Children, Families and Lifelong Learning - Privacy Notice

Details

Directorate - Children, Families and Lifelong Learning
Date of issue - 25 May 2018
Date of current version - 29 January 2025
Review date - 29 January 2027

Notice

The reasons why we use your personal data

This privacy notice applies to the functions of the Children, Families and Lifelong Learning Directorate. We process your personal data in order to carry out our statutory and non-statutory duties and to deliver our range of services for social care, early help, education and learning.

What processing of personal data is undertaken by the specific teams or services

We collect data directly from service users, families and from other organisations including schools, health partners, Government departments and other �й�Pվ teams. We use the data to provide a range of services to you and to carry out our duties and public tasks, including the following:

carry out our statutory, non-statutory and regulatory duties across social care, early help, education and learning
to ensure the care we provide to your child is safe, effective and appropriate
to support children and monitor their progress
for legal cases
assess and improve the quality of our services
provide your child with pastoral care
identify children as part of the Child Protection-Information Sharing (CP-IS) program
provide information about early help and social care
make and take payments, process grants and tackle fraud
evaluate and improve our policies around children's social care and education
listen to your comments and feedback on children's social care and education
prepare statutory statistics on local authority performance
to identify families eligible for inclusion in the Supporting Families Program and monitor their progress as part of the program
to help us teach, train and monitor staff on their work, and to audit and improve our services to ensure they meet you and your child's needs
it may be shared if your child sees other care of health professionals and/or your child is referred to a specialist for the purposes of care

What information do we collect?

Within the Children, Families and Lifelong Learning Directorate of �й�Pվ, we use the following personal data:

you and your child's name, address, contact details
records of your child's care, support and wellbeing
details of your child's care and any concerns or investigations
details of your child's education including where they go to school and their unique pupil number
basic information such as date of birth, ethnicity, specific needs, NHS number and next of kin
details of each contact that we have with you and your child, including visits, correspondence, communications and documents
relevant information from individual's involved in your child's care and education, including health and other care providers, carers and relatives

How we are allowed to use your personal data

The lawful conditions for us to process you and your child's personal data depends on the circumstances but are usually so that we can comply with a legal obligation or because we are acting in the public interest or exercising our official authority. We may also process some of your data with consent or because we have a contract with you. The legislation which we have duties under include (but aren't limited to) the following:

Care Act 2014
Localism Act 2011
Childcare Act 2006
Children Act 1989, 2004
Care Standards Act 2004
Welfare Reform Act 2012
Mental Capacity Act 2005
Data Protection Act 2018
Crime and Disorder Act 1998
Health and Social Care Act 2012
Mental Health Act 1983, 2007
Adoption and Children Act 2002
Children and Social Work Act 2017
Adoption: Statutory Guidance 2013
Children and Young Persons Act 2008
Care Leavers (England) Regulations 2010
Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011
Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015
Fostering Services: National Minimum Standards (2011)
Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010
Local Safeguarding Children and Adults Boards Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/90)
Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013
Education Act 1996
The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014
Children and Families Act 2014
Education and Adoption Act 2016
Adoption Agencies Regulations 2005
Adoption Agencies (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013
Adoption Support Regulations 2005
Adoptions with a Foreign Element Regulations 2005
Guidance and Regulations Volume 4 Fostering Services
Domestic Abuse Act 2021
NHS Act 2006

Under Article 9 of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 our lawful reason for us to process you and your child's sensitive personal data is for health or social care or where it is substantially in the public interest.

Consent

Where we do use consent to process your personal data, we will explain to you what we are asking you to agree to and why. If we have consent to use your personal data, you have the right to remove it at any time. If you want to remove your consent, please contact us at the following email address childinfogovernance@surreycc.gov.uk and we will deal with your request.

Who we share your personal data with

Where necessary we share your data between departments and services within the Council so that we can keep our information up-to-date, provide cross departmental support, and improve our services to you and your child. Our Corporate Teams and the Chief Executives Department provide support and specialist services across the council and may need access to personal information to do so. We share data with Adult Social Care teams where necessary in order to plan for transition and to best support service users. Staff can only see your information if they need it to do their job.

