Privacy: Education services

This privacy notice is designed to help you understand how we use personal information when delivering our education services. We have set out below the services types, the information we may use to deliver the services, who we may share it with, and how long we will keep it.

What services are covered by this privacy notice?

Admissions Appeal Panel co-ordination and recruitment of panel members

Provides independent appeal panels for statutory school admissions appeals and exclusion hearings.

Adult Community Learning

Offers a wide range of day time and evening learning courses for Essex residents.

Apprenticeships Promotion and Brokerage Hub

A recruitment service for school leavers and Essex and London based businesses.

Child Chaperone licensing

Ensures that children are protected by a licensed person when performing in order to meet our safeguarding duty.

Early Years and Childcare services

Information, support and advice for the early years and childcare sector to ensure there are sufficient and sustainable early years and child care places across the county.

Education Access service

Contracted alternative education providers to provide education for excluded pupils and others unable to access education for medical or other reasons.

Education Psychology service

Provides independent professional advice to young people, families and education settings to support wellbeing.

Essex Music Services

Provides individual and group music tuition to 5 to 18 year olds through in-school or music school environments and offer projects, workshops and curriculum support to schools.

Essex Short Breaks Innovation Fund Media Resource 

An online resource providing information about supporting neurodiversity for educational settings, families and other interested parties. 

Essex Social Care Academy (ESCA)

Adult Social Care and Children & Families Workforce Development Team.

Employability and Skills Unit

Enables and encourages young people into learning, supports the planning of local learning provision and re-engages young people who are unemployed into learning.

Free Early Education Entitlement (FEEE)

Commissions early years and childcare settings to provide free early education entitlement (FEEE) places.

Health and safety

Provides services to schools to support their compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act and all subordinate regulations.

Information Governance Support (IGS)

A traded service which provides information governance advice and support to schools.

Insurance Service

Provide services to schools to meet their legal needs.

Legal Services

Provides services to schools to meet their legal needs.

Missing Education and Child Employment Service (MECES)

Provides our statutory duties in respect of children who are reported as missing from education, not attending school regularly or not in receipt of a suitable home education, and process license and permit applications for children and young people who are engaging in employment, performance and entertainment opportunities.

Research into health and wellbeing

Researches into health, wellbeing, lifestyle and social circumstances of children, young people and families in Essex.

Schools admissions, transport and free school meals

Administers applications for school admissions, transport and free school meals.

School Crossing Patrol service

Provides school crossing patrol officers to around 200 sites across Essex. School crossing patrol officers wear body worn cameras to help protect staff and the public, discourage aggressive and abusive behaviour and provide evidence to support criminal investigations.

School Effectiveness team

Validates teaching assessment judgements in English reading and writing, and mathematics.

School Infrastructure delivery

Oversee the construction of school building projects.

School Workforce Census

The school workforce census is a statutory data collection that takes place each autumn. The census collects data on all teaching and support staff in regular employment, this includes ECC staff who work 50% of their time in schools.

Special Educational Needs and Disability advice, support, provision and tribunal

Special Educational Needs and Disability information, advice and support Service (SEND IASS). Essex SEND IASS provides free, confidential and impartial information, advice and support about Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) for children and young people (0-25), parents and carers.

Specialist Teacher and Pre-School service

Provides specialist education support and outreach services by working with others in education settings and with families, to build capacity to meet the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Statutory Assessment service

Provides the statutory assessment of pupils/students with special educational needs.

Statutory Schools Appeal service

Provides the means to appeal a placement in a school or exclusion.

The Early Years and Childcare Charter

Collects research to improve services and support the five year early years and childcare strategy.

Virtual Schools

Promotes the education of children looked after (CLA) and previously looked after.

Workforce Development and Performance

Offers a variety of learning and development opportunities including training courses, conferences, consultancy and eLearning for Essex educational establishments working with children and young people aged 0-25 years. These products and services include those that are hosted on the Education Essex online booking system.

Youth Services

Supports young people and ensures access to Youth Clubs, Young Carers Service, One to One work, Work Experience, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, National Citizens Service and other bespoke youth support programmes.

What personal information do we hold?

