When City of York Council (CYC) collects and uses your personal data, we are the “controller” and comply with data protection and privacy legislation. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and our registration number is Z5809563.
This privacy notice was completed in August 2022, and we will keep it under review to make sure it is accurate and up to date. This privacy notice should be read in conjunction with the council’s main privacy notice and the School Appeals Service privacy notice at **insert link when published.
The School Appeals Service is part of the Council’s legal services team. By law:
- if a child is refused a place at their parents’ or carers’ preferred school; or
- if a child is permanently excluded from school and if the governors at that school uphold the head teacher's decision
then the parents or carers of that child have the right to appeal against the decision to an independent panel consisting of volunteer members (the School Appeals Panel).
- Collecting personal data
- Our legal basis for using personal data
- Sharing personal data
- How we store your information
- Retaining personal data
- Your rights
Collecting personal data
We will collect information from you when you apply to be a volunteer member of the School Appeals Panel. After the recruitment process, if you become a panel member, we will continue to use it for arranging and holding school admission appeals or exclusion reviews.
This will include:
- the application and recruitment process
- contacting you to arrange training
- finding out your availability for appeals
- providing you with the information that you will need to conduct an appeal
- inviting you to take part in surveys
The information we will collect and use includes:
- name
- address
- email address
- age
- previous relevant employment history/experience
We may also collect and use special category data (sensitive data), if relevant to provide this service. For example:
- gender
- racial/ethnic origin
- disability/medical information
Surveys
From time to time we may conduct surveys to get your direct thoughts and opinions on your experience of being a volunteer panel member. When conducting each survey we will initially invite you to take part, and this will be classed as asking for your consent to participate.
Your information gathered at the time of the survey will be only used for the purpose of the survey and we will not assume consent for any other purpose.
We will provide you with a privacy notice for each survey we may ask you to take part in so that you can clearly decide if you want to consent to take part in it. If we intend to use external companies or third parties for a survey, these will be specified in the survey’s privacy notice.
Personal data collected during the survey will be deleted upon the completion of the survey analysis and will not be stored or used for any other purpose.
Our legal basis for using personal data
We need to use your personal data and special categories of personal data (sensitive data) to meet our legal obligations and / or it is in the substantial public interest, when we appoint you as a volunteer panel member for example, to check your eligibility to be volunteer panel member, to comply with health and safety laws.
Some of the legislation the Council relies on is:
- Admission Appeals
- s.94 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (the SSFA);
- the School Admission Appeals Code issued under s.84 of the SSFA; and
- the School Admissions Code issued under s.84 of the SSFA.
- Exclusion Reviews
- The School Discipline (Pupil Exclusions and Reviews) (England) Regulations 2012;
- s.51A of the Education Act 2002;
- statutory guidance - School Suspensions and Permanent Exclusions.
Together with such further legislation and/or statutory guidance as may be introduced from time to time in relation to admission appeals or exclusion reviews.
Sharing personal data
To deliver the School Appeals Service we may need to share your personal data, using secure methods, with:
- the school;
- the Admission Authority (e.g. the relevant Academy Trust or Governing Body);
- other volunteer panel members, where you are hearing an appeal together;
- parents or carers of the child on whose behalf an appeal has been made;
- other City of York council services;
- the Department for Education (DfE);
- other local authorities;
- our Business Intelligence Unit;
- auditing services.
Where personal data is shared with any of the above we will limit this to what is necessary and appropriate.
We will not pass on your personal data to any third parties for marketing, sales, or any other commercial purposes without your prior explicit consent.
We may use the information we collect from you for reporting, research, and statistical purposes. When we do this, it will be anonymised which means the information will be turned into a form that cannot be linked back to you and does not identify individuals.
We may be required or permitted, under data protection legislation, to disclose your personal data without your explicit consent, for example if we have a legal obligation to do so, such as for:
- law enforcement
- fraud investigations
- regulation and licensing
- criminal prosecutions
- court proceedings
How we store your information
We will keep the information you give us in the council’s secure network and make sure nobody has access to it, who shouldn’t.
Retaining personal data
We will only keep your data for as long as you are a volunteer panel member and then for six years after you stop. We will then securely and confidentially delete and destroy it.
At the end of the retention period, we may pass any relevant information to the City Archives where it is required or appropriate to do so.
Your rights
To find out about your rights under data protection law, you can go to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).
You can also find information about your rights online.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, want to exercise your rights, or if you have a complaint about how your information has been used, please contact us.
Also see
- Website terms and disclaimer
- Data Protection Policy Statement
- Accessibility statement
- Cookies policy
- Copyright statement