Privacy notice for Children's Social Care

Introduction

This privacy notice explains what types of personal data we may hold about you, how we collect it, how we use it and who we may share information with. We are required to give you this information under data protection law. This privacy notice should be read in conjunction with the corporate privacy notice.

Achieving for Children is registered as a controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Registration number ZA045069.

Achieving for Children’s Children’s Social Care Service has a wide range of responsibilities to children and young people within the local area. We hold personal data about children and young people who are in our statutory care whether as looked after children, or under a child protection plan as are deemed at risk and or any unborn children with a pre-birth child protection plan.

We also hold personal data because we provide a range of services to children, young people and their families in order to safeguard and promote their welfare.

Personal data we collect

We collect and process the following personal data:

personal identifiers and contact details (such as name, unique pupil number, NHS number, contact details and address, details of family and close relations)
special category data (such as racial or ethnic origin, sex life or sexual orientation, and health information)
safeguarding information (such as court orders and professional involvement, child in care status including looked after or previously looked after early help, social care and health)
special educational needs (including the needs and ranking, for example pastoral support plan (PSP), education, health and care plan (EHCP), special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support plan, personal education plan (PEP), employment and education)
school attendance, achievements, exclusion and behavioural information
details and records of your child’s care, support, wellbeing and any concerns or investigations
details of each contact that we have with you and your child, including visits, correspondence, communications and documents
relevant information from individuals involved in your child’s care, including health and other care providers, carers and relatives
youth offending information: offences (including alleged offences), criminal proceedings, convictions and sentences
information about your situation given to us by your family, carers and other organisations such as the general practitioner (GP), police and schools

How we use your personal data

We collect and use your personal information for the following reasons:

safeguarding children and young people
carry out our statutory functions and duties including services to children and young people in care and care leavers
provide families with early help, advice and signposting to appropriate services including supporting parents with parenting and with their drug and alcohol use
provide a coordinated approach to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children to ensure you receive the right support at the right time
inform targeted support and services to families, children and young people who are most in need and at risk of harm
help us teach, train and monitor our staff to develop good practice in the services received
evaluate and quality assure the services we provide, and improve our policies on children’s social care
to audit and improve our services to ensure they meet you and your child’s needs
assess performance and set targets for service improvement
complete statistical returns to government departments
account for our decisions and investigate complaints

Why we are allowed to use your personal data

We have legal grounds to process this information because it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation or fulfil a public task. If we need to collect special category data, we rely upon reasons of substantial public interest (safeguarding of children and of individuals at risk, and equality of opportunity or treatment), for the provision of social care, or the management of social care systems or services, for social security or social protection law, and for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity.

These legal basis are underpinned by acts of legislation that dictate what actions can and should be taken by local authorities, including:

Children and Families Act 2014
Children’s Act 1989
Children’s Act 2004
Adoption and Children Act 2002
Children and Social Work Act 2017
Children and Young Persons Act 2008
Care Leavers (England) Regulations 2010
Human Rights Act 1998
Equalities Act 2010

Sharing your personal information

We will share your personal information to ensure that we can safeguard children and young people and to promote their wellbeing. This means we will share information with other organisations and or partner agencies, such as the police, health, education and any other agency that is considered relevant for the purpose of safeguarding. Where this is necessary, we are required to comply with all aspects of the Data Protection Act 2018.

We may also share your personal data between Achieving for Children departments and services so that we can keep our information up to date, provide cross departmental support and improve our services to you and your child.

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

Government departments including Department for Education, Department of Works and Pensions, Department of Health and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted)
Care Quality Commission (CQC)
police
Health agencies including GPs and NHS Trusts
youth offending and probation services
education providers including early years, schools and colleges
housing providers
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
targeted support services
His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
His Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service
voluntary sector partners
council departments

Supporting Families programme

Achieving for Children supports the Government’s ‘Supporting Families’ programme for families with complex needs. Achieving for Children will identify those families with the most pressing and complex needs. This will involve some sharing of information between Achieving for Children and other organisations (such as the Department for Works and Pension, health and education). Any such sharing will be done proportionately and lawfully for the purpose of identifying those families who meet the initiative’s criteria and most need this support. It will be done to ensure that services are better coordinated and focused for those families.

The Child Protection Information System (CP-IS)

CP-IS is an NHS England national initiative that links the IT systems of NHS unscheduled care settings to the IT systems of Children’s Social Care to enable information about children subject to child protection plans, children in care and pregnant women whose unborn child is subject to a pre-birth child protection plan to be shared securely.

The NHS unscheduled care settings include:

hospital emergency departments
out of hours GPs
walk in centres
minor injuries units
paediatric wards
ambulance services
maternity units

Only basic details of the child will be shared including name, date of birth, address and whether they are looked after or subject to a child protection or pre-birth plan. Children’s social care will receive an electronic notification every time a child on the list has their name searched.

Medical staff will then contact social services to provide details of the reason for the child being seen and whether any concerns have been identified.

How long your personal data will be kept

Adoption records: date of adoption order at least 100 years;
Looked after children: date of birth of child at least 75 years;
Children with disabilities: until the person reaches the age of 25 years or 2 years from date of last contact, whichever is the longer;
Child protection records: date of birth of individual at least 40 years;
Child in need records: date of birth of child at least 25 years.

Keeping your information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Your rights and access to information

Under data protection legislation you have the right to request access to the information that we hold about you. To request a copy of your data, please read the Individual Rights Requests page on this website and then submit your request using your preferred method of contact.

You also have the right to:

object to processing of personal data that is likely to cause, or is causing, damage or distress
have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed
prevent processing for the purpose of direct marketing
object to decisions being taken by automated means
in certain circumstances have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed; and
seek redress, either through the ICO, or through the courts

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we process personal data, or would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact our Data Protection Officer: [email protected]

If you want to make a complaint about how we handle your personal data, we ask that you give our Data Protection Officer the opportunity to respond in the first instance but you are not obliged to do this. You can make a complaint directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

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