Privacy

Information held by local authorities

The Data Protection Act 1998: How we use your information

We use information about children and young people to enable us to carry out specific functions for which we are responsible. We also use this personal data to derive statistics which inform decisions we make e.g. regarding the funding of schools, assess their performance and to set targets for them. These statistics are used in such a way that individual children cannot be identified.

The information you provide will be used to plan the services you may receive from the council. It may also be used to support participation in decision making both locally and nationally.

The Local Authority may share certain information about you with the Department for Communities and Local Government as part of the Troubled Families National Impact Study, in order to compare the progress of families who have taken part in the programme with those that have not.

Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) / Clinical Commissioning Groups / Health Trusts use information about pupils for research and statistical purposes, to develop, monitor and evaluate the performance of local health services. The statistics are used in such a way that individual pupils cannot be identified from them. It is necessary for certain health information about children (e.g. such as their height and weight) to be retained for a certain period of time (designated by the Department of Health) and requires these PCTs to maintain children’s names and addresses for this purpose. PCTs may also provide individual schools and LAs with aggregated health information which will not identify individual children. The same principle will apply to the sharing of information of individual pupils in improving dental health of the children in Southampton.

Youth Support Services - For pupils aged 13 and over, schools are legally required to pass certain information to the provider of Youth Support Services in their area. This is the local authority support service for young people in England who are aged 13 to 19. The school must provide the name, address and date of birth of the pupil and their parents' name(s) and address(es) and any further information relevant to the youth support services' role.

Education and training – We hold information about young people living in our area, including about their education and training history. This is to support the provision of their education up to the age of 20 (and beyond this age for those with a special education need or disability). Education institutions and other public bodies (including the Department for Education (DfE), police, probation and health services) may pass information to us to help us to do this.

We share some of the information we collect with the Department for Education (DfE) to enable them to; produce statistics, assess our performance, determine the destinations of young people after they have left school or college and to evaluate Government funded programmes.

We may also share information with post-16 education and training providers to secure appropriate support for them. We may also share data with education establishments which shows what their pupils go on to do after the age of 16.

For children under 16, a parent or guardian can ask that no information other than their child's name, address and date of birth (or their own name and address) be passed to a local authority. This right transfers to the child on their 16th birthday. Pupils and/or a parent/guardian will need to inform the school/LA if this is what they wish.

DfE may share individual level personal data that we supply to them, with third parties. This will only take place where legislation allows it to do so and it is in compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Decisions on whether DfE releases this personal data to third parties are subject to a robust approval process and are based on a detailed assessment of who is requesting the data, the purpose for which it is required, the level and sensitivity of data requested and the arrangements in place to store and handle the data. To be granted access to pupil level data, requestors must comply with strict terms and conditions covering the confidentiality and handling of data, security arrangements and retention and use of the data.