who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child

abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic

servitude.

In addition there have been a small number of other children currently

electively home educated about whom there have been concerns raised but

these concerns were not substantiated.

B. There have been no Serious Case Reviews or similar types of reviews with

respect to home educated children in the LA."

 

"in response to your request for clarification to our reply to your FOI

request, I can now respond as follows:

* Regarding the two children who we identified at point one, concerns

surrounded neglect in relation to both children.

* There were 5 other children where concerns raised were not

substantiated."

 

Update: July 2009. The case of the two children about whom there were concerns (neglect) was found to be unsubstantiated in court. Number of EHE children found to be involved in child abuse neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude is therefore: 0 

 

Oldham :

 

"1)

The number of persons of in the local authority of compulsory school age who are electively home educated is currently 54. None of which have been suspected or found to be involved in the named categories.

2)

NOTICE OF REFUSAL. ISSUED UNDER SECTION 17, FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, (2000). Section 40 - we cannot disclose the information to you because it would be a breach of the Data Protection Act."

 

clarification is being requested.

 

 

 

 

Oxfordshire :

1) .

Oxfordshire County Council has one record of a child being electively home educated where abuse was alleged.

2)

None.

 

we asked:

"Please can you clarify whether this one recorded case was found to be an actual case of abuse or an unfounded suspicion."

Oxon LA replied:

"Oxfordshire County Council can confirm that the matter did not become a child protection issue."

 

 

 

 

 

Peterborough :

 

"1)

PCC can confirm that within the last two years:

 

 

 

1 child abuse case

5 child neglect cases within two families"

 

and to clarify  "[The figures we already supplied relate to numbers of children

I child was involved in child abuse, 5 children in two families were involved in neglect. - 3 families 6 children in total.]

2)

 

None"

 

 

 

 

Plymouth :

 

 

Answe    The local Authority knows of one child, who is home educated, who is known to be involved in one of the categories set out in your question.

 

Q2           How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

 

Answer: None.

 

 

 

 

 

Poole :

 

 

 

 

1) Response: Two

2) Response: Nil"

 

and

"The two cases referred to in part one were actual cases of abuse. "

 

 

 

 

 

Portsmouth:

1) The senior manager responsible for Children Services has

provided the following response: "The number of children involved in

both ELE as well as who meet the description in the request is so small

that there is a risk of breaching the child(ren) and family's rights

under Data Protection and Human Rights Acts."

2) PCC does not hold any recorded information and provides a Nil

response.

 

 

 

 

Reading :

1) There are currently 55 children of compulsory school age who are home

educated. None have Protection Plans. It should be noted that if a

family elects to home educate from 5 years we may not be aware of this

arrangement.

2)

None of the 55 children are the subject of a Serious Case Review."

 

 

 

 

Redbridge :

a partial response received 1/04/09:

 

"The London Borough of Redbridge does not hold the information regarding the number of persons of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, Electively Home Educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, child neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

There have been no Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews that have reported with respect to home-educated children in this Local Authority"

 

A further request has been made.

 

 

 

 

Redcar and Cleveland :

1) The Council is not aware of any home educated child that falls under this category of child abuse, child neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. (nil response)

 

2)  There have been no Serious Case reviews in respect of children home educated.

 

Also home education was not a feature of our JAR. (nil response)"

 

 

 

 

Richmond upon Thames :

 

 

 

 

1) None

 

 

 

2)None

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rochdale borough council

(1) Nos of school added children who are electively home educated - 79

(2) Nos found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced

 

 

 

marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude - 0

 

 

 

(3) Serious case reviews and home-educated children - 0

 

 

 

 

Rotherham

a)  I can confirm that the answer is none.

 

 

b)   I can confirm that the answer is none."

 

 

 

 

Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead:

 

31 ehe families; no abuse stats or SCRs (serious case reviews) i.e. no cases of abuse

 

 

 

Rutland :

 

"The answer to both questions A and B is none for this authority."

 

 

 

Salford

 

A.

This information would not be disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act as it would constitute personal data and so fall within the Section 40 Exemption.

