Background information

Schools, Local Authorities (LA), the Department for Education (DfE) and other educational bodies that process personal data about pupils are required by the Data Protection Act to issue a Privacy Notice to all parents/pupils to inform them of the purposes for which that personal data may be held and used.

The Privacy Notice is in the form of a single letter which is sent to parents/pupils who are new to a setting. For example:

• A pupil might receive the Privacy Notice as part of a school brochure or induction pack, or in a school diary, and/or it could be posted on the school notice board.
• A child receiving social care services or a child looked after might receive their Privacy Notice as part of other information about the services that they are being offered.

It is no longer necessary to reissue Privacy Notices to pupils who have received previous versions.

The Privacy Notice refers the recipient to both their local authority's website and to the Department for Education's website to see how they will store and use the data, as well as details of any organisations with whom the data will be shared.  Further details can be found below.

City of York Council

City of York Council uses information about children for whom it provides services to carry out specific functions for which it is responsible, such as the assessment of any special educational needs the child may have. It also uses the information to derive statistics to inform decisions on (for example) the funding of schools, and to assess the performance of schools and set targets for them. The statistics are used in such a way that individual children cannot be identified from them.

City of York Council has a duty under the Children's Act 2004 to co-operate with our partners across a range of agencies, e.g. health, youth services, the police and voluntary community, to improve the well being and welfare of children in our area. As part of this duty we will be required to share information about children and young people in our area. The YorOK Child Index is a system that helps the people who are working with children and their family to contact each other. It contains basic information such as name, address, date of birth and school but does not hold the personal information about work done with a family. The staff that work with the YorOk Child Index can tell authorised people if another service is working with a family and how to contact that service. Index staff do not know the details about why a service is working with a family. The information about children is securely held. Only authorised people can ask for information from the YorOk Child Index. They must have attended training.

Website: www.yor-ok.org.uk/integratedworking

Primary Care Trusts

Primary Care Trusts (PCT) use information about pupils for research and statistical purposes, to monitor the performance of local health services and to evaluate and develop them. The statistics are used in such a way that individual pupils cannot be identified from them. Information on the height and weight of individual pupils may however be provided to the child and its parents and this will require the PCTs to maintain details of pupils' names for this purpose for a period designated by the Department of Health following the weighing and measuring process. PCTs may also provide individual schools and LAs with aggregate information on pupils' height and weight. 

www.nhs.uk/England/AuthoritiesTrusts/Pct/Default.aspx

Youth support services

For pupils of 13 years and over, a school is legally required to pass on certain information to the provider of youth support services in your area. This is the local authority support service for young people aged 13 to 19 in England.

This information includes the name and address of the pupil and parent, and any further information relevant to the youth support services' role.

However parents, or the pupils themselves if aged 16 or over, can ask that no information beyond name and address (for pupil and parent) be passed on to the youth services provider. If as a parent, or as a pupil aged 16 or over, you wish to opt-out and do not want youth support services to receive from the school information beyond name, address and date of birth then please contact the school.

In addition, the youth support service would like to collect the names and address details of children in secondary school, age 11 and 12 years, who they are supporting. The youth support service will approach parents to obtain consent.

Website: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/YoungPeople/index.htm

For further information about how the City of York Council uses information, please contact:
Robert Beane
Information Management Officer
PO Box 31
Library Square
York YO1 7DU
Telephone: (01904) 552933
email: data.protection@york.gov.uk

The Department for Education (DfE)

For information about how the DfE store and use pupil's and children's information, visit What the Department does with pupils' and children's data on the DfE website.

For information about third party organisations that the DfE shares pupil data with visit  Who the Department passes pupil data to on the DfE website.

If you can't access the website, please contact the DfE as follows:

Public Communications Unit
Department for Education
Sanctuary Buildings
Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BT
Website: www.education.gov.uk
email:  info@education.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: 0870 000 2288