Dudley SEND Team Privacy Notice

The SEND Team processes personal information relating to children and young people and may receive this information from

• themselves
• parents/carers
• current and previous educational/care settings
• the Dudley Council ICT provider
• other Dudley Council teams
• other Local Authority SEND Teams
• the Department for Education (DfE)
• other external professional agencies

The information we collect will include

• the child/young person's and family contact details
• national curriculum and attainment data including assessment results
• attendance/exclusion information
• information from previous/current early years providers/schools/post 16 providers
• any information from other Local Authority SEN Teams
• any health/medical information
• any social care information
• any personal characteristics such as their religion and ethnic group

We hold this personal data to:

• consider and possibly conduct a statutory joint educational, health and care needs assessment
• consider if top up funding is required for children/young people with identified SEN
• include in an Education, Health and Care Plan/Graduated Support Plan (if applicable)
• consult with transitioning educational/care settings for future placements
• provide education support for children and young people with special educational needs
• be able to monitor, review and report on progress
• ensure the safeguarding of children and young people
• ensure the medical health, safety and wellbeing of children and young people

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.

Our lawful basis for processing information is:

• Legal obligation- processing is necessary to comply with the law (SEND Code of Practice. Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014)
• Public task- processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest
• Vital Interests-processing is necessary to protect someone’s life
• Consent: the individual has given clear consent to process their personal data for a specific purpose

When we collect or share special category personal data, we rely upon the following legal conditions under UK GDPR:

• Article 9(2)(b) - Employment, social security and social protection. We rely on the ‘employment , social security and social protection’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(b) to process your special category data.
• Article 9(2)(f) - Legal claims or judicial acts.
• Article 9(2)(g) - Reasons of substantial public interest. We rely on the ‘equality of opportunity or treatment’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(g) to process your special category data.
• Article 9(2)(h) - Health or social care. We rely on the ‘health or social care purposes’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(h) to process your special category data.
• Article 9(2)(j) - Archiving, research and statistics. We rely on the ‘research’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(j) to process your special category data.

We are required, by law, to pass certain information about children/young people to the Department for Education (DfE) for statutory returns.

If you need more information about how Dudley MBC or DfE collect and use your information, please visit: How we look after your information

Organisations that we are most likely to share personal data with are:

• Dudley MBC ICT service providers
• Any previous/current/possible transitioning Early Years provider/School/Virtual School/Post 16 Provider
• Other Dudley MBC LA Teams (Admissions, Early Help, Early Years, Education Access, Free School Meals, Transport Team, Education Outcomes, Social Care, Adult Social Care, Specific Speech and Language Impaired Children’s Services, Specialist Inclusion Services, Family Solutions
• Other Local Authority SEND Teams (if moving in or leaving Dudley)
• Information advice and support service SENDIASS
• Special Educational Needs & Disability Tribunal (SENDIST)
• The Department for Education (DfE)
• Ofsted
• The National Health Service Trust
• Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership Trust
• Black Country Integrated Care Board (BCICB)
• Shropshire Community Services
• Other health professionals
• Other external professionals

Dudley MBC in conjunction and in contract with third party organisations ensure their systems are scrutinised and checked so their processing and handling of data meets strict UK General Data Protection Regulation standards, including having robust, secure safety measures that guard against data loss or mis-handling.

We will process information in a legitimate and lawful basis to facilitate and provide services. In doing so we will use Adobe Acrobat Sign, an electronic signature solution, to validate and ensure electronically signed agreements are legally binding that include an audit trail of the agreement with a valid certificate.

We have an approved Data Processing Agreement that assures Adobe are compliant in processing your data including data that is classed as special category. For a copy of this please contact our Information Governance Team.

Please view the Adobe Sign Privacy Policy

As part of the Government’s investment in the Delivering Better Value in SEND (DBV) programme, Dudley has been identified as one of the 55 local authorities to receive funding to support the reform of their high needs systems, addressing the underlying issues that lead to increased pressure, and putting them on a more sustainable footing. This will help to stabilise local authorities so that they are better able to support children and young people with SEND and prepare for change.

As part of the Programme Newton and CIPFA will conduct a diagnostic with each LA, informed by the Data, to identify opportunities for the LA to include in their DSG management plans. All data shared will be pseudonymised prior to being shared with Newton. The programme is expected to last for two years.

To ensure personal data information is kept safe we have the following controls in place:

• The information will not be used for any purpose other than those stated in this notice
• The information will be held within secure systems/locations, with appropriate levels of security, that comply with relevant data protection legislation
• The information will only be shared for lawful purposes and with an appropriate level of security that complies with relevant data protection legislation
• The information will not be held for longer than is necessary, after which it will be securely destroyed in line with Dudley MBC’s Retention Policy. Our policies and procedures
• The information will be processed in accordance with Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). We will not give information about our children/young people to anyone without your consent unless the law and our policies allow us to do so.