 

B.

No Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have been reported with respect to home educated children in Salford City Council."

 

A review of Salford's handling of the enquiry has been requested.

 

on 31 july they replied:

I am writing in connection with your recent Freedom of Information request concerning the following question:

 

"The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude."

 

In response to this question we relied upon the Section 40 exemption concerning Personal Data in order to refuse to provide the information.

 

We have recently received a similar request, also via the what do you know website, and this has brought to light a mis-interpretation of the question by staff involved in providing the original response to your request.

 

I can now advise that in response to the question asked above, the answer is 0. Please accept our apologies for this mistake.

 

 

Sandwell

A. - We have no known electively home educated children in the categories specified in (A).

B. - There have been no serious case reviews in Sandwell for any children who were/are electively home educated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sefton :

"There are 58 children/young people currently electively home educated in Sefton.

One of these children/young people is subject to a Child Protection Plan and six children/young people have been suspected of being subject to neglect or abuse.

There are no Serious Case Reviews which contain references to home educated children in the local authority. "

 

calrification was sought

 

 

 

Can you please clarify a) the reason/type of abuse that is the concern of the Child Protection Plan - and if it was neglect whether that is educational or other b) whether the 6 suspected cases were false alarms or founded cases

 

 

 

 

Sefton replied:

 

"In response to a) this is under the category of “physical harm”. In response to b) one was a proven case of neglect and the others were suspected cases of neglect but not founded."

 

 

 

 

Sheffield :

"Question A) 1 where the children were taken into care, 1 where the child

had been abused over a long period of time, including when they were on

a school roll.

 

 

 

Question B) 1

 

 

 

 

 

Shropshire :

"A. 

There is

 

 

 

1

child subject to a child protection plan under the

category of neglect who is electively home educated

B.

 

 

 

None."

 

 

 

 

Slough :

 

 

 

 

Answer

 

There are no electively home educated persons of compulsory school age who have been found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude. For your information, there are currently 36 children of statutory school age in home education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answer

 

There are no Serious Case Reviews around this subject. Slough's Joint Area Review did not report on home educated children. If you would like to access information on the Joint Area Review in Slough please visit:

 

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_providers/la_view/(leaid)/871"

 

 

 

 

 

Solihull :

"1.  * None

2. * None"

 

 

 

 

Somerset :

A. 

There are

 

 

 

no specific cases that we know of that use the premise of home education as a 'cover' for child abuse

, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect. However, 'neglect' is a broad term and there are many more where the child's education and needs are neglected or second to the parents needs.

B.

 

 

 

None"

they have been asked whether any of those neglected children in A are subject to a Child Protection Plan

 

"The sort of cases we are referring to and trying to describe are those that do not require a formal CP Plan but where we would have contacted the Local Service Team and involved the Emotional Health and Wellbeing Worker for example. Others may involve EAO, Youth Offending Team or Young Carers. They are not the cases that would be classed as an emergency but where you feel, as a professional person, that the child's needs are not being fully recognised or addressed by the parent/s. So we/LA/EHE try and stay involved with the family, bearing in mind that currently families on EHE do not have to register with the LA, and offer them support for themselves and their child."

 

 

 

 

South Gloucestershire

1) 

There are currently no children in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, Electively Home Educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, child neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

2) 

There are currently no Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews reported with respect to Home Educated children in South Gloucestershire Local Authority.

 

 

 

 

South Tyneside

 

 

 

1. None

 

 

 

2. No SCRs 

have been reported with respect to home educated children. The

results of the Joint Area Review for South

Tyneside are available at.the Ofsted website (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/)"

 

 

 

 

Southampton :

 

1.       

 

 

 

 

None

 

2.       

 

 

 

 

None

 

 

 

 

Southend-on-Sea :

"1. We have no one on our records who has declared any of the categories outlined within the request. This information is not asked for from parents or carers. We have currently 58 registered EHE persons.

