Children in Care - Placements
Case reference FOI2024/01093
Received 25 June 2024
Published 25 July 2024
Request
Please see below an FOI data request which will be anonymised and used for peer reviewed social research.
1. What is your total budget for looked after children's services?
2. What is your budget for placements?
3. How many children do you look after?
4. How many of those children are in sibling groups (including half siblings and step siblings) of:
2 siblings
3 siblings
4 siblings
5 or more siblings
5. How many of these sibling groups are in a placement together in care
6. What is the decision making process for matching children with placements
7. Is this different for sibling groups? If yes how?
8. What are some of the factors when it comes to sibling group placement decision making?
9. For those who are not placed together, for how many sibling groups is contact maintained?
10. How is this facilitated?
(For time periods 1.1.2020-1.1.2025 in 1 year increments. If this is not possible then for 1.1.24-1.1.25 or the current year)
Response
Please see below an FOI data request which will be anonymised and used for peer reviewed social research.
1. What is your total budget for looked after children's services?
2. What is your budget for placements?
3. How many children do you look after?
4. How many of those children are in sibling groups (including half siblings and step siblings) of:
2 siblings
3 siblings
4 siblings
5 or more siblings
5. How many of these sibling groups are in a placement together in care
6. What is the decision making process for matching children with placements
7. Is this different for sibling groups? If yes how?
8. What are some of the factors when it comes to sibling group placement decision making?
9. For those who are not placed together, for how many sibling groups is contact maintained?
10. How is this facilitated?
(For time periods 1.1.2020-1.1.2025 in 1 year increments. If this is not possible then for 1.1.24-1.1.25 or the current year)
A: 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 each child’s file who belongs to a sibling group for this information. An initial search has shown that 227 records would need to be checked for this information, and it is estimated that it would take 20 minutes to check each file for the information requested.
This would at a conservative estimate take at least 75 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.
Regarding Questions 1 and 2, the Service Area have advised they would be unable to answer this in the format requested as the budget is set based on financial years (April-March), the dates requested would fall over two financial years. If you are happy for the request format to be 01/04/2024 – 31/03/2025, then this information could be provided. Furthermore, questions 3,6, 7, 8 and 10 could be answered within the time limit. If you would like this information please let me know.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.