Please see a Freedom of Information request on Section 47 enquiries or investigations relating to puberty blockers.
1) Please confirm whether your local authority has issued/commenced a Section 47 enquiry or investigation as per the Children’s Act of 1989 concerning a child and/or their parents/guardian in relation to overseas access to puberty blockers since May 2024.
2) If yes, please list the total number of Section 47 investigations or enquiries concerning overseas access to puberty blockers, since May 2024.
I am aware that there may be anonymity concerns. In cases where too few Section 47 orders have been issued, for example <5, please simply state whether they have been issued or not as per question (1)
3) If yes to question (1), where possible, please confirm whether the child was:
Aged 0-10
Aged 11 or above
4) Please confirm whether your local authority has issued/commenced a Section 47 enquiry or investigation as per the Children’s Act of 1989 concerning a child and/or their parents/guardian in relation to access to puberty blockers in the UK since May 2024.
5) If yes, please list the total number of Section 47 investigation or enquiries concerning access to puberty blockers in the UK, since May 2024:
I am aware that there may be anonymity concerns. In cases where too few Section 47 orders have been issued, for example <5, please simply state whether they have been issued or not as per question (4)
6) If yes to question (4), where possible, please confirm whether the child was:
Aged 0-10
Aged 11 or above
Compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time.
The information that you have requested is not collated as part of Devon County Council’s central reporting as a specific data set. If the information is held it would be contained within the notes of the files of individual children as part of an overall case. To provide the information would require a manual search of individual social care records to confirm if this information is recorded and retrieve it.
For the period since May 2024 we would need to review 1337 individual records. It would take at least 10 minutes per case to locate, identify and extract the data requested. This would equate to at least 222.7 hours of work which exceeds the appropriate cost limit.
Under the Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance as to how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held this is not possible for this request.