Privacy Notice – Children & Young People’s Social Care
This document explains what information will be held about you on our database and how it will be processed by Children & Young People’s Social Care service. You can also find out about the General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Act 2018 and your rights on the Council’s website.
This document contains information about:
- Who we are
- Why we collect your personal information
- The legal basis for using your information
- Who we may share your information with
- How you can access the information we hold about you
- How long we keep information about you
- Further information and Data Protection Officer
Who we are
BCP Council will be the Data Controller for the personal information you provide. Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This could be your name, date of birth, address, gender, ethnicity and disability and/or any referral to our service as a child in need, assessment information, looked after child information, Section 47 information, initial child protection information and child protection plan information. As the Data Controller, BCP Council will use your information to give you advice and/or services that will enable us to understand your family circumstances and provide services that improve the wellbeing for children and young people living in Poole. The information helps us to protect children from harm and provide specific support to families.
Why we collect your personal information
We will collect enough personal information to provide you with services for the following purposes.
- Assessment for social work support
- Informing you about alternative services available in the community Protecting children from abuse and harm
- Promoting independence and wellbeing
- Monitoring and review of social work support and interventions
We are not permitted to collect information we do not need or will not use. This document covers information you have provided direct to the Council and information which has been shared with us by other organisations.
We are not allowed to collect information we do not need or will not use.
If we don’t need your personal information we won’t ask you for it.
If we use your personal information for research or analysis, we will always keep your details
anonymous or use a fake name. We don’t sell your personal information to anyone else.
The legal basis for using your information
According to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2017, we must have a reason to collect and use your information.
This will be:
- To identify Children in Need
- To identify children at risk of significant harm
- To carry out our statutory duties as a Corporate Parent to children and young people where this applies
- To deliver services and support you to make positive changes in your family
- To enable us to manage the services we provide
- To train and manage our workers who deliver those services
- To investigate any worries or complaints you may have about our services
- To check the quality of our services
- To help with research and planning of new services.
There are several legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information. For Children and Young People’s Social Care these are:
- Legal obligation: It is required by law, including (but not limited to) the Children Act 1908, The Children Act 1948, The National Assistance Act 1948, The Children Act 1958, The Children Act 1972, The Children Act 1975, The Children Act 1989, The Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, The Children Act 2004, The Children and Adoption Act 2006 and associated regulations or statutory guidance.
- Vital interests: the processing is necessary to protect children from harm.
- Public task: the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
Our service also needs to use sensitive personal data also called “special category data” which requires more protection to keep it safe. This is often information you would not want to be widely known and is very personal to you. It includes:
- Sexuality or sexual heath
- Religious or spiritual or philosophical beliefs
- Ethnicity
- Physical or mental health
- Genetic or biometric data
- Criminal history
- Family History
- People who are connected to a child or family
Sensitive personal data is collected and used when
- It is necessary to perform our statutory duties, or it is required by law e.g. The Children Act 1989 and 2004 and associate regulation or statutory guidance.
- It is necessary for employment purposes.
- It is necessary to protect someone from harm.
- You have made your information publicly available.
- It is necessary for legal cases.
- It is in the public’s interest.
Who we may share your information with
Sometimes we have a legal duty to provide your personal information to other organisations, for example the Police.
We may also share your personal information with these organisations which will include:
Police, NHS, Other Local Authorities, Probation, the Court Services
Schools, Housing, Children & Young People’s Learning, Commissioning & Improvement Services, Legal Services and CAFCASS, Voluntary services and organisations, Advocacy services, Housing Associations, Dorset Care Record, Department for Works and Pensions, Department for Education, Ministry of Housing, Communities, Local Government and Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service. Pan Dorset and Wiltshire Teaching Partnership (PDWTP).
Your information will not be disclosed to any other organisations, except where we are required and allowed to by law.
We may seek your consent if we are able to offer additional services which we believe are of benefit to you. This will be clearly communicated to you. We will only share your details with these organisations if we have your consent. However, we will share information with the other organisation if we believe a child would be harmed if we did not share this information.
Accessing information we hold about you
You have the right to request, in writing, details of the information that is held about you and the right to access a copy of the information. This may be by the Council providing copies of documents or by inviting you to view the records at one of its offices, if appropriate. Please see our webpage for further information about how to make a subject access request.
BCP Council will not charge a fee to access your information. Sometimes there may be information that we are not allowed to show you, such as
- legal information or advice
- crime prevention and detection records
- information that we believe may be harmful to you and your well-being
- details about or provided by other people – this is called third party information (e.g. information from the Police or Department for Work & Pensions)
You may also ask us to
- Stop processing your information if this causes or might cause damage or distress
- Stop processing your information for direct marketing
- Make decisions about you using your information by automated means (e.g. using computers to decide on an entitlement)
- Amend any of your data which is factually inaccurate. You can also ask for information to be blocked, erased or destroyed, which may be agreed in exceptional circumstances • Transfer your information electronically to another public body
- Consider a claim for compensation for any damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection regulations.
How long we keep information about you
We will retain this information for the life of the child as stated in our statutory guidance and as requested by the National Child Abuse Enquiry.
Further information
If you have a concern about how we are using your information, we would ask you to contact us in the first instance using the address below:
Policy Officer
Children & Young People’s Social Care 14a Commercial Road
Poole
Dorset
BH14 0JW
Data Protection Officer
If you are not satisfied with a response to your concerns from the Service, our Data Protection Officer Vivian Bateman, can review any issues regarding Information Rights legislation if necessary. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at the address below:
Data Protection Officer
Bournemouth & Poole Information Governance Team Bournemouth Borough Council
Town Hall
Bournemouth
BH2 6DY
Information Commissioner
For further information about Information Rights legislation, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk or by telephone 0303 123 1113
