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Privacy notice for Education Welfare Service

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What do we use the information for?

We collect, process and hold your personal information is order to provide our services effectively. We undertake our statutory role as identified in the Education Act 1996 in ensuring that all pupils of compulsory school age have access to a suitable and efficient education and those young people working or taking part in entertainment are doing so safely.

What information do we hold and use?

We collect and process the following information:

  • Personal identifiers and contacts (such as name, unique pupil number, contact details and address)
  • Characteristics (such as ethnicity, language, and free school meal eligibility)
  • Safeguarding information (such as court orders and professional involvement)
  • Special educational needs (including the needs and ranking)
  • Attendance (such as sessions attended, number of absences, absence reasons and any previous schools attended)
  • Behavioural information (such as exclusions and any relevant alternative provision placements put in place)
  • School exclusion information
  • Medical information (such as details of conditions preventing a pupil from being able to access school).

On what grounds do we use the information?

Education welfare service use the data to:

  • enable us to carry out specific functions for which we are responsible
  • derive statistics which inform decisions such as the funding of schools

Education welfare service collect and lawfully process information about schools and children to whom we provide services to under the following:

  • Children Act 1989

  • Children Act 2004

  • Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015

  • The School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Coordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2014

  • The School Admissions Code

  • Education Act 1996

  • Suspension and Permanent Exclusions from Maintained Schools, Academies and Pupil Referral Units in England, including pupil movement, January 2022

  • The Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations (Amendment) 2016

  • Keeping Children Safe in Education 2021.

We process personal data for the following reasons:

  • GDPR Article 6(1)(a) - you have given consent to the processing of personal data for one or more specific purposes
  • GDPR Article 6(1)(c) - processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which East Riding of Yorkshire Council is subject
  • GDPR Article 6(1)(d) - processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interest of you or of another person
  • GDPR Article 6(1)(e) - processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in East Riding of Yorkshire Council

We process special categories data for the following reasons:

  • GDPR Article 9(2)(a) - you have given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes

  • GDPR Article 9(2)(c) - processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of you or of another person where you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent.

How do we collect this information?

Education welfare service collect personal information as part of the process of supporting children, young people, and their families. Information will be collected from face-to-face meetings, over the telephone, by letter, application forms, online forms, inspections, and email. Information may also be collected from relevant partner agencies as appropriate.

Children's and young persons' data is essential for the local authority’s operational use. 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.

Who do we share your information with?

Education welfare service may share relevant information within the East Riding of Yorkshire Council and various external partners to support schools, children and young people and their families. Services might include:

  • schools and academies

  • sixth form colleges

  • further education and specialist colleges

  • training providers

  • children’s social care

  • early years

  • youth and family support

  • education inclusion services

  • welfare rights

  • special educational needs and disabilities team (SEND)

  • safeguarding unit

  • legal department

  • educational psychology team

  • human resources

  • The Department for Education (DfE)

  • HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)

  • Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust (HTFT)

  • Post Office Limited

We do not share information about our children and young people with anyone without consent unless the law and our policies allow us to do so.

Youth support services

Pupils aged 13+

Once our pupils reach the age of 13, we also pass pupil information to the provider of youth support services as they have responsibilities in relation to the education or training of 13-19-year-olds under section 507B of the Education Act 1996.

This enables them to provide services as follows:

  • youth support services
  • careers advisers
  • post-16 education and training providers (pupils aged 16+).

The information shared is limited to the child’s name, address, and date of birth. However, where a parent or guardian provides their consent, other information relevant to the provision of youth support services will be shared. This right is transferred to the child/pupil once he/she reaches the age of 16.

For more information about services for young people, please visit our local authority website.

Department for Education

The Department for Education (DfE) collects personal data from educational settings and local authorities via various statutory data collections. We are required to share information about our children and young people with the Department for Education (DfE) for the purpose of those data collections.

All data is transferred securely and held by DfE under a combination of software and hardware controls that meet the current government security policy framework.

For more information, please refer to the ‘How we use your data’ section.

How long do we store it and is it secure?

The council has retention schedules in place to ensure that information is only held for as long as it is needed. We will not keep your information for longer than is required to by law. Your information will be disposed of in a controlled and secure manner in accordance with the council’s Records Management and Data Quality Policy. The council’s IT security and confidentiality policies ensure that your information is protected, and accessed only by staff directly involved in your case.

For information on how long your information will be held visit the retention page.

What rights do you have?

The rights that you have depend on the grounds upon which we collected your information. All of the rights you could have outlined on the data protection rights page.

In most cases, people who have been involved with the education welfare service will have the following rights:

  • The right of access - you are entitled to see the information the service holds about you.
  • The right to rectification - we will amend information accordingly, if any information that the service holds about you is incorrect.
  • The right to restrict processing - you may wish to limit how we use your data.
  • The right to object - in addition to the right to limit the use of your data, you also have a right to object to the use of your data for certain actions.
  • The right to erasure / right to be forgotten - in certain circumstances, you may be able to ask for some of the information we hold to be deleted.

To exercise any of your above rights, please visit the

data protection rights

page for more information.

Where can I find out more?

If you want to know more about how the council uses information, your rights or have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, we request that you raise your concern with us in the first instance; contact details are available on the general privacy information page. Alternatively, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO is the UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest and they handle public concerns regarding organisations information rights practices.

Information Commissioner’s Office (external website).

When was this privacy notice last updated?

We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our services, feedback from customers, and to comply with any changes in the law.

This privacy notice was last updated on 22 November 2022.

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