Privacy Notice – Children and Families (Children’s Social Care)

What we do with your personal data

Somerset Council provides a wide range of services to the people of Somerset. In order to provide those services, we process large amounts of your personal data. Please see Somerset Council’s overarching Privacy Notice for further details, including the Data Protection Officer’s contact details.

Purpose for processing

We will process personal information about you and your family in order to provide you with the right services and to protect children and young people. These services include:

Contact and Referral – to assess and identify the right services for children and young people.
Early Support (Children with Disabilities) – to assess and identify the right support services for children and young people with disabilities.
CIN (Children in Need) – to assess and identify the right services, and to undertake direct work to support improved outcomes for Children in Need.
Child Protection – to assess and identify the right services, and to undertake direct work to protect children and young people at risk of harm and to support improved outcomes for Children in Need.
CLA (Children Looked After) – to assess and identify the right services, and to undertake direct work to support improved outcomes for children and young people who cannot live at home.
Leaving Care – to assess and identify the right services, and to undertake direct work to support improved outcomes for young people who have been Looked After.
Adoption – to assess and identify the right services, and to undertake direct work to support improved outcomes for children who are being adopted.
Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families – to assess and identify the right services, and to undertake direct work to support improved outcomes for children and young people who face vulnerabilities. Please see Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families (Children’s Services) FAQ Document for more details.

What kind of personal information we store and share

We store and share information about individual children and young people, including their:

Name and address
Family
Education (for example attendance, claiming free school meals, Education, Health and Care Plans)
Safeguarding notifications
Employment status
Health (including mental health)
Any criminal incidents or police involvement
Housing risks
Professional involvement (for example, support from social workers)

We store and share information about children and young people’s family members, including:

Employment status
Police involvement
Health (including mental health and substance misuse)
Education status of any other children
Housing Provider (if in Social Housing)
Domestic abuse
Professional involvement

Please see the Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families (Children’s Services) FAQ Document for more details in relation to the use of personal information for Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families.

Legal basis for processing

There are a number of lawful bases that Children’s Services use for processing personal data. These are:

By law: Children’s Services are legally required by a number of UK laws and European Regulations and Directives to deliver certain services. Services which are required by law are called ‘Statutory Services’, and include Adoption, Fostering, keeping children safe, and looking after their wellbeing.

Children’s Services can be legally required to disclose your personal information in order to deliver these Statutory Services, and your personal information will also be shared in cases such as prevention or detection of crime or fraud. We do not need your consent to process data if we are doing so on the basis of law.

Public task gives public bodies a lawful basis to process your data where it is deemed necessary for the performance of a task which is carried out in the public interest, and when exercising official authority which is laid down by law. An example of public task is when a social worker supports a family, keeping children and young people safe, and looking after their wellbeing.

Safeguarding falls under public task and by law. In cases where you or another member of the public may be at risk, your personal information will be shared as necessary in order to protect individuals from harm.

We do not need your consent to process data if we are doing so on the basis of public task.

Consent: where no other lawful basis applies, the council will ask for your consent to process your personal data. For example, Children’s Services would need to ask for your consent to participate in a survey. Consent must be fair, freely given and can be withdrawn at any time, and the contact details to do so should have been provided to you at the point of collection. You can also use our contact us page to ask for your consent to be withdrawn.

Digital Economy Act (2017) allows the Council to share information with professionals (Trusted Partners) for the purpose of improving outcomes of children, young people, and their families. This enables early support to be identified, in order to meet the Council’s objectives of ensuring that the welfare of families is prioritised, and vulnerable people are protected.

For more information about the use of the Digital Economy Act by Early Help and Supporting Families see Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families (Children’s Services) FAQ Document.

For more information about the legislation that underpins this information sharing refer to Lawful basis and legal gateways which allow Somerset Council to process your data.

Data sharing

Your personal data is shared with Somerset Council employees who have a business need to have access to the information, (for example Children’s Social Care, health visitors, adult services). It will also be shared with professionals from partner organisations in order to provide you with appropriate services and to protect children. This may include:

Your GP
Schools and school nurses
Mental health professionals
Health visitors and midwives
Probation officers, youth justice workers
Educational psychologists, psychiatrists, psychologists
Housing providers
Department for Work and Pensions
Drug and alcohol workers
Early Years workers
The Voluntary Community Sector

Where information is being shared for the healthy child programme and Public Health interventions, the information will be recorded on the Child Health Information Service system. For more information visit: Child Health Information Services page.

Where a child has an Education, Health and Care Plan, information will be shared to help professionals support the plan.

Data will also be shared with Central Government Departments (and agencies working on their behalf), for the purposes of statutory reporting, research and improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of local public services for children and young people. For more information about the Supporting Families National Insights Data collection see Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families (Children’s Services) FAQ Document.

For details of professionals with access to personal data as part of Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families see External Transform View Agencies.

Data sharing will only take place when it is lawful to do so and will be done in compliance with current data protection legislation.

Transfers abroad

Your personal information will normally remain within the UK / European Union. If your information needs to be sent abroad, you will be informed prior to any transfer.

Data retention

Somerset Council will retain your information while it is providing you with a service and in accordance with council retention policies and associated statutory guidance.

Occasionally, we may need to permanently retain your data if required to do so by law. At the moment, the law requires us to hold information because of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

All records will be retained until further notice, and once the Inquiry is complete and the legal hold lifted, the retention will return to the periods listed below:

Contact and Referral only
Retention category – 6 years from case closed
Contact and Referral and Assessment
Retention category – 25 years from date of birth
Early Support (Children with Disabilities)
Retention category – 34 years from date of birth
CIN (Children in Need)
Retention category – referral only: 6 years from case closed, assessment: 25 years from date of birth
Section 47 (no outcome of Child Protection)
Retention category – 35 years from case closed
Child Protection
Retention category – 100 years from date of birth
CLA (Children Looked After)
Retention category – 100 years from date of birth
Leaving Care
Retention category – 100 years from date of birth
Adoption
Retention category – 100 years from date of birth
Early Help, Prevention and Supporting Families
Retention category – referral only: 6 years from case closed, assessment: 25 years from date of birth

Your rights

You have the right to:

ask Somerset Council for a copy of your data
rectify or erase your personal data
object to and restrict processing
not be subject to automated decision-making

However, these rights only apply if the council has no legal obligation to collect and use that data.

If you would like to understand the information that we hold on you, where it came from and access a copy please see Your rights on the information we hold about you page.

You also have the right to complain to the regulator – Information Commissioner’s Office.

If you are concerned about the way your data is being used, you can contact the Council’s Information Governance team on informationgovernance@somerset.gov.uk.

Consequences

In some cases, if you do not supply your information to us, we will not be able to provide you with the services we are obliged to provide by law or any supplementary service you have asked for.