At times, it's necessary for us to share information outside of the Council. We will only share data if the other party has a legitimate need for the data and there is a lawful basis to share. Everyone we share data with has a duty to keep it confidential and secure.

We will ask for consent for some information sharing but sometimes we need to process and share data without your consent. For example, to make sure we provide your child with the appropriate care, when the health and safety of others is at risk (including our staff), to protect public health, to carry out our statutory duties and public tasks or when we are required to share by law or a Court. We also share when necessary to prevent or investigate crimes, where sharing is in the public interest or where there are safeguarding concerns.

Some of the organisations that we share data with include (but aren't limited to) the following:

Early Help Services
Pupil Referral Units
Schools, Colleges and other Education Providers
Commissioned providers
Legal Representatives
Public Health England
Other Local Authorities
District and Borough Councils
Voluntary Sector Partners
School Transport Operators
Government Departments including the Department for Education (DfE), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)
Judicial Agencies such as Courts
Safeguarding boards and services
Specialist therapists and teachers
Health Services such as NHS Trusts, Medical professionals, General Practitioners and �й�Pվ Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG)
�й�Pվ Heartlands CCG as our partner for Integrated Commissioning
NHS South, Central and West as our provider for Child Health Information Services (CHIS) for the delivery of school-based immunisations and health screening
Law enforcement such as the police
Funding bodies and Elected members
Probation and Youth Offending Services
Academic institutions and research organisations
Community staff, locality staff and district nurses
Emergency response units such as the �й�Pվ Ambulance Service
Other care providers including third party providers and charities
Regulatory bodies and auditors such as the Care Quality Commission, Ofsted and Information Commissioners Office (ICO)

The Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity requires us to keep people informed about what �й�Pվ is doing in order that they can hold us to account. If you have signed up to receive one of our newsletters we share your personal data with our email contractor .

Automated decision making (when computers make any decisions about you)

We do not use automated decision making

Personal data being sent or processed outside of the UK and European Union (EU)

It is possible that we may need to process your data outside of the UK and EU, for example, for the purposes of processing adoption applications. Where in these cases we have to share data outside of the EU we will ensure adequate protections are made.

Retention of data

We keep data for as long as the law requires or for as long as is necessary.

Please see our Retention Schedule and Information Asset Register for information on how long we keep specific data.

Other information

How is data used for care and education?

The Children, Families and Lifelong Learning Directorate holds data on you and your child so that we, our commissioned providers and any involved partner organisations can provide care, services and support with education. We have robust measures in place to protect the information that we hold and to ensure that the information is processed and shared securely, proportionately, lawfully and in line with your wishes wherever possible.

Where you and your child's personal data is shared, confidentiality and privacy will be protected. Organisations will use data to support you and your child with any service or contact that they may have ('care'). By doing so, it helps them provide the most appropriate care for your child and they may share data with other specialists including health care professionals to ensure they make informed decisions. To make sure confidentiality and privacy is maintained, national legislation and our procedures will be followed.

How is data used for reasons other than care and education?

We use data for research and analysis, and produce reports which contain information to help us improve and plan future care services. This data is used to identify where our services need to change, improve or expand in order to effectively support our service users and ensure funding is appropriately managed between organisations.

�й�Pվ and �й�Pվ Heartlands CCG have established Integrated Commissioning Teams so that we can jointly commission health and social care services. The Council and the CCG are joint controllers of the data we use for these purposes.

How much data do we use?

There is a range of data available to us, from data that relates directly to your child to data that won't identify any living individual. We only use an appropriate amount of data depending on the circumstances. We use as little data as necessary in our work. Where possible we use methods such as pseudonymised or anonymised data (like when we are using data for research and analysis).

Who can access your data?

Our staff will only access personal data when it is necessary for them to do their work and involved professionals will only have a level of access that is appropriate to their need. Staff access to your and your child's information is monitored to ensure confidentiality is maintained and that staff are acting in line with our code of conduct.

How do we keep data safe?

Our staff and partners who have access to or process data must comply with a legal duty of confidentiality. We protect the access to data through security methods such as logins, passwords, permissions and encryptions.

For further information on our privacy notices, please see information and privacy.

�й�Pվ