We only collect and use the minimum personal information required to deliver your service. Wherever possible we use non-identifiable personal information. The services may use some or all of the personal information below:

• name and contact details
• date of birth
• Family details
• case file information
• lifestyle and social circumstances
• licences or permits held
• business activities
• employment and education details including attainment, learning needs, special educational needs, school preferences, unique education identifiers
• financial details including National Insurance Number
• visual images, video footage, personal appearance and behaviour
• physical or mental health details including NHS number
• race or ethnic origin
• language
• religious or other beliefs of a similar nature
• criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences
• offences (including alleged offences)
• vehicle registration plate
• your views on your experience of our services
• location information where cookies are used on websites, eg EES for Schools
• judicial agencies
• parties to legal proceedings
• barristers’ chambers and external counsel
• previous claims history
• legal representatives of other parties

We get most of this information from you, but we may also get some of this information from pre-school settings, health agencies or providers, the police, members of the public (referrers), commissioned service delivery partners, family members, other local authorities, education providers, social care providers, vetting agencies, performance agents and legal representatives.

How do we use your personal information?

We use your information to:

• safeguard children
• deliver your service
• plan and improve your service
• prevent or detect fraud or crime
• defend or bring legal claims
• evidence positive outcomes to central government funding departments
• conduct research using anonymised information. If we would like to use your personal identifiable information we will ask for your consent. If we rely on your consent you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by telling us
• communication as requested by EES customers, including marketing our services, informing customers of changes to services and the general operation of our business
• provide updates to your employer when necessary
• provide details for census

Who else might we share your personal information with?

Sometimes we may need to share your information, but we will only do so where it is necessary or required by law. We will only share the minimum personal information for each circumstance.

We may sometimes need to share some of your information with:

• commissioned service providers
• other education providers, eg schools, colleges, Learning Records Service
• employers
• Essex Safeguarding boards
• financial agencies, eg Education Skills and Funding Agency, pensions providers, Student Loan Company
• government agencies (eg Department for Education, Ofsted, Department for Works and Pensions (DWP), Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), HM Court and Tribunal Service, Probation Service and community rehabilitation companies, including Youth Offending Service
• Health service providers including NHS Agencies (eg GPs, hospitals, ambulance, health visitor, speech and language therapists)
• Independent Clerk to the Admissions Appeals Panel
• Other ECC social care or education teams
• Other local authorities
• Performance agents
• Police
• Regulatory bodies, eg Ofsted, Information Commissioners Office (ICO), Ombudsmen, University/College Admissions Body, vetting agencies (eg Disclosure and Barring Service)
• Insurers, claims underwriters and insurance brokers
• Essex Safeguarding boards
• SETDAB (Southend, Essex & Thurrock Domestic Abuse Board)
• Your employer (where it is necessary for them to be advised of your training)
• DocuSign as Data Processors providing the system we need in order to offer digital signatures for documents
• NCER and Angel Solutions Ltd as part of our responsibilities under the Education Act 1996 and to monitor performance and improve the Education service

The NHS may share your NHS number with statutory education services for the provision of targeted education for children and young people.

If you want to opt-out from the use of your NHS number for education purposes, please talk with your key worker, or contact us:

 

We may also use data processors to support these activities, for example by providing the systems we need to or delivering services on our behalf.

These include:

• Granicus (GovDelivery)/e-shot for communications and marketing
• Capita One our case management system for core education services
• MyConcern, Learning Assistant, Text Marketer, CardExchange, Moodle, Infinity, TERMS, Pro suite of software and PICS support our Adult Community Learning service
• Aim Apprentices supports the Apprenticeships Promotion and Brokerage Hub
• contracted school transport operators
• Visual Files supports our special educational needs tribunals, insurance and legal services
• Groop (Formerly Run a Club), Salesforce and Mosaic are supporting our Youth Services
• Welfare Call (LAC) Ltd (system), National Consortium of Examination Results (NCER) and Fischer Family Trust (FFT) support our Virtual Schools service.
• Business Safety Systems supports our health and safety service
• LACHS supports our insurance service
• Axon provides our school crossing patrol body worn video devices/system
• CapitaPay 360 for taking payments and issuing SMS receipts. For SMS receipts, this information will be retained in GOV.UK Notify for 7 days then deleted. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
• BookingLab for processing participants information for the Duke of Edinburgh award
• Mandiant supports the Council by providing Incident response and enhanced expertise, enabling Essex County Council to protect its network from cyber security risks

Who is the data controller for this processing?

Essex County Council is the Data Controller for this processing with the exceptions of our payroll for schools service, where each school will be the Data Controller and Essex County Council is the Data Processor; and for National Citizen Service (Youth Services) where NCS Trust are the Data Controller and ECC the Data Processor.

We may use your information for the prevention and detection of fraud and crime. This may include sharing your personal information with external agencies that could lead to some services being declined. Read more about how your information is processed.

What is the legal basis for our use of your personal information?

View the tables which show the legal basis we rely on to use your personal or special category (sensitive) personal information.

View a list of the full legal conditions we may rely on by looking at our full privacy notice.

View a list of the legislation we rely on when using your personal information to meet our legal obligations or public tasks.

