Secure Welfare Coordination Unit (SWCU)

Why do we collect and use this information?

Hampshire County Council process personal data on behalf of the Department for Education to support their understanding of the secure welfare estate and support placements being offered to children across England and Wales. This activity will assist central government to support decisions on long term commissioning plans. Hampshire County Council, on the Department of Education’s behalf, process your personal data for the following additional purposes:

• to provide a point of contact for local authorities that are seeking a welfare bed for a child;
• to coordinate referrals from local authorities to secure children's homes; and
• to collect and aggregate personal data, to assist the Department for Education in assessing national demand for the places and needs and characteristics of children requiring a placement.

As Data Processors Hampshire County Council are directed in how to process your information by the Department for Education. Please refer to their privacy notices for information about the purposes of collection, the type of personal data collected and the lawful basis for processing.

Storing and securing data

To support this process your information is collected by Hampshire County Council via a Mendix form and then stored personal data for within the County Council’s Document Management System (DMS). The information held within the County Council’s DMS will be kept for in line with relevant retention schedules and then deleted securely. The County Council’s DMS is hosted by the County Council in secure UK based data centres. No information leaves the European Economic Area (EEA). As part of this process some personal data is stored on Mendix’s secure servers and this information is stored in line with UK GDPR requirements and no information leaves the EEA.

Hampshire County Council takes its data security responsibilities seriously and has policies and procedures in place to ensure the personal data about you processed 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;
• protected by levels of security ‘appropriate’ to the risks presented by our processing.

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

Who do we share information with?

As part of the provision of this service personal information will be processed by Hampshire County Council on behalf of the Department for Education therefore sharing of personal data will occur. Information will be shared through secure, encrypted channels in line with UK GDPR requirements. Personal information will also be shared with Secure Children’s homes in order to comply with the County Council’s responsibilities to coordinate referrals from local authorities to secure children's homes.

Requesting access to your personal data and your rights

Under data protection legislation, you have the right to request access to information about you that is held. To make a request for your personal information, or someone you have responsibility for, please contact the Department for Education directly.

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
• claim compensation for damages caused by a breach of the Data Protection regulations.

Please note that under the UK 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.

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

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.