Please can you respond to my FOI request seeking information around alternative provision and the current demand for it.

1. The total number of children from your local authority area attending alternative provision which is not registered as a school or a hospital in January 2023. Please break this for the number of pupils attending unregistered alternative provision down into:
a) Tutoring companies delivering mainly face to face tuition,
b) Mainly online providers
c) Vocational training
d) Therapeutic support
e) Other provision, including faith schools
This would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, and we wouldn't be confident the information would be held. The majority of children attending AP are registered at a mainstream school who manage the package, and we would have to manually go through all our files held to see if we hold the information or not. Schools as they manage the packages may be in a better position to answer the request and should be contacted directly. Schools are a separate entity under the FOI Act.

2. How many children from your local authority area were attending alternative provision located outside your local authority area in January 2023?
This would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours, and we wouldn't be confident the information would be held. The majority of children attending AP are registered at a mainstream school who manage the package, and we would have to manually go through all our files held to see if we hold the information or not. Schools as they manage the packages may be in a better position to answer the request and should be contacted directly. Schools are a separate entity under the FOI Act.

3. Have any of the state funded APs (PRUs) in your local authority area had to expand their capacity since September 2022 to meet increased demand? If so, by how many places?
The local authority has not expanded the commissioned places at the PRU since 2022.

4. How many children from your local authority area are currently (as of 2nd August) waiting to be taken on roll in a PRU school but don't yet have a place?
There is no list held on this in the local authority, a lot of the referrals are made by the school to the PRU and not through the local authority.

5. Of these currently waiting to be taken on roll in a PRU, how many have, in 2023, been receiving less than the 32.5 hours a week they would have otherwise been getting in a mainstream school?
There is no list held on this in the local authority, a lot of the referrals are made by the school to the PRU and not through the local authority.

6. What provision is in place for those pupils waiting for a PRU place? Can you break this down into types:
a) No provision
b) Mainly online tutoring,
c) Mainly face-to-face tutoring,
d) vocational training,
e) therapeutic support
f) and any other types of provision?
This information is not held by the local authority.