Where we rely on your consent to use your personal information you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time by contacting our Data Protection Officer, and advising which service you are using.

 

Will my personal information be accessible outside the UK?

No personal information is routinely sent or stored outside the UK. Should the transfer of personal information outside of the UK become necessary, it will only take place if permitted by law, and then only where there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect the personal information.

How long will we keep your personal information?

We will only use your personal information whilst delivering the service to you and to deal with any questions or complaints that we may receive about this unless the law requires us to keep it for a longer period. In practice, this means that your personal information may be retained for the relevant period listed below dependant on our involvement with you.

Admission Appeals Panel Recruitment and Coordination

The team will stop using and delete your information on notification of your resignation or retirement as a panel member.

Adult Community Learning

The team will stop using and delete your information after five years for information not required by the European Social Fund which requires us to retain information for 30 years.

Apprenticeship Promotion and Brokerage Hub

We will stop using your information up to 18 months following registration for the service and delete it two years after we stop using it.

Child Chaperone Licencing

We will stop using your information when the licence expires, and your information will be deleted 25 years from the licence expiry date.

Early Years and Childcare Services

We will stop using and delete your information after 6 months.

Education Access Service

We will stop using this information when a pupil is returned to mainstream school or leaves alternative education when reaching statutory school leaving age. Your information will be deleted 25 years from the last action.

Education Psychology Service

We will stop using your information when you leave education or when you are 25 years old if you have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP). We will delete your information 25 years from your date of birth unless you have an EHCP, in which case it will be deleted 35 years after case closure.

ESCA (Essex Social Care Academy)

We will stop using your information when you stop using our services and it will be deleted five years from that date.

Employability and Skills Unit

We will stop using your information once you have reached the age of 20 (or 25 if you have special educational needs). Your information will then be deleted once you have reached the age of 23 or aged 28 if you have special educational needs.

Free Early Education Entitlement (FEEE)

We will stop using your information when the setting no longer holds a FEEE contract. Your information is deleted 10 years after we stop using it.

Health and Safety

We will stop using your data when your case concludes and delete it after five years.

Information Governance Support (IGS)

We will stop using your information when you cease using our services and it will be deleted seven years from that date.

Insurance Services

We will stop using your personal information when your case concludes, and delete it after 10 years.

Legal Services

We will stop using your personal information after your case has closed, and it will be retained for 75 years for looked after children, 100 years for adoption cases and 35 years for all other case types then securely deleted.

Missing Education and Child Employment Service

We will stop using your information when we are satisfied that we have fulfilled our statutory duties in safeguarding a child's right to an education. Your information will be deleted 35 years after we stop using it.

Research into Health and Wellbeing

Research information will stop being used after the research project you have been involved in has been completed. Any notes taken (hand written or typed) during consultation sessions will be destroyed. The information will continue to be used in a summarised and anonymised form in any research reports or papers that are published. The anonymised information in the papers may be of historic interest and may be held in public archives indefinitely.

Schools Admissions, Transport and Free School Meals

We will stop using your information upon completion of the relevant service and it will be deleted 25 years after we stop using it.

School Crossing Patrol Service

Footage that is to be used as evidence will be retained until the police confirm it is no longer required. Any footage which will not be used as evidence is kept for 31 days then securely deleted.

School Effectiveness Team

Your information will be deleted three months after we stop using it.

School Infrastructure Delivery

Data will be deleted after 10 years, or retained indefinitely where it is of historic interest.

Special Educational Needs and Disability advice, support, provision and tribunal

We will stop using your information when you no longer need our support. Your information will be deleted 35 years after we stop using it, 75 years for Looked After Children, or seven years for financial details.

School Workforce Census

We will stop using the data once it has been approved and the census has closed. The census information is updated annually to ensure the accuracy of the data set. 

Specialist Teacher and Pre-School Service

Your information will be deleted 35 years after we stop using it.

Statutory Assessment Service

Your information will be deleted 35 years after we stop using it.

Statutory Schools Appeal Service

We will stop using your information once the appeal has been heard. Your information will be deleted after two years for admission cases, six years for paper copies of exclusion cases after we stop using it. Electronic copies are kept until child reaches leaving school age.

Youth Services

We will stop using your information when you are no longer receiving services from us and it will be deleted 15 years after we stop using it.

Virtual Schools

We will stop using your information when you are no longer looked after by us or when you turn 18 and it will be deleted 75 years after we stop using it.

Your rights

The law gives you a number of rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us.

You can obtain further information about these rights from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to this summary notice, the full privacy notice or our processing activities with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

 

Contact us

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, you can contact our Data Protection Officer.