Skip to main content

{{ root_page.title }}

Privacy and data protection

You can read our standard privacy notice on this page (below). 

Privacy notices for specific services or groups of people can be found here.

Our standard privacy notice

Introduction

Achieving for Children provides a range of statutory and non statutory services and collects personal data for many purposes, so this general privacy notice provides an overview of the 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.

To understand how your own personal information is processed check the privacy notice of the service or contact the service directly to ask about your personal circumstances.

Who we are

Achieving for Children is a community interest company created in 2014 by the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and London Borough of Richmond to provide children’s services. In August 2017 the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead became co-owner of Achieving for Children.

Achieving for Children delivers children’s services and the local authority statutory responsibilities relating to children aged up to 25 years across the boroughs of Kingston, Richmond and Windsor and Maidenhead. Achieving for Children is registered as a controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) (registration number ZA045069) and is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

Personal data we collect

There are a variety of reasons why we work with children and their families and ways to collect information about you and your child. We collect and process the following personal data:

  • personal identifiers and contacts (such as name, unique pupil number, contact details and address, details of family and close relations)
  • characteristics (such as ethnicity, language, and free school meal eligibility, any relevant medical 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), SEND support plan, personal education plan (PEP), employment and education)
  • attendance (such as sessions attended, number of absences, absence reasons and any previous schools attended)
  • 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
  • behaviour and social information (such as exclusions and any relevant alternative provision placements put in place)
  • school preferences (in line with the School Admissions Code issued under Section 84 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1989)

How we use your personal data

The personal data you provide helps us to support your family and makes sure that we meet our legal duties and responsibilities. We use information about children, young people and their families:  

  • when it is necessary for legal cases
  • to provide you and your family with help, advice and appropriate services 
  • to provide your child with pastoral care
  • to assess the quality of our services 
  • to evaluate and improve our policies around children’s social care, education and SEND
  • to provide information about children’s social care, education and SEND
  • to monitor progress and develop good practice in the services received
  • to complete statistical returns to Government departments
  • to carry out our statutory and regulatory duties, such as making informed decisions about your child’s care
  • to identify families eligible for inclusion in the Troubled Families Programme and monitor their to progress as part of the programme. 
  • to help us teach, train and monitor staff on their work and to audit and improve our services to meet you and your child’s needs. 
  • to contact you with detail of programmes that may benefit you or your family for you to decide whether to take part or not
  • to improve efficiency and the effectiveness of services for children and young people

Legal basis for processing your personal data

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018, the lawful basis for processing personal data is public task or to comply with a legal obligation.  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.

This lawful basis was underpinned by the following (non exhaustive list) legislation:  

  • Care Act 2014
  • Childcare Act 2006
  • Children Act 1989, 2004
  • Children and Families Act 2014
  • Care Standards Act 2004
  • Health and Social Care Act 2012
  • 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
  • Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010
  • Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013
  • Children and Families Act 2014

How we collect personal data 

Whilst the majority of personal information you provide to us is mandatory, some of it is requested on a voluntary basis. In order to comply with the data protection legislation, we will inform you at the point of collection, whether you are required to provide certain personal information to us or if you have a choice in this. We collect personal data via a number of means including:

  • face to face interviews
  • telephone conversations
  • written letters, referrals, emails and text messages
  • forms and documents submitted through websites
  • from other third parties

Marketing Campaigns


We use a Audience Placement Tag which helps us build anonymous audiences from users who show an interest in a digital campaign, and help us retarget the said audience with further messages relating to that campaign, or similar future campaigns.

This helps public sector organisations communicate more meaningfully with audiences who might not usually engage.

How long your personal data will be kept

We only keep your personal data for as long as is required by law and in accordance with our retention schedule. 

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.

Achieving for Children’s email service has been configured to Government Digital Service and we encrypt and authenticate email in transit using Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC). We will ensure that when we send emails containing your personal information they are sent using appropriate security measures to encrypt the data in transit. This may involve the use of a third party encryption tool where appropriate.

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.

Who we share your personal information with

We hold your information securely and only share information where it is appropriate and lawful to do so. Where this is necessary, we are required to comply with all aspects of data protection legislation.  We may 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 we may share your personal data with to carry out our statutory functions or to support the delivery of the service you receive may include (non exhaustive list) the following: 

  • Department for Education (DfE)
  • Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA)
  • Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted)
  • Department of Health (DoH)
  • Care Quality Commission (CQC)
  • Children’s Commissioner
  • Social Care Services
  • Police
  • Health services
  • Probation services
  • Education and schools
  • Housing services
  • Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
  • Targeted support services
  • Audit Commission
  • Department of Works and Pensions (DWP)
  • Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC)

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 information 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 
  • a right to 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 at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Other notices

You can find other privacy notices specific to particular services or groups of people on this page

Our website privacy notice explains how we collect, use and share your information via this website.