 

2. There has been none regarding Joint Area Reviews or Serious Case Reviews,  however, we do report regularly to senior officers the progress and development of our EHEservice and do make available such reports during any official government inspections"

 

 

 

 

Southwark :

 

1.      None

2.      None

 

 

 

 

St Helens

 

1) There is no requirement for parents to register with the Authority that they are educating their children at home. Local Authorities have no statutory duties in relation to monitoring the quality of home education on a routine basis, although this Authority aims to undertake one visit a year.

The Authority has no power to enter the homes, or otherwise see, children for the purposes of monitoring the provision of elective home education. In addition the Authority can only insist on seeing children in order to enquire about their welfare where there are grounds for concern.

This is clearly conflicting guidance for the Authority.

Bearing in mind the current guidance no persons have either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, child neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

2) We have had none ever.

 

(they seem to be saying that although there are none, their limited access might mean they didn't find some!)

 

 

 

 

 

Staffordshire :

are being very awkward with our FOI requests.

However, when responding to mr Badman's review they did not offer any information in response to the following questions:

 

"Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a ‘cover’ for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspects of child neglect?

Please specify number

and

Please include the number of Serious Case Reviews you know about that have a home education element"

 

Therefore one assumes they have no evidence to support Delyth Morgan's case

 

 

 

 

Stockport :

 

" To the best of our knowledge, the Council has not had any home-educated children involved in any of the areas highlighted by your request."

 

 

 

 

Stockton on Tees :

 

 

 

1)  - Nil

 

 

 

2) - Nil

 

 

 

 

 

Stoke on Trent

1)- We currently have 60 young people electively home educated and none of these are involved or suspected to be involved in child abuse, child neglect  forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude..

 

 

 

2) - None.

 

 

 

 

Suffolk County Council:

 

 

 

Request

1) The number of persons in the local authority (LA) of compulsory school age

who are electively home educated?

1a) The number of persons in the LA who claim to be electively home

educated; who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child

abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude?

1b) In addition, how many SAOs have been issued in total and how many

have been enforced please?

2. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have

reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.?

 

 

 

Response

1) Three hundred and three (303)

 

 

 

1a) None

 

 

 

1b) None

 

 

 

2) None

 

 

 

 

Sunderland :

 

  1. Of children currently being home schooled within the authority, two are currently the subject of a child protection plan.

 

  1. There have been no Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews in respect of home educated children in the Local Authority.

 

 

 

Surrey :

1)

The answer is "none" but EHE children are occasionally subject to Child

Protection Plans generally under the category emotional neglect/abuse.

2)

The answer is "

 

 

 

none

"."

 

 

 

 

 

Sutton :

 

"1. One child claimed to be electively home educated has been the subject of an investigation into child abuse

2. No Serious Case Reviews nor Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to Home Educated children in the LA."

 

clarification has been sought

 

 

 

 

Swindon:

 

 

 

1. The number of referrals to social Services of welfare concerns about home-educating families during 2008 and the percentage of those referrals in which Social Services took action - There have been 0 referrals to Social Services

 

2. The number of families and the total number of children known to be home educated during 2008 - 69 families, 87 children

 

3. Any policy documents relating to how the LA follows up on home-educated young people who have reached 16 in order to ascertain if they are achieving economic well being - There is no policy relating to home educating but within the Children & Young People's Plan 2008 - 2011 it states that one of Swindon's outcomes and priorities is to reduce the percentage of young people aged 16-18 not in education, training or employment to 5.4% by 2011. As Education Welfare we would only signpost young people to Connexions as necessary, which would include young people who are home educated if their consent was gained.

 

4. The number of previously home-educated young people who are NEET and the basis for calculating this number - unable to calculate this as all we know is that there were 6 young people who left statutory school age in 2008 known to us as home educating and out of these 6, 3 are currently at college, 1 is unknown and the other 2 have left the area.

 

5. The percentage of home-educating families who accept home visits from an EWO - 68%

 

 

 

Tameside :

1)

There are currently 39 children who are recorded as being home educated.

