Dear Information and Feedback Team,

I am writing to place South Tyneside Council on notice that I intend to refer this matter to the Information Commissioner's Office.

To summarise the position:

On 8 February 2026 I submitted a valid FOI request concerning retention periods and disposal controls for education records (SEND, exclusions, EOTAS).

On 11 February 2026 the Council rejected it as invalid under section 8 FOIA, asserting it had been submitted under a pseudonym.

On 13 February 2026 I submitted a detailed request for internal review. That correspondence demonstrated that the name used is one by which I am publicly known; cited NECA's own formal FOI response naming me as such; cited press coverage in The Chronicle and The Northern Echo; cited multiple previous South Tyneside FOI requests submitted under the same name which the Council accepted and answered without objection; and set out the ICO's guidance that the section 8 threshold is low and that identity verification regimes should be the exception not the norm.

The statutory timeframe for completing an internal review is 20 working days. That period expired on or around 12 March 2026. The Council has provided no response, no extension notice, and no communication of any kind.

What South Tyneside Council should understand is that its obstruction has not prevented me from obtaining the information I was seeking. The same request was submitted simultaneously to five other North East local authorities, all of which have provided substantive responses:

- Newcastle City Council (FOI 25828): https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/retention_periods_and_disposal_c_3#incoming-3331753
- North Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council (FOI-7571): https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/retention_periods_and_disposal_c_4#incoming-3338621
- Sunderland City Council (FOI_10599): https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/retention_periods_and_disposal_c_6#incoming-3343804
- Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council: substantive response received 13 March 2026

Those responses have disclosed, among other things, the following documented retention periods currently applied to education records by South Tyneside's immediate neighbours:

School exclusion records:
- North Tyneside: 25 years from last action
- Newcastle: date of birth plus 25 years

SEND records:
- North Tyneside: 35 years from closure
- Sunderland: 35 years from date of closure (SEN panel minutes, case files, and tribunal files)
- Newcastle: date of birth plus 25 years

Educational psychology records:
- North Tyneside: 35 years from closure
- Newcastle: date of birth plus 25 years

Personal Education Plans for looked after children:
- Newcastle: date of birth plus 75 years

I now have a substantive picture of how the region's local authorities document, retain, and dispose of records relating to children with SEND, children excluded from school, and children educated outside mainstream provision. South Tyneside's position within that picture is conspicuously blank — not because the information does not exist, but because the Council has chosen to obstruct rather than respond.

That omission is itself telling. A regulator or tribunal considering this matter would be entitled to note that South Tyneside is the sole authority in this batch to have manufactured a validity challenge rather than engage with the substance, and the sole authority to have then failed to complete even its own internal review process. That pattern of conduct, set against the specific subject matter of the request, does not reflect well on the Council.

I am giving the Council a final opportunity to respond. If I do not receive either a substantive response or a properly reasoned internal review decision within 10 working days of this correspondence, I will submit a complaint to the Information Commissioner under section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, citing:

1. The unlawful rejection of a valid section 8 request;
2. The failure to complete an internal review within 20 working days;
3. The Council's apparent use of the pseudonym point as a pretext to avoid engaging with a request on a sensitive operational matter, evidenced by the inconsistency with its own prior conduct in processing requests under the same name.

I would note that the subject matter of this request concerns how South Tyneside Council documents, retains, and destroys records relating to some of the most vulnerable children in its area. The Council's neighbours have been willing to account for their practices. South Tyneside's continued refusal to do so is now itself a matter of public record.

Yours faithfully,
Jamie Halliday