DCSF ask do i want their reply to my FOIs to be public?

M Stafford

28 July 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please could you supply us with a frequency distribution of the
answers to question 22 of the postal questionnaire and question 51
of the online questionnaire administered to Local Authorities as
part of the Review of Elective Home Education by Graham Badman.

Please report the number of serious case review separately from the
'cover' figures.

Yours faithfully,

M Stafford

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a_summary_of_the_answers_to_ques#incoming-55329

M Stafford

27 August 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

In the Explanatory Note 20 August 2009 released to Shena Deuchars
and Louise Thorn
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ba...
it is stated that ‘* 54 LAs (60%) had one or more cases where there
was some element of safeguarding intervention (over the last five
years).
* In total, 72 cases were notified.’
Please supply the name of the number of children registered with
the 54 LA’s over the last five years in order that I can work out
what percentage of all children 72 is?

Yours faithfully,

M Stafford

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/more_clarification_of_the_data_i#incoming-55333

the mistake where name was included was rectified in a note.

M Stafford

27 August 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

In the Explanatory Note 20 August 2009 released to Shena Deuchars
and Louise Thorn
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ba...
it is stated that * Notified of four SCRs (see Annex A for details)
which had an home education element (NB: not including
Birmingham)..’
Annex A does not seem to have been disclosed with this information,
could you please release this annex plus any other documentation
involved in the Badman Review that has not been released?

This should not take you any time at all as you have just released
the Explanatory note and must have it to hand, so any serious delay
will be regarded as obstruction.

Yours faithfully,

M Stafford

 

M Stafford

27 August 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

In the Explanitory Note 20 August 2009 released to Shena Deuchars
and Louise Thorn
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ba...
it is stated that ‘in one LA, 55% of their EHE children is known to
social care.’
Please supply the name of the LA concerned.

It is also stated that

‘* Two reviews recommended that procedures for monitoring and
supporting all home educated children should be strengthened. The
other two recommended that procedures for monitoring and supporting
home educated children where there are welfare concerns, should be
strengthened.’
Does this mean two review responses or is it referring to previous
reviews, (have there been any) i.e. not the 2009 one?

Please also supply the names of the 6 LAs who claim that the number
of EHE children receiving a suitable education ‘was 50% or under’.
Also the names of the,
‘Two LAs estimated there was no education provision in over 25% of
the children on their caseloads. Four LAs said that there was
education provided in all of their caseloads.’

Yours faithfully,

M Stafford
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/clarification_of_the_data_in_the#incoming-55330

M Stafford

26 October 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

OK, the working paper which you have released does not anywhere
contain the label Annex A. Could you please clarify which part of
this document is in fact Annex A? Or is the whole working paper
Annex A?

Yours faithfully,

M Stafford
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a_summary_of_the_answers_to_ques#incoming-55329

M Stafford

26 October 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

In his submission to the DCSF Select Committee Graham Badman;

a) asserts that his sample for his third survey of local
authorities is representative
(i) does the department agree with this assertion;
(ii) what analysis did the department conduct to verify the
representativeness of this sample;
(iii) please provide copies of relevant analyses and documents.

b) states in paragraph 5 that the figures used in this paper have
been quality assured by a DCSF statistician, please provide details
on what figures were verified and how they were verified.

Yours faithfully,

M Stafford

In answer to  these five Fois, some outstanding since July, we have received the following communication from the DCSF.

Department for Children, Schools and Families

12 November 2009

Dear Ms Stafford

Your FOI request 2009/0074942

The Department intends within the next few days to send you a
communication relevant to your request which, we believe, you may wish
to receive privately. I would be grateful, if this is the case, if you
would respond to me letting me know an email or postal address to which
we should send the communication. I would stress that the Department is
only concerned about your interests here, and would have no objection on
its part to its response being made available on Whatdotheyknow.com if
you so choose.

Please respond to me at my email address:
[email address] . I have sent the same message in
respect of all your current FOI requests to the Department on
Whatdotheyknow.com, but a response in respect of any one of them will
suffice.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Partridge
Information Rights Manager, DCSF

Andrew Partridge is I think the person who wrote to the information commissioner complaining of those naughty powerful home educators harassing and vilifying poor Graham.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/17150/response/44226/attach/3/Document.pdf dcsf
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/18270/response/54177/attach/3/Copy%20of%20redacted%20DCSF%20letter%20dated%2017709.pdf info comm
Interestingly these are all questions Bruce has asked me to ask as he struggled to understand Badman’s data, are they too much to the point?
What are they going to say about me I wonder that they think I might not want made public.
I wait with bated breath.

Harassment and vilification 

DCSF Still Refusing to Give Evidence Behind The Review of Elective Home Education

Our Foi asking for the evidence, for Badman's recommendations has been refused .

Here is our reply to the refusal.

Thank you for your delayed reply to my FOI made on 1^st July 2009; it has taken 80 days, four times your legal limit for you to refuse to give us this information.

We have some specific comments on your letter.

1) You said:

‘I think it is likely that some confusion has arisen with the statement at paragraph 8.12 of the report of the review which indicated that 'the number of children known to children's social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of theirhome educating population'.

Yes and we feel strongly that this misunderstanding could have been entirely avoided if (a) a properly designed questionnaires had been used to collect the data from local authorities in the first instance; and (b) there had been full disclosure of a summary of the data and its sources in the report when it was  published.  It is unacceptable that so many people have had to make FOI requests to get at the evidence unpinning paragraph 8.12.  If there is any confusion it appears to fall at the door of the Department about what constitutes good practice in policy making.  We still await the statistical evidence underpinning the claim made in paragraph 8.12.

