Alternative Provision (AP) Census

Why do we collect and use this information?

Hampshire County Council is the Data Controller for the purpose of collecting and using information from providers of alternative provision, schools and parent/carers to carry out our obligations around the collection, preparation and submission of the statutory Alternative Provision (AP) census returns, including a named set of pupil records for those who attend AP education.

We collect information about your child and their AP setting. We hold this personal data securely and use it to:

• provide the statutory return to the Department for Education (DfE)
• drive to raise standards
• provide accurate targeting of funding
• assist the monitoring and development of policy
• ensure compliance with our obligations under the accuracy principle of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (Article (5)(1)(d)), making sure our records about you and your family are up to date

The following sections provide further detail around the information we process setting out what allows us to do this (lawful basis), who we may share it with, how long we keep it for, alongside identifying any rights you may have and who to contact if you think we’re not handling your information in the right way.

The categories of information that we collect, hold and share

The following personal and special category information may be processed depending on your individual circumstances:

• your child’s personal information (such as name, address, Unique Pupil Number, Unique learner Number, date of birth, gender, school)
• your child’s AP settings placement details (such as such as URN, type of setting, reason for placement, attendance pattern)

The lawful basis on which we use this information

We collect and use the information ensuring that we comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA2018) requirements for processing through:

• Article 6(1)(e) – the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law

These articles under the UK GDPR and the DPA2018 are supported by (but not limited to) the following specific legislation:

• Section 537A of the Education Act 1996
• Section 3 of The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013
• Education (Information about Children in Alternative Provision) (England) Regulations 2007

Under the lawful basis identified above we do not require your consent to process this information but we are required, through this privacy notice, to ensure you are fully informed of why we are collecting this information and what we will do with it.

Please note that no automated decision making occurs for any parts of these activities controlled by the County Council. The service does use profiling but this is only to support identified this specific group for delivery of the statutory return in regards to AP education.

Storing and securing data

The information provided to us will be held within the County Council’s secure Document Management System (DMS). The information held within the County Council’s DMS will be kept in line with our retention schedule and then deleted as appropriate. The County Council’s DMS is hosted by the County Council in secure UK based data centres, which are on site.

The County Council takes its data security responsibilities seriously and has policies and procedures in place to ensure the personal data held is:

• prevented from being accidentally or deliberately compromised
• accessed, altered, disclosed or deleted only by those authorised to do so
• accurate and complete in relation to why we are processing it
• continually accessible and usable with daily backups
• protected by levels of security ‘appropriate’ to the risks presented by our processing

The County Council also ensures its IT Department is certified to the internationally recognised standard for information security management, ISO27001.

Who do we share information with?

We only share information when there is a lawful basis that allows us to do so. Any information to be shared under a lawful basis must still be necessary, relevant and proportional for the task being undertaken.

We share pupils’ data with the DfE on a statutory basis through the submission of the census return. This data sharing underpins school funding and educational attainment policy and monitoring. To find out more about the data collection requirements placed on us by the Department for Education go to Data collection and censuses for schools on GOV.UK.

Depending on the individual circumstances of each situation, we may also have to share this information with other teams within the County Council to fulfil other statutory duties and obligations to support our work. These might include teams such as our Children Missing Education (for ensuring the provision of full time education); Data Protection Team (for personal data incidents); Virtual School (for support of children looked after); and/or Social Care teams (supporting welfare, safeguarding and corporate parent functions). We may also share information through the County Council’s role in the Hampshire Safeguarding Children Partnership (HSCP) to comply with their statutory duties.

Requesting access to your personal data and your rights

Under data protection legislation, individuals have the right to request access to information about them that we hold. To make a request for your personal information, or someone you have responsibility for, please contact the Children’s Services Department’s Subject Access Request (SAR) Team.

You also have the right to:

• prevent processing for the purpose of direct marketing
• object to decisions being taken by solely automated means
• have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed
• claim compensation for damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection regulations

Under the GDPR, there is also a right to erasure but the right to erasure does not provide an absolute ‘right to be forgotten’ in all circumstances. For example, where the data being processed is under the lawful basis of ‘public task’ and is for the purpose of ‘performing a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law’ (Article 6(1)(e))’, this right does not absolutely apply.

Further information

The full schedule of the AP Census

The above information is the specific privacy notice for this service. For more information about your rights in relation to your personal data, see the County Council’s general privacy notice.

You have some legal rights in respect of the personal information we collect from you. See our Data Protection page for further details.

You can contact the County Council’s Data Protection Officer by email [email protected].

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office.