Concerns over child safety reported to Herefordshire Council for 2023
Case reference FOI2024/01457
Received 29 August 2024
Published 25 September 2024
Request
I am making a Freedom of Information request to Herefordshire Council under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000. The subject area is “Concerns over child safety reported to Herefordshire Council”. I have requested the answers to 11 questions, which I have written below.
Information requested under the Freedom of Information Act to Herefordshire Council:
1. Is training provided to social workers to identify children who have been psychologically manipulated to reject a parent (parental alienation)? If such training is given, please provide an electronic copy of the training manual.
2. In 2023, how many concerns over child abuse / neglect (separate cases) were reported to Herefordshire Council?
3. Are concerns over child abuse / neglect dealt with by Herefordshire Council if reported anonymously?
4. For 2023, please provide a breakdown of who reported the concerns over child abuse/ neglect to Herefordshire Council (e.g. school, police, a parent etc)
5. For 2023, please provide a breakdown of what the concerns were that were reported to Herefordshire Council (e.g. physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse etc)
6. Of ALL the separate cases of child abuse / neglect reported to Herefordshire Council in 2023, how many cases subsequently went to the Family Court?
7. Between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, please provide a breakdown of who the allegations of child abuse / neglect were made AGAINST that were reported to Herefordshire Council (e.g. a teacher, a parent of the child etc)
8. Of ALL the cases of child abuse / neglect reported to Herefordshire Council between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, in how many of these cases did the assigned social worker recommend that the child(ren) in question be removed (or remain separated) from ONE parent ONLY at the start of a section 47 investigation?
9. Of ALL the cases of child abuse / neglect reported to Herefordshire Council between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, in how many of these cases did the assigned social worker recommend that the child(ren) in question be removed (or remain separated) from ONE parent ONLY after the section 47 investigation had been completed?
10. Of ALL the cases reported to Herefordshire Council of child abuse / neglect between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, how many cases subsequently went to the Family Court?
11. Of ALL the cases of child abuse / neglect that were reported to Herefordshire Council between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY AND that subsequently went to the Family Court, in how many of these cases were the central allegations of child abuse / neglect against the accused parent (as accused in the report to Herefordshire Council) found to be false by the court?
Response
I am making a Freedom of Information request to Herefordshire Council under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000. The subject area is “Concerns over child safety reported to Herefordshire Council”. I have requested the answers to 11 questions, which I have written below.
Information requested under the Freedom of Information Act to Herefordshire Council:
1. Is training provided to social workers to identify children who have been psychologically manipulated to reject a parent (parental alienation)? If such training is given, please provide an electronic copy of the training manual.
2. In 2023, how many concerns over child abuse / neglect (separate cases) were reported to Herefordshire Council?
3. Are concerns over child abuse / neglect dealt with by Herefordshire Council if reported anonymously?
4. For 2023, please provide a breakdown of who reported the concerns over child abuse/ neglect to Herefordshire Council (e.g. school, police, a parent etc)
5. For 2023, please provide a breakdown of what the concerns were that were reported to Herefordshire Council (e.g. physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse etc)
6. Of ALL the separate cases of child abuse / neglect reported to Herefordshire Council in 2023, how many cases subsequently went to the Family Court?
7. Between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, please provide a breakdown of who the allegations of child abuse / neglect were made AGAINST that were reported to Herefordshire Council (e.g. a teacher, a parent of the child etc)
8. Of ALL the cases of child abuse / neglect reported to Herefordshire Council between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, in how many of these cases did the assigned social worker recommend that the child(ren) in question be removed (or remain separated) from ONE parent ONLY at the start of a section 47 investigation?
9. Of ALL the cases of child abuse / neglect reported to Herefordshire Council between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, in how many of these cases did the assigned social worker recommend that the child(ren) in question be removed (or remain separated) from ONE parent ONLY after the section 47 investigation had been completed?
10. Of ALL the cases reported to Herefordshire Council of child abuse / neglect between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY, how many cases subsequently went to the Family Court?
11. Of ALL the cases of child abuse / neglect that were reported to Herefordshire Council between 15th and 31st JANUARY 2023 ONLY AND that subsequently went to the Family Court, in how many of these cases were the central allegations of child abuse / neglect against the accused parent (as accused in the report to Herefordshire Council) found to be false by the court?
Answer: This information is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Our electronic reporting systems are unable to run a report for this information. To ascertain the data requested, officers would need to manually check individual files for this information. An initial search has shown that 5,000 files would need to be checked for this information, and it is estimated that it would take 5 minutes to check each file. Once the details had been identified this would need to be noted and once all files had been checked in this way, the total figures requested could be calculated.
This would at a conservative estimate take at least 416 hours to complete. Where the Limit is exceeded Public Authorities are not obliged to supply the information requested by virtue of S12 of the Act. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
However, within the 18 hour limit, we can provide answers for questions 1 and 3 as requested. Please advise us if this is something you require.
Documents
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