2) You go on to say:

‘As background, a copy of information that has already been released to other FOI requesters can be found attached to the Department reply at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage...ollection&i_collectionID=312. There is a calculation error in the fourth point of this release.’

Please confirm whether the ‘fourth point’ is the statement:

‘Extrapolating to the national level (150 LAs), this means around 1350 home education children are known to social care in some capacity (6.75%).’

Also please let us know the nature of this error and what the ‘fourth point’ should have said.

3) In addition:

‘Section 40. Having carefully reviewed the information, the Department considers that the absolute exemption at section 40 of the Act is engaged because the some of information requested constitutes personal data, disclosure of which would contravene the data protection principles. Data are 'personal data' if, taken with 'other information' they enable a living individual to whom the data relate to be identified.’

We unreservedly accept that such personal data should not be released.  However, we just need to know the proportions of home educated and the proportion of non home educated children for each heading for which data was collected, we need assurances that this is comparable data, and an account of how the data were collected.

4) Furthermore:

‘Section 41 (information provided in confidence) is engaged because this information was imparted in circumstances whereby those providing it did so in the expectation that it would remain confidential because of its very nature. The Department therefore considers that disclosure of it to the public would constitute an actionable breach of confidence.’

There is no problem here as aggregate data will not reveal data about individuals.  This is not an argument for not releasing the data at aggregate level.

5) On the public interest test, you said:

‘In addition the following qualified exemption, requiring a public interest test, is engaged:

Section 38(1)(a) and (b) this section 38 provides that information is exempt if its disclosure under the Act would, or would be likely, to

(a) endanger the physical or mental health of any individual; or

(b) endanger the safety of any individual.

This exemption is subject to the public interest test which means that even where prejudice or likely prejudice can be demonstrated, it is still necessary to consider whether in all the circumstances of the case the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosure. This exemption covers events that could reasonably be expected but do not have to be definitely foreseeable.’

Again aggregate data cannot do that.

6) With respect to the ‘balancing test’ you say:

‘Having carried out the balancing test, the Department takes the view that it is not in the public interest for the any of the further information to be released.’

This is not a reasonable stance to adopt.  The only quantitative claim made in the Review that there is a ‘problem’ with respect to home education and safeguarding concerns is made in paragraph 8.12.  The data underpinning this claim MUST be subject to critical scrutiny – something that has not yet happened since it is unclear precisely what data was used, hence our FOI.  Failure to scrutinise this data risks implementation of the Review’s recommendations that could cause significant harm to home educated children.  At the moment, the evidence unpinning paragraph 8.12 is untested, and the public interest will not be served until it is.

If it is not the public interest to release this data even at aggregated level so that the case for change can be seen by all; then in what sense is it in the public interest for the author of the Review to be allowed to collect data after the review was ostensibly completed.  Data that relates to a claim he makes in paragraph 8.12

The public interest test does not appear to be being applied consistently.

The information Commissioner will no doubt be able to see this exchange which has taken place after our referral when using the link we have sent to this conversation.




And some afterthoughts.

We wish to make some more comments on your letter.

You say,

‘While I appreciate that it is in no way a justification I should like to explain that the Department makes every effort to meet deadlines, but the delay in responding in this case has been due to the unusual volume of requests the Department has received in recent months. The Information Commissioner has been informed of the situation.’

The solution is, of course, to redeploy staff so that they can answer the FOIs.  Otherwise the department risks looking as though it is being obstructive and stonewalling.

You say,

I am not clear which media reports quoted Mr Badman in the way that you suggest above. For information a link to the Department's press release of 11 June is here:

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi...

Been there seen it before.  Possibly the Department’s own press office is slipping up – they should have copies of all press reports mentioning the Department, perhaps the author of this letter could ask her colleagues, or may be go to:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6480288.ece and http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/children-educated-at-home-more-at-risk-of-abuse-1703220.html

You say,

I think it is likely that some confusion has arisen with the statement at paragraph 8.12 of the report of the review which indicated that 'the number of children known to children's social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population'.

Yes and we feel strongly that this misunderstanding is entirely intentional and if evidence of that is needed it can be found in the absence of any clarification by the DCSF even though this misinformation is damaging actual real children.  That Badman is having a third go at collecting the data to support this claim, suggests that any confusion is confined to the Review not home educating parents.  It also imples a level of incompetence in collecting data for the Review that is utterly staggering.

You say.

As you will appreciate the Department cannot consider the release of information which it does not hold, but with regard to your requests we have taken them to refer to the information underpinning the reference
in paragraph 8.12 as this is likely to be more helpful to you. As background, a copy of information that has already been released to other FOI requesters can be found attached to the Department reply at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/foischeme/subPage...ollection&i_collectionID=312. There is a calculation error in the fourth point of this release. This has however been released because it is information which the Department holds and which appears to be within - or most nearly within - scope of your request, and which does not engage exemptions under the Act. I understand that the error does not affect the overall findings at paragraph 8.12 of Mr Badman's report.

As Delyth Morgan Dawn Primalo is now on record in letters to Home Educators saying that this is not the evidence that the review recommendations are based on I self evidently don’t accept that this is the evidence most nearly within the scope of our request.


We and the home educating community are still waiting.