Education and training
We share information about children and young people attending schools in our area and living in our area to support the provision of their education and training up to the age of 20 (and beyond this age for those with a special educational need or disability). Under parts 1 and 2 of the Education and Skills Act 2008, 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 support these provisions.
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.
The council will share information with the Library Service to enable them to issue all Reception year pupils with their own library card.
The council may also share some limited information (including pupil name and school) with the University of Portsmouth (UOP) and/or other research agencies for schools taking part in an educational performance research project.
The council will share and record information as outlined above in the categories of child and young person’s information that we process for Portsmouth’s looked after children who are placed in, and outside Portsmouth schools/colleges, including children who are subject to adoption planning and special guardianship plans until orders are granted, to a commissioned service called ‘Welfare Call Ltd’ to monitor the daily attendance and support the completion of personal education plans of these young people.
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.
We share Intended Destination, September Guarantee and post-16 destination data we collect with the secondary schools in Portsmouth. This data is used to:
- assist the school and the LA in their role in supporting young people to stay within education, training or employment, by providing an appropriate support package based on the young person’s needs
- assist the secondary schools and the council in meeting their statutory responsibility of monitoring their destination data and in their delivery of statutory duties placed upon them by the Department for Education (DfE).
Personal information will be shared between the National Consortium for Examination Results (NCER) and the council to enable the council to complete statutory data collections for the Department for Education, so we can produce statistics and assess our performance and to support schools.
Youth support services – pupils aged 13+
Once 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
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 16.
Data is securely transferred to and held by the youth support service and is held for no longer than necessary.
Child and young persons’ health
Both Solent NHS Trust, Portsmouth City and neighbouring councils have a statutory obligation to support the delivery of the healthy child programme. The sharing of child and young person’s information ensures the effective delivery of child public health programmes and of front line services such as school nursing services, and therefore provides the best outcomes for children. The sharing of data with the NHS is required:
- to enable the mandatory and statutory recording and reporting of Child Health data.
- to enable the NHS Trust to update the Child Health data to support School Nurses/Specialist Health Care Teams in implementing the health programme
- to assist with checking which local authority area children are living, whether they are known to other local authorities and whether they are also known to Solent NHS Trust.
- to assist the Named Nurse for Looked After Children in ensuring all Looked After Children have a complete immunisation status.
- to implement the National Child Measurement Programme of children in Reception Year and in Year 6.
- to implement the statutory national dental survey of five-year-old children attending
- mainstream schools.
The legal basis for sharing children and young person’s information for health purposes is covered in S251b – Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015
Local NHS Trusts use information about pupils for research and statistical purposes, to develop, monitor and evaluate the performance of local health and education services. These statistics will not identify individual children and young people.
Early education
Personal information will be shared between the NHS Trust and the council and between neighbouring councils to assist councils in meeting their statutory duties for funding early education places and supporting school admissions.
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, under section 3 of The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013.
All data is transferred securely and held by DfE under a combination of software and hardware controls which meet the current government security policy framework.
For more information, please see the ‘How Government uses your data’ section.