None of them has been suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

2)

 None

 

 

Telford and Wrekin :

 

"The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, Electively Home Educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, child neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

 

 

Reply:- None"

 

 

"With regard to item 2 of your request there have been no Serious Case Reviews but there has been a recent Joint Area Review. A copy of the JAR report can be made available if required but it does not contain any specific references to Elective Home Educated arrangements."

 

 

 

Thurrock :

1.      Thurrock Children's social care are not actively involved with any of the children who are Electively Home Educated.

 

2.      None of the Serious Case Reviews in Thurrock have related to Home Educated young people"

 

 

 

Torbay :

Question A.

 

 

Response None

 

Question B.

 

 

Response None

 

 

 

Tower Hamlets :

1.

There have been no children who meet this criteria.

 

2 children have been

 

subject to initial assessments following allegations of physical abuse

(2003 and 2008) but no further action was taken following these

assessments.

2.

There have been

 

no home educated children subject to a serious case

 

review. A joint area review does not report on individual children

 

 

 

Trafford :

A. The information requested is not held by Trafford Council.

B. No such reviews have reported with respect to home educated

children.

 

 

 

Wakefield :

A.

The Local Authority is

 

not aware of any

 

person of compulsory school age who is electively home educated who has been suspected or found to be involved in Child abuse, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

B.

 

No Serious Case Reviews

 

have been undertaken that relate to this issue.

 

 

 

Walsall

A.

 

Three

 

B.

 

None

 

 

 

 

Waltham Forest :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response (Kate D)

 

Update 5th May - partial response received, have replied with additional questions.

 

 

Wandsworth :

A.

 

There are currently four children who are electively home educated and where there are child protection concerns that are being monitored. None of these children are currently subject to child protection plans. None of the concerns relate to forced marriage, servitude or sexual exploitation.

 

B.

 

None.

 

 

 

 

Warrington :

request made on whatdotheyknow.com - awaiting response

 

 

Warwickshire :

 

We can answer now is that there have been no serious case reviews or JAR 

reports concerning home educated children.

 

 

2 children have been subject to a Child Protection Plan whilst also home 

 

 

educated 

 

 

5 children (2 families) have been the subject of child protection 

 

 

referrals 

 

 

(None of these cases involved forced marriage, sexual exploitation or 

 

 

domestic servitude)

 

We are unable to give further details on outcomes, as it may identify 

individuals, see exemption Section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 

2000 on personal data.

 

 

 

West Berkshire

 There has been one serious case review, the details of which are on our website. The individual in this case was not home educated.

http://www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?a...

 

 

 

 

In response to your first question, there are 45 children currently EHE and of those, 2 have been the subject of child protection referrals related to child abuse (but not forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude).

 

She was unable to clarify any further as to whether this was suspected or found to be abuse due to the small numbers involved.

 

 

West Sussex :

 

West Sussex are being very evasive. All they have offered is:

With regard to your first query, I can confirm that the we do not hold aggregated data falling within the description specified in your request. On an individual basis the potential impact of EHE on child protection issues is considered by the Child Protection Conference. Bearing in mind there is no aggregated data here, and since we have a large number of EHE children in West Sussex, we estimate the cost of complying fully with your request would exceed the appropriate limit of £450."

 

and

 

"There are on average one or two cases of children who are EHE and subject to child protection plans, but as we have said we do not monitor this area specifically.

Concerning your second query, there have been no Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews with respect to home educated children in this Local Authority."

 

and

 

"The information supplied to Mr Badman in respect of his review of home education was in the form of case studies and disclosure would breach one of the data protection principles. We are applying exemption s40 of the Freedom of Information Act, on the basis that the case studies contain personal data of the families involved."

 

So we asked:

"1.How is is possible for Mr Badman and his review team to be given the case histories that are subject to data protection?

