Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) privacy notice

Who we are

Wiltshire Council collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). We are responsible as 'controller' of that personal information. Our Data Protection Officer may be contacted by e-mail at informationgovernance@wiltshire.gov.uk or by post at County Hall Trowbridge, BA14 8JN.

The Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) 0-25 service is responsible for carrying out duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 in relation to statutory assessment processes, and the ongoing monitoring of children and young people who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). This includes information and advice sought for initial assessment of SEND needs, annual review, dispute resolution or mediation processes and processes relating to appeals to the Special Educational Need and Disability Tribunal (SENDIST). We also receive and process requests for additional funding for children and young people in relation to the special educational provision they may require in their school or setting. We work together with other children and young people's services in Wiltshire Council and with partner organisations to ensure we deliver the best possible outcomes for children and young people with SEND in Wiltshire, and to ensure we are fully compliant with the Children and Families Act 2014 and its associated regulations and Code of Practice.

Personal information we collect and use

We collect information from parents or carers for children and young people below and within statutory school age, and from young people themselves if they are aged 16 or over.

Information collected by us

In the course of the process of assessment for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), planning SEND support and providing the most suitable educational provision for children and young people with an EHCP, we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

• Personal information (such as name, address, contact details, date of birth, parent/carer name(s) and contact details, gender).
• Details of special educational needs and disabilities.
• Ethnicity.
• Information about physical or mental health.
• Basic personal information including your name and your contact details such as your email address when you register to attend workshops, events or courses.

We also obtain personal information from the following other sources:

• Other organisations or teams that can provide us with advice and information (such as Adult or Children's Social Services, educational psychologists, health providers including doctors, school nurses and others)
• Schools or post-16 settings currently or previously attended
• Early education providers currently or previously attended (such as nurseries, pre-schools, childminders)

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

• Identify your child or young person's SEND needs
• Clarify your child or young person's needs
• Identify the support they require which will help them to achieve their outcomes
• Know who we need to speak to, so we can ask them to send us information and advice relating to your child
• Make decisions about whether to conduct an education, health and care needs assessment and following this whether to issue an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)
• Make decisions about the content of an EHCP including the outcomes, placement and provision required
• Support the ongoing monitoring of the provision specified in an EHCP where one is issued
• Inform the EHCP annual review process and monitor your child's progress
•  Keep you up to date on SEND related news and developments
• Support disagreement resolution or mediation processes and processes relating to appeals to the Special Educational Need and Disability Tribunal (SENDIST)
• Make decisions about whether to provide additional funding to the setting where your child is educated (such as Inclusion Support Funding in early years settings and SEND banded funding in schools and colleges)
• Help to resolve any disagreements
• Enable coordinated working with other teams and organisations, including teams who provide support to adults with previously identified SEND including adult social care
• Analyse service provision and effectiveness evaluate and quality assure the services we provide
• Assess for specialist equipment required to support a child or young person's SEND
• Inform future commissioned services and educational placements requirements
• Administer workshops, events or courses that you choose to attend (sending confirmation of workshop booking, evaluation forms to attendees following the workshop, collect data on the evaluation responses for further development of workshops)

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We collect and use pupil information to comply with our legal obligations as outlined in the Children and Families Act 2014, and to carry out tasks in the public interest. We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

• Article (6)(1)(c) - Legal obligation: the processing is necessary to comply with the law.
• Article (6)(1)(e) - Public task: the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions  that the council is responsible for.
• When we collect or share special category personal data, we rely upon the following legal bases under UK GDPR and conditions as set out in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018:
• Article 9(2)(b) - Employment, social security and social protection
• Article 9(2)(f) - Legal claims or judicial acts.
• Article 9(2)(g) - Reasons of substantial public interest.
• Article 9(2)(h) - Health or social care.
• Article 9(2)(j) - Archiving, research and statistics.

How long your personal data will be kept

We keep children and young people's information from their date of birth until they reach the age of 25. Additionally, the SEND and Educational Psychology services keep information for 6 years after the date of last involvement, for those young people supported between the ages of 20 and 25. After this time the information is made inaccessible to system users and securely destroyed.

For online workshops, we will hold your personal information securely and retain it until the course attendance data and evaluation responses have been processed, after which the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed.

Who we share your personal information with:

• Teams within Wiltshire Council or those working with Wiltshire Council  to improve outcomes for children and young people
• Commissioned providers of local authority services (such as education or health services)
• Schools, colleges and early years providers as well as wider education or training providers
• Educational Psychologists employed by the Local Authority to undertake work in our schools and settings
• Partner organisations, where necessary, which may include NHS teams, health visitors, midwives, district councils, housing providers, Police, school nurses, doctors and mental health workers
• Other local authorities and social care or health providers outside of the Local Authority
• Department of Education
• Providers of independent advice and guidance
• Mediation services.
• We share information that we have gathered as part of a statutory needs assessment to identify the setting to be named in section I of a child or young person's EHC Plan (this includes consulting in accordance with parental or young person choice as well as with those providers we feel would be suitable).
• We share information to resolve disagreements as part of formal and informal processes in relation to mediation, Ways Forward meetings or formal appeals through the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal.
• For people who have signed up to receive email updates through our SEND newsletter, we use Mailchimp to manage subscriptions and send emails to you.
• We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have rights which you can exercise free of charge which allow you to:

• Know what we are doing with your information and why we are doing it
• Ask to see what information we hold about you (subject access request)
• Ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
• Object to direct marketing
• Make a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office
• Withdraw consent at any time (if applicable)

Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:

• Ask us to delete information we hold about you
• Have your information transferred electronically to yourself or to another organisation
• Object to decisions being made that significantly affect you
• Object to how we are using your information
• Stop us using your information in certain ways

We will always seek to comply with your request however we may be required to hold or use your information to comply with legal duties. Please note, your request may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you.

For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on individuals' rights under UK GDPR.

If you would like to exercise any of your rights, please contact the Information Governance Team at informationgovernance@wiltshire.gov.uk

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Contact

Wiltshire Council is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioners Officer.  Full details of our registration can be found at ICO register of data controllers.

The Data Controller can be contacted using the details below:

• InformationGovernance@wiltshire.gov.uk (opens new window)
• 0300 456 0100
• Data Protection Officer, Information Governance, Wiltshire Council, County Hall, Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, BA14 8J

UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.