Dudley Governor Services (DGS) (also known as Governor Support) is a traded service run by Dudley MBCs Directorate of Children’s Services. Its key functions are to provide clerking services and general support for governing boards (this includes governing boards, academy trust boards, local governing boards and other similar bodies and should be assumed from now on as including these). It also provides training for school and academy governors.
From April 2018 much of its communication with school will be through a commercial website based system known as GovernorHub. GovernorHub’s own privacy statement can be found at https://governorhub.com
DGS holds and processes data that details the membership of governing boards and in most cases the minutes, policies and decisions of governing board meetings. These include full governing board meetings, finance meetings, meetings related to staffing, pupil exclusion and appeals meetings, staff dismissal and appeals meetings. The role and working practices of governing boards are laid down in the following legislation and guidance:
School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2012 and subsequent amendments
The School Governance (Roles, Procedures and Allowances) (England) Regulations 2013 and subsequent amendments
The constitution of governing bodies of maintained schools - Statutory guidance for governing bodies of maintained schools and local authorities in England, September 2016
Governance handbook - For academies, multi-academy trusts and maintained schools January 2017
DGS processes personal data on the basis of traded service obligation (in the form of service level agreements) with schools, academies and trusts which purchase the services. DGS are the data processor on behalf of these organisations, who are the data controllers. Where DGS utilise GovernorHub to undertake activities relating to their business e.g. processing administration of personal data by staff members of DGS, the relationship between DGS and GovernorHub is that DGS is the data controller and GovernorHub are the data processor.
Where schools access GovernorHub directly to process personal information the relationship is one of Data Controller (school) to sub-processor (GovernorHub). This notice sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect, or that is provided to us, will be processed.
For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 2018 (the Act) and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the data processor is DGS.
We may collect and process the following data about you:
Information that you provide by filling in forms related to governing boards. This includes information provided at the time someone becomes a governor or is reappointed as a governor.
Information is also collected as part of the functions of the governing board meetings, for example, the register of business interests and the declaration of any pecuniary interests. DGS is in receipt of this information as part of its role in processing and distributing minutes and other documents.
We may also ask for some information when you report a problem or make an enquiry.
If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
We may ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
From April 2018 onwards governor data will be stored in the GovernorHub database. GovernorHub works with customers who purchase subscriptions on behalf of users (e.g. school governors and governing boards). We also subscribe to this data base for schools who do not use the service for DGS but that we may need to communicate with on behalf of the local authority, for example, elections for representatives for schools forum or similar positions. Through the database we have access to the information governors upload to GovernorHub, namely:
name and email address
any information governors choose to provide such as address, phone number(s), date of birth, ethnicity etc
the school(s) / academies / trust at which they are registered as a governor or user on GovernorHub
what type of governor / trustee they are (e.g. parent, co-opted, local authority)
the dates of their term of office
their role on the governing board (e.g. chair, vice-chair)
whether they have administrator access rights to use GovernorHub
the declarations of interest as a governor or trustee
the training records you have entered on GovernorHub
any other specific information contained within minutes of governing board meetings
Usage patterns can be monitored via GovernorHub DGS, however, this is using anonymous information.
DGS will use GovernorHub to communicate with governors via email to provide news, information, surveys and invitations to events such as governor conferences or training. You can opt out of receiving these communications at any time.
Personal contact information (title, name, address, phone number(s), email address), declarations of interest and training records can be made visible to other members of your governing board (and members of other GovernorHub groups of which governors are a member). The only mandatory items of personal data required by the system are your name and email address. You are able to control whether your personal data in addition to email address is visible to other members of your governing board.
Ortoo Technologies Ltd, the developer of GovernorHub, have access to your personal data and will only use this as detailed in their How we use your personal data entry on their website.
All documents, calendar bookings and discussions created and stored by your school (or other group using GovernorHub) and governing board members are only visible to the individuals listed as Governing Board members on the school Governing Board page. DGS cannot see this information unless you have an agreement with them to disclose this information. Ortoo Technologies Ltd. support staff may sometimes need to access this data if there is a report of a fault or problem with the site.
The data that we collect from you is stored and processed at data centres in the UK or European Economic Area. DGS and GovernorHub will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy notice. All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Where a password has been set up which enables you to access certain parts of our site, governors are responsible for keeping this password confidential. They are asked not to share a password with anyone. DGS and GovernorHub will never ask you to provide your chosen password to us by email or on the telephone. If you forget your password you can request a new one by selecting the “Forgotten your password” option when you log in.
We use information held about you in the following ways:
To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer,
To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us,
To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you, your subscribing organisation and us,
To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so,
To notify you about changes to our service,
To provide you with information about products or services which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes,
To maintain an historical record of discussions and documents posted on the site.
Children’s Services uses Power BI as a business intelligence analysis tool that can handle hundreds of thousands of lines of raw data and add value by categorising, calculating and visualising information to give insight.
Working with colleagues in Children’s Services, interactive business intelligence dashboards have been developed to provide analysis into things like, number of service users, number of children in need, different types of interventions applied etc.
These insights can be shared with those members of staff who need the analysis to help Children’s Services improve service operations. Access to personal identifiable level data is restricted to those who have a lawful basis to access it.
At any time you can review, delete or change the information you submitted during registration by visiting the Your Account section of GovernorHub once logged in (accessed by clicking on your name at the top of the page). You should update your information if it changes. Please contact support@governorhub.com if you would like your personal information and account removed. When your information is removed the system will retain all postings you have made in the Noticeboard discussion forum and will associate the postings with your name in order to maintain a complete record of discussions and to stop postings becoming anonymous.
In some circumstances GovernorHub will retain information you have requested to remove, for example to resolve disputes, to maintain the integrity of data records (such as associating names with postings on discussion pages), to troubleshoot problems and enforce their Terms of Use. Further, such prior information is never completely removed from our databases due to technical constraints and the fact that we back up our systems. The back up copies of data are not available for direct access and would only be used to restore data in event of data loss. Therefore, you should not expect that all of your personally identifiable information will be completely removed from our databases in response to your requests that it be removed.
DGS and Ortoo Technologies Ltd do not sell or trade personal information with third parties for the purposes or sales, marketing or advertising. Personal information will not be used for automated profiling. Personal information will be disclosed where we are obliged by law to do so. If you post or send offensive or objectionable content anywhere on or to any of GovernorHub’s websites or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on any of those websites, we can use the information that is available to us about to stop such behaviour. This may involve informing relevant third parties such as your school and other agencies about the content.
Your rights
We do not use or process personal data for direct marketing purposes. We will inform users of DGS services or GovernorHub before collecting or using data if we ever intend to use personal data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes.
The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act by contacting DGS or GovernorHub.
Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to: Dudley Governor Services Governor Support Training and Clerking Saltwells EDC, Bowling Green Road, Dudley, DY2 9LY Telephone: 01384 814295 E-mail: govtraining.cs@dudley.gov.uk
