In order to carry out our responsibilities, the local authority has cause to collect and use information about children for whom we provides services, for example to assess any special educational needs the child may have. We also use the information to derive statistics to inform decisions on, for example, the funding of schools, and to assess the performance of schools and set targets for them. We use statistics in such a way that individual children cannot be identified from them.
We will use information about our school workforce for research and statistical purposes, and to evaluate and develop education policy and strategies. Again we use these statistics in such a way that individual staff cannot be indentified from them. We may also use the information to support and monitor schools regarding sickness and recruitment of staff.
Often our services are provided in partnership with other agencies and because of this any data we collect may be shared with them for specific purposes allowed by law. These include, for example:
- Department of Health (DH)
- Primary Care Trusts (PCT)
- Department for Education (DfE)
- Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED)
- Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)
- Learner Register (formerly Learner Registration System).
The Data Protection Act 1998 states that the processing of personal data should be 'fair'. This means that the local authority, as 'data controller', should issue parents with a Privacy Notice (formerly a Fair Processing Notice), which sets out:
- the information we hold about their child(ren)
- why we need the information
- what we want to use it for
- who we will share the information with.
Privacy Notices have now replaced Fair Processing Notices following recommendation from the Information Commissioner. The local authority and the DfE are therefore adopting this approach in their data collections from now on, and have reviewed the whole process of issuing Privacy Notices.
In the past, the suggested text has included the use of school information made available by the local authority or the DfE. However, the new process will mean much simpler Privacy Notices, where the local authority and the DfE will display on our websites details of any organisations with which we share data and provide links to appropriate Privacy Notices. This means that Privacy Notices no longer need to be re-issued on an annual basis. The aim is to make the Privacy Notices issued to children and staff general and constant. Any changes to the details of organisations with which school or local authority data is shared can be updated on our websites.
The new approach is that a single, short and easily understandable Privacy Notice can be provided to learners and staff by the school or local authority at the same time as other communications that they issue. For example:
- a learner might receive the Privacy Notice as part of a school brochure or induction pack, or in a school diary, and it could be posted on the school notice board.
- for staff, the Privacy Notice might be included as part of a contract, induction pack, and posted on the staff notice board.
- a child receiving social care services or a child looked after by the local authority might receive their Privacy Notice as part of other information about the services that they are being offered.
It is anticipated that staff, and young people over the age of 12 with the maturity to make their own decisions, should generally be able to request to see their personal information themselves under the Subject Access Provisions (S.7) of the Data Protection Act. For children under 12, their parents will act on their behalf. In any event, it will be for the school, as data controller, to assess whether the child is capable of understanding the personal information in question, and so decide whether the parent needs to make the request on the child's behalf.
Privacy notices
- Privacy notice for pupils in schools
- Privacy notice for pupils in early years settings, alternative provision and pupil referral units
- Privacy notice for children in need and children looked after by the local authority
- Privacy notice for the school workforce
Additional information
- Department for Education - Privacy Notices
- How Youth Support Services and Primary Care Trusts use information
Contact
Data Protection Officer
Directorate for Children, Young People and Families
Telephone: 01226 774576
