Specialist Teacher Advisory Service (STAS) Service

Privacy Notice

Why do we collect and use this information?

Hampshire County Council is the Data Controller for the purpose of collecting and using information from you, your child and your family, as well as from our partner organisations such as schools/academies/colleges, early years settings, educational psychologists and health services (including paediatricians, psychiatrists, nurses and allied health professionals such as occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists) to deliver our support and services around your child(ren)’s needs in relation to:

  • Physical Disability
  • Sensory Impairment (Hearing and/or Visual Impairment)
  • Multi-Sensory Impairment
  • Speech, Language and Communication Needs and Autism

We collect information about your child as well as information about you as their parent/carer and other individuals within your family. We hold this personal data securely and use it to:

  • Determine whether your child meets the criteria for involvement from our Service
  • Conduct assessment, if necessary
  • Take into account your views, wishes and feelings and those of your child
  • Liaise with key partners as identified later in this notice around who we share information with
  • Provide you with advice and information relevant to your child’s SEN
  • Write reports and/or assessments following our observations
  • Support annual review meetings as appropriate
  • Contact individuals to inform them that the service will be provided and next steps
  • Deliver wider services of support under the package of support arrangements, as appropriate
  • Work with other professional bodies who may support assessment and provision of equipment e.g. ACE Charity specialising in Augmentative Alternative Communication & Assistive Technology
  • Monitor and assess the effectiveness of the service
  • To assist in preparation for adulthood and independent living, where appropriate
  • Contribute to the core education record of your child held by the County Council
  • Undertake statistical forecasting and planning
  • Assist in providing information, advice and support and developing our local offer
  • Evaluate and improve our services
  • Assist in developing joint arrangements for commissioning services to improve outcomes for 0 to 25-year-old children and young people who have special educational needs (SEN) or disabilities, including those with Education Health and Care (EHC) plans
  • Undertake wider County Council statutory duties in support of your child’s education and welfare; and
  • Ensure compliance with our obligations under the accuracy principle of the General Data Protection Regulation (Article (5)(1)(d)), making sure our records about you and your family are up to date

CAPITA plc is a data processor for this information acting on our instructions for the purpose of delivering a contract to the County Council around the hosting and supporting of the CAPITA One system, which the County Council uses to store the information provided to us, as identified under this privacy notice. This includes accessing the CAPITA One system to fix any technical issues to ensure the system is fit for use.

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 (the retention period), 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 is processed:

  • your child(ren)’s, which could also include siblings personal information (name, Unique Pupil Number address, date of birth, current and previous educational establishments, Year Group) and characteristics (such as gender, date of admission to school, country of birth, ethnicity code, country of origin, first language, religion, asylum seeker/refugee indicator, Looked after Child indicator and responsible Local Authority,)
  • your personal information (name, address, email, relationship to child) and characteristics (parental responsibility status, service family indicator, level of English spoken, other languages spoken);
  • your and your child’s views, interests and aspirations (such as details about play, health, schooling, independence, friendships, further education and future plans including employment (where practical)
  • your child’s special educational needs
  • your child’s health and social care needs which relate to their SEN
  • information around the outcomes being sought for your child; and
  • the supporting evidence you provide relevant to your child’s need

The lawful basis on which we use this information

We collect, store, use and share the information ensuring that we comply with the 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
  • Article 9(2)(g) – Necessary for reasons of substantial public interest on the basis of Union or Member State law which is proportionate to the aim pursued and which contains appropriate safeguarding measures; and
  • Sch.1, Pt.2, 1 – Substantial public interest conditions, for processing under the DPA2018

These articles under the GDPR and the DPA2018 are supported by the following specific legislation:

  • Sections 19(c), 23, 25, 26(3), 28 and sections 36-50 of the Children and Families Act 2014
  • Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014 and associated regulations - The Special Educational Needs and Disability Regulations 2014
  • The Special Educational Needs (Personal Budgets) Regulations 2014
  • The Special Educational Needs and Disability (Detained Persons) Regulations 2015
  • The Children and Families Act 2014 (Transitional and Saving Provisions) (No 2) Order 2014
  • The Care Act 2014
  • Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970
  • Sections 17, 20 and 47 of the Children Act 1989
  • Section 2 of the Children Act 2004
  • National Health Service Act 2006 (Part 3, section 75 and 14Z2)
  • Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007
  • Equality Act 2010 (including disability equality duty under s149)
  • Health and Social Care Act 2012
  • The Education Act 1996
  • The Crime and Disorder Act 1998
  • The Apprenticeship, Skills and Learning Act 2009
  • The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007; and
  • The Tribunal Procedure (First Tier Tribunal) (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) Rules 2008

Under this lawful basis we do not require your consent to process this information once a referral/request for involvement has been received 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 (decisions taken without a person involved) occurs for any parts of these activities controlled by the County Council. The County Council does use profiling as part of this process but only for compliance with the definitions and specific age ranges requirements established under the ‘Special educational needs and disability code of practice: 0 to 25 years’. This is the statutory guidance for organisations which work with and support children and young people who have special educational needs or disabilities.

Storing and securing data

The information provided to us though the County Council’s EHC Hub, which is provided under contract (as described above), will also store the information we use to process our education, health and care (EHC) needs assessments, write EHC Plans and conduct Annual Reviews of EHC Plans.

Information provided to us will also be held within the County Council’s CAPITA One system, which is we use to provide our service case management system. The information held within CAPITA One will be kept in line with our retention schedule and then disposed of as appropriate. The County Council’s CAPITA One system is hosted by CAPITA plc in secure data centres based in the UK. No information leaves the European Economic Area (EEA) and the information is encrypted when in transit between County Council users of the system and the data centre the information is hosted within.

Some data related to specific pieces of software your child(ren) may use, could be stored on the cloud in compliance with the software company’s data protection.

Any relevant paper based documentation, including any supporting evidence you provide will be scanned to create an electronic record and stored within the County Council’s Document Management System (DMS), with the paper version being destroyed. The file will be linked to the record created in CAPITA One by the use of a reference identifier. 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. No information leaves the European Economic Area (EEA).

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; and
  • 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 do not share information with anyone unless there is a lawful basis that allows us to do so. Information sharing is vital to support an effective assessment and planning process which fully identifies needs and outcomes and the provision needed by your child.

As far as possible, we aim to put in place a ‘tell us once’ approach to sharing information during the referral/request for involvement so you, your child and your family do not have to repeat the same information to different agencies, or different practitioners and services within each agency.

If your child(ren) changes educational establishments during this service being delivered, we may need to share the profile report developed to date with your child(ren)’s new educational establishment.

We are required to provide a summary level report to the County Council’s Children’s Services Departmental Management Team on an annual basis which this information provides the data for but no identifying, child level data are shared.

Depending on the individual circumstances of each situation, we may have to share this information with other teams within the County Council to fulfil other duties and powers to support our work. These might include teams such as our Youth Support Service (for ensuring the participation of young people); Inclusion Service (such as HIAS and Educational Psychologists); Health(such as paediatricians, psychiatrists, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists); Children Missing Education (for ensuring the provision of full time education); Virtual School (for support of children looked after); and/or Social Care (supporting welfare, safeguarding and corporate parent functions).

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
  • in certain circumstances, have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed; and
  • claim compensation for damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection regulations

Please note that under the GDPR, there is also a right to erasure but the right to erasure does not provide an absolute ‘right to be forgotten’. Where the data being processed 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 automatically apply.

Contact details

If you would like more information about these services visit our Specialist Teacher Advisory Service page.

Further information

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.