Privacy notice - SEND service

We at North Somerset Council work hard to keep your personal data safe. This privacy explains how we look after your data. It also tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

North Somerset Council collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal data about you. This means we need to follow the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). These laws say that we are the controller of that data. 

The Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) 0 to 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 North Somerset Council and with partner organisations to ensure we deliver the best possible outcomes for children and young people with SEND in North Somerset, and to ensure we are fully compliant with the Children and Families Act 2014 and its associated regulations and Code of Practice.

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.

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 and carer names 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 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

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. We also quality assure EHC plans and this is done via a multi-agency panel
• 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 top up 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, and 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)

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

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 six 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.

• teams within North Somerset Council or those working with North Somerset 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, 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
• we will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law

You have the right to see the personal data we process about you, as well as the right of objection, rectification, restriction and erasure in some circumstances.

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we process your personal data, our Data Protection Officer can be contacted at DPO@n-somerset.gov.uk.