Coventry City Council Complies with the Data Protection Act and the GDPR and is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as a Data Controller. This Privacy Notice explains how personal information is going to be used, what for, who it will be shared with and why.
Why we collect and use Personal Data about you
We collect and hold personal information relating to Special Educational Needs Assessment and Review. We use this information to:
- Provide you and your child(ren) with services you need
- Help us to develop and improve our services
- Send reports to the Department for Education
We process personal data under the Lawful Basis of legal obligation, as set out in Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEN Code of Practice 2014.
Please Note: Under this lawful basis we do not require your consent to process a request for an EHC assessment 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.
What information do we collect about you?
We collect and use the following personal information about you:
Child/young person
- Full name
- Contact details
- Date of birth
- Gender
- Sex
- Ethnicity
- Religion
- NHS number
- Unique Pupil Number
- Details of any disability
- Details of any ongoing/long term health issues/conditions
- Communication preferences
- Year group, school/early years setting
- Child/young person’s special educational needs
- Child/young person’s attