“I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request information about children who are voluntarily accommodated under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989. Please could you possibly advise on the following:
1. How many non-national children did you accommodate under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 in 2016/2017/2018? Please exclude children who entered the UK as unaccompanied minors and are seeking asylum.
Devon County Council (DCC) has 15 non-national children recorded as being taken into care under Section 20 who were not classed as Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers (UASC).
Please note that this figure does not include those children who were already in care prior to 2016.
Also please note that nationality is not recorded against every child (46 of our records did not have nationality recorded as this is not a statutory requirement), so the above figure may, in reality, be higher than 15.
2.How many children did you accommodate under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 for a consecutive period over 180 days in 2016/2017/2018? Five.
3. How many children in Q1 had parents who did not speak English?
None that we are aware of. We do not record if a parent does not speak English as such, but we record a first and other language, level of proficiency of English and if an interpreter is required. The recording of this information is not a statutory requirement, so is not always recorded. There does not appear to have been an interpreter required for any of the parents of the above 15 children.
4. How many children from Q1 had written accommodation agreements? 15.
5. How many children from Q1 had written accommodation agreements translated into another language? Information not recorded, but if this had been required it would have been done.
6. How many children from Q1 were accommodated for a consecutive period over 180 days in 2016/2017/2018? 11
7. What are the age breakdowns of children from Q1 and Q2?
Q1 –DCC cannot provide an exact breakdown of age under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 – ‘Personal Information’. Release of this information would breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018. We can confirm, however, that six children were aged between 0 and 10 years of age, and 9 children were aged between 12 and 16 years of age.
Q2 – DCC cannot provide an exact breakdown of age under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 – ‘Personal Information’. Release of this information would breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018. We can confirm, however, that all five children were between the ages of 10 and 16.
N.B – all ages are as at date of entry into care.
8. How many children from Q1 and Q2 have plans in place for:
a. A Care Order under Section 31 Children Act 1989? 9 children are currently subject to a Full Care Order and one child was subject to an interim care order but is no longer in care.
b. A Placement Order under Section 21 Adoption and Children Act 2002? None of these cases had any adoption planning forms on their records.