I am writing to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000:
1 Whether your local authority record or monitor data on exclusions specifically in relation to pupils awaiting EHCP assessments?
2 If so, for the 2024/25 academic year, please provide:
2.1 The number of pupils in your local authority who were excluded (suspensions or permanent) while awaiting the outcome of an EHCP assessment following a request.
2.2 A breakdown of the number of such exclusions by type of exclusion (suspension vs permanent), if held.
We do not collate this data. We received over 2265 requests for assessments in the calendar year 2024 to ascertain if any of the children were excluded or suspended during this period would require a manual check of each pupil’s record. This would take approximately 5 minutes per record and therefore over the allocated 18 hours.
This is therefore over the appropriate time limit and disclosure of this information is therefore exempt pursuant to section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
3 If this data is not held centrally or cannot be disaggregated, please confirm:
3.1 Whether such information may be held in case records, or if any internal reviews/reports have addressed this issue.
As indicated above, this information is held in case records. We do not have any internal records or reports that have addressed this issue