The Evening Leader can exclusively reveal the information for the academic year 2006/07 following a Freedom of Information request.
But the local authority has chosen not to reveal details about numbers excluded from specific schools because it ma
y have an adverse impact on pupils.
The move comes in spite of a decision notice by the UK's information commissioner from last year which ruled that an almost identical request to Cambridge University would not result in a detrimental effect on students.
The number of pupils permanently excluded – or expelled – over the same period stands at four. This compares favourably with the year before – 2005/06 – which saw eight pupils permanently excluded and a further 996 temporarily excluded.
In his response to the request for information, Alan Watkin, chief leisure, libraries and culture officer, said: "In respect of providing a breakdown of those schools where pupils have been excluded, the authority have decided that this information is exempt from disclosure pursuant to s.40 (2) of the Act.
"Disclosure in this particular case would breach the first data protection principle which requires data to be processed fairly and lawfully.
"In reaching its decision the authority carefully considered the decision notice of the Information Commissioner dated July 30, 2007 in respect of a similar request involving University of Cambridge applicants, which found that such data is personal data but that there would be no detriment in disclosing the statistics.
"However, the authority considers in this particular case involving exclusions, that disclosure may cause detriment to those 'data subjects' that have been excluded.
"Additionally, some of these 'data subjects' may have strong concerns about disclosure.
"Further, the authority considers that it may be possible for third parties to identify an individual pupil if a third party had existing knowledge of a child who had been excluded.
"The authority therefore decided, in all the circumstances, disclosure in respect of a breakdown of the schools would be unfair."
Statistics giving the number of exclusions across all local authorities in Wales were due to be released by the Assembly in March.
However, details have been delayed due to concerns about the "quality of the data."
The full article contains 395 words and appears in Evening Leader Wrexham newspaper.