2. Given that you answered in another FOI request "There are on average one or two cases of children who are EHE and subject to child protection plans..." and "...there have been no Serious Case  Reviews..." and "we have a large number of EHE children in West Sussex" I would like to know

a)how many case studies you provided for Mr Badman

b)over what time period those cases are spread

c) what types of concern were raised by each of the studies

d) whether the concerns were founded

e) how many electively home educated children are known to the LA in total

f) whether Mr Badman was told about the proportion of home educated children your case studies

represent

g)what proportion of cases of founded concern you estimate those case studies represent h) whether the case studies were the only information supplied to the Review team

3. Given that you also said in that FOI response "On an individual basis the potential impact of EHE on child protection issues is considered by the Child Protection Conference" Can you confirm that this means that all electively home educated children in your area are automatically assessed by the Child Protection Team for child protection issues?"

 

and W Sussesx replied:

 

"1. We were able to share the case studies with Mr. Badman and his review team. We were convinced that this processing of personal data was lawful because conditions in schedule 2 and 3 of the Data Protection Act 1998,

were satisfied.

2. a) Four cases studies were provided to Mr. Badman.

b) These cases are on going.

c) The cases are subject to child protection procedures.

d) The cases are currently under investigation.

e) As of the 20th July 2009, there were 385 children and young people registered as electively home educated (EHE), with West Sussex County Council.

f) The case studies were not given as a proportion, as without in depth analysis we are not able to ascertain the information.

g) As in the answer above, we are not able to establish this information.

h) The Badman review was supplied with the case studies and the number of children and young people registered as EHE with West Sussex County Council.

3. It is not the case that all EHE children and young people are automatically assessed by the Child Protection Team for child protection issues."

 

 

Westminster :

A. The number of persons in the local authority of compulsory school age who are, or claimed to be, electively home educated and who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

The City Council currently has 39 school aged children registered as being home-educated. There are no records nor any suspicion of any abuse, exploitation, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude in relation to these pupils.

B. How many (if any) Serious Case Reviews or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated children in the LA.

There have been no Serious Case Reviews with respect to home-educated children.

 

 

 

Wigan :

(1) the number of persons in the local authority (LA) of compulsory

school age who are electively home educated

75 - some are currently being registered

(2) the number of persons in the LA who claim to be electively home

educated who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child

abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic

servitude.

 

0

 

(3) In addition, how many SAOs have been issued in total and how many

have been enforced please?

 

0

 

(4) Also, please could you reveal how many (if any) Serious Case Reviews

or Joint Area Reviews have reported with respect to home educated

children in the LA.

 

0

 

 

 

 

Wiltshire county council :

Not FOI'd but included the following information in the review questionnaire:

 

 

Q51 Thinking about your local area, in the last five years, how many cases have you come across that use the premise of home education as a `cover' for child abuse, forced marriage or other aspect of child abuse?

 

 

None specifically for child abuse or forced marriage, but a few cases where a parent was on the verge of the local authority taking prosecution proceedings against them for their child's non attendance at school.

 

 

Q52 Please detail above - include the number of Serious Case Reviews you know about that have had a home education element.

 

 None

 

 

 

Wirral :

1. 38 children of compulsory school age are Home Educated.

 

2. Of the children on the Home Educated list 1 child is the subject of a child protection plan and a further 4 children have been referred to the Department and received social work input re: abuse/neglect issues.

 

There are no children on the list suspected or involved in forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.

3. To date we have not issued any School Attendance Orders for Home Educated children.

4. There have been no Serious Case Reviews relating to children who are Home Educated. Joint Area Reviews no longer exist.

 

 

Wokingham :

 

Of the 57 children electively home educated the results are:

Not Known to Social Services - 39

Those who have had a Child In Need assessment - 12 (includes contacts

not meeting SC criteria and Early Action)

Those who have been referred to the Child Protection team - 6 (none have

current Child Protection Plans)

Total: 57

None of these cases has resulted in a serious case review.

 

 

Wolverhampton :

awaiting

 

 

Worcestershire :

>awaiting

 

 

 

City of York :

"1. The City of York Council currently has 67 young people who are electively home educated.

2. There are no young people who are electively home educated or any of there parent/carers who have been either suspected or found to be involved in child abuse, neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude according to the records we currently hold.

 

3. Similarly we have issued no school attendance orders and there have been no Serious case reviews or join area reviews involving elective home educated pupils."