Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Board – privacy notice

For details of how Portsmouth City Council uses personal information, please view the data protection privacy notice page.

Section 14 of the Children Act 2004 sets out the objectives of local safeguarding children boards, which are:

a. to coordinate what is done by each person or body represented on the Board for the purposes of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area; and

b. to ensure the effectiveness of what is done by each such person or body for those purposes.

PSCB collect information about:

• children who are brought to the attention of PSCB, due to their personal welfare and safeguarding circumstances
• services provided by PSCB members and other key agencies who work together to safeguard children

PSCB partners provide the Board with personal information to enable us to fulfil our statutory functions effectively. This includes the following personal and special category information:

• child personal information (such as name, date of birth, date of death);
• parent/carer and other adults with caring responsibility personal information (such as name, address, telephone numbers, email);
• partners personal information (such as email, telephone numbers); and
• information to help Child Death Overview Panels (CDOPs) assess the causes of a child’s death as part of the child death review process

PSCB collect information in order to:

• manage the membership of the PSCB and its associated subgroups, including communicating with them;
• develop policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in Portsmouth;
• communicate to persons and bodies in Portsmouth the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, raising their awareness of how this can best be done and encouraging them to do so;
• monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of what is done by the authority and our Board partners individually and collectively to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and advise them on ways to improve;
• assist in the planning of services for children in Portsmouth;
• undertake Serious Case Reviews (SCRs), including the review of all deaths of Portsmouth children and advise Board partners on lessons to be learned;
• undertake other types of reviews, such as partnership reviews, reflective practice meetings;
• undertake multi-agency audit activity, such as case file audits;
• provide training courses, forums and briefings, including pre- and post-evaluation;
• carry out staff surveys for monitoring and evaluation purposes;
• complete statutory returns, such as to the Department for Education (DfE);
• undertake wider statutory duties in support of children’s education and welfare.

Communicating with PSCB members and partner organisations

The purpose for PSCB collecting contact details of PSCB members and representatives from PSCB partner organisations information is so we can provide members and partners with a service and let them know about important national and local child safeguarding issues, as well as PSCB activities and events.

The legal basis we rely on for processing personal data under the GDPR is:

Article 6(1)(e) – the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions

PSCB will make public the job role and agency of PSCB Board and sub-group members.

PSCB training and events

If you wish to attend one of our events, you will be asked to provide your contact information including your organisation’s name and, if offered a place, information about any dietary requirements or access provisions you may need. We may also ask for payment if there is a charge to attend.

Our purpose for collecting this information is so we can facilitate the event in effectively and provide you with an acceptable service.

The legal basis we rely on for processing your personal data is your consent under article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR. When we collect any information about dietary or access requirements we also need your consent (under article 9(2)(a)) as this type of information is classed as special category data.

Records of training attendees will be kept for one year plus the current financial year in which the training is held.

Serious case reviews (SCR)

All reviews of cases meeting the SCR criteria should result in a report which is anonymised prior to publication and readily accessible on our website for a minimum of 12 months. Thereafter the report will be made available on request. We also send copies of all SCR reports, including any action taken as a result of the findings of the SCR, the Department for Education (DfE) and the national panel of independent experts.

We are also required to share copies of any other non-SCR reports that are being published with the DfE and the national panel of independent experts.

The information provided to us will be held within the PSCB’s secure storage system to which only authorised staff in the PSCB Business Unit are allowed access. The information held within this storage system will be kept in line with our retention schedule and then disposed of as appropriate. The PSCB’s storage system is hosted by the City Council in secure UK based data centres, which are on site. No information leaves the European Economic Area (EEA).

The City Council takes its data security responsibilities seriously and has policies and procedures in place to ensure the personal data held is:

• prevented from being accidentally or deliberately compromised;
• accessed, altered, disclosed or deleted only by those authorised to do so;
• accurate and complete in relation to why we are processing it;
• continually accessible and usable with daily backups; and
• protected by levels of security ‘appropriate’ to the risks presented by our processing.

The City Council IT Department is certified to the internationally recognised standard for information security management, ISO27001.

Personal information collected by PSCB and processed by the City Council on behalf of the PSCB is subject to the City Council’s records management policies and procedures and will be not kept in line with the Council’s records retention schedule and as detailed elsewhere in this privacy notice.

For details of the Council’s records retention schedule, view the corporate retention schedule.

Under data protection legislation, individuals have the right to request access to information about them that we hold. To make a request for personal information, contact:

Access to Records Co-ordinator
Children’s Social Care
Civic Offices
Guildhall Square
Portsmouth
PO1 2EP

Please note that under the GDPR, there is a right to erasure but the right to erasure does not provide an absolute ‘right to be forgotten’. Where the data being processed is for the purpose of ‘performing a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law’ (GDPR Article 6(1) (e))’, this right does not automatically apply.

To request the removal of personal data, and for any data protection concerns, contact:

Data Protection Officer
Civic Offices
Guildhall Square
Portsmouth

We collect and share personal information only where this is lawful, ensuring that we comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA2018) requirements for processing through:

Article 6(1)(e) – the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law;

Article 9(2) (g) – Necessary for reasons of substantial public interest on the basis of Union or Member State law which is proportionate to the aim pursued and which contains appropriate safeguarding measures; and Sch.1, Pt.2, 1 – Substantial public interest conditions, for processing under the DPA2018.

These articles under the GDPR and the DPA2018 are supported by the following specific legislation:

• Sections 13 and 14 Children Act 2004;
• Regulation 5 and 6 of Local Safeguarding Children Boards Regulations 2006; and
• Chapter 3, section 2 and chapters 4-6 of Working Together to Safeguard Children (2015).

Depending on the individual circumstances of each situation, PSCB may have to share information with different teams within partner agencies to fulfil other duties and powers and to support the work we do together to safeguard children. These might include the Council’s Legal Services (for independent review panels); Case Review Committee members (for considering SCR referrals); Monitoring, Evaluation & Scrutiny Committee Members (for multiagency audits).

For further information about how PSCB handle personal information, and about your data rights, please see the Council’s General Privacy Notice:

For any queries or concerns, to request details of our privacy policy and how we collect and use personal information, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@portsmouthcc.gov.uk or telephone 023 9282 2251

You can also seek advice or raise concerns with the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (if you prefer to use a national rate number).

This privacy notice was last updated on 4 September 2018.