Elective Home Education – Privacy Notice

Portsmouth City Council is a registered Data Controller (Registration Number Z5578313) and tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information in accordance with data protection law. This privacy notice tells you about how Portsmouth City Council collects and uses personal information in relation to pupils educated at home.

• What information do we collect
• Why do we collect your information
• How do we use your information
• Who we share child and young person’s information with
• Why we share child and young person’s information
• Department for Education
• Collecting child and young person’s information
• Storing child and young person’s data
• Requesting access to your personal data

We collect and use personal information relating to children and young people educated at home, in order to comply our statutory obligations and so we can support teaching, learning, monitor progress and provide pastoral care.

The categories of child and young person’s information that we process include:

• personal identifiers and contacts (such as name, contact details, address)
• school data (such as details of any schools attended, national curriculum results, attendance information, unique learner number, qualifications obtained)
• characteristics (such as ethnicity and language)
• safeguarding information (such as court orders and professional involvement)
• special educational needs (including the needs, ranking and any relevant medical information)
• evidence of a suitable education

We use child and young person’s information to:

1. enable us to carry out specific functions for which we are responsible in accordance with relevant legislation
2. enable us to deliver and manage services for home educated children including those provided for and on behalf of children, young people, parents, and other stakeholders
3. enable us to establish that an efficient and suitable full time education provision is in place for elective home educated children and young persons.
4. derive statistics
5. help investigate complaints and concerns

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the legal bases we rely on for processing personal and special category information for the above purposes are:

• Article 6 – General Data Protection Regulation, paragraph 1, (c) processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which Portsmouth City Council is subject;(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 the controller;
• Article 9 – General Data Protection Regulation, paragraph 2, section (g) substantial public interest, special condition 18 -safeguarding of children and individuals at risk.
• Article 9 – General Data Protection Regulation, paragraph 2, section (h) health or social care.

In addition, we collect information on children and young people in order to comply with the obligations placed on us by the Department for Education (DfE) i.e. for the purpose of statutory data collections, as outlined under section 3 of The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013.

Further information on the statutory data collections we are required to participate in, and their legal basis can be found on the GOV.UK site.

Portsmouth City Council uses personal information relating to elective home education in order to comply with the Council’s responsibilities and statutory obligations for Education.  These include the Council’s duties under the Education Act 1996 and Education and Inspections Act 2006 to:

• make enquiries of children’s education who are of compulsory school age
• establish the identities, so far as it is possible to do so, of children in the Portsmouth area who are not receiving a suitable education and
• intervene if it appears that parents are not providing a suitable education.

Portsmouth City Council uses personal information relating to elective home education in order to comply with the Council’s responsibilities and statutory obligations under the Education Act 2002 and Children’s Act 2004 to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the Local Authority area.

We routinely share child and young person’s information where relevant with:

• the Department for Education (DfE)
• other local authorities
• Solent NHS Trust Children’s Public Health
• Portsmouth based Secondary and Primary schools in the event of a School Attendance Order or Notice being required.

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

We share information about children and young people electively home educated in the Portsmouth Local Authority. This is to ensure that those pupils educated at home have an efficient and suitable full time education provision.

Information may be shared with education institutions and other public bodies (including the Department for Education (DfE), police, probation, health services and social care). Other organisations may pass information to us to help us to carry out our statutory obligations and to ensure safeguarding of electively home educated children.

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. Information on Post-16 education of all students, including those educated at home is shared with DfE. Information on home educated students is also shared with DfE via the National Client Caseload Information System (NCCIS) platform.

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.

We collect child and young person’s information via secure file transfer systems including those used between schools, local authorities and partner organisations. Information is also obtained via online or hard copy application / data collection forms.
Child and young person’s information is essential for the council’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.

We hold personal data on secure systems and premises, and retain it for no longer than necessary. All of our staff undertake mandatory information security and data protection training and understand their obligations with regard to data handling. Access to systems, networks and premises are strictly controlled. All technology is regularly tested and patched to ensure the highest possible level of security.

For more information on our records retention schedule, please view the corporate retention schedule.

Under data protection legislation, parents and pupils have the right to request access to information about them that we hold. To make a request for your personal information, or be given access to your child’s educational record, contact:

Data Protection Officer
Portsmouth City Council
Civic Offices,
Portsmouth,
PO1 2AL

Email: dataprotection@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Tel. 023 9282 2251

You also have the right to:

• ask us for access to information about you that we hold
• have your personal data rectified, if it is inaccurate or incomplete
• request the deletion or removal of personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing
• restrict our processing of your personal data (i.e. permitting its storage but no further processing)
• object to direct marketing (including profiling) and processing for the purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics
• not be subject to decisions based purely on automated processing where it produces a legal or similarly significant effect on you

If you have a concern or complaint about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

Where we are processing your personal data with your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent. If you change your mind, or you are unhappy with our use of your personal data, please let us know by contacting

Data Protection Officer
Portsmouth City Council
Civic Offices,
Portsmouth,
PO1 2AL

Email: dataprotection@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Tel. 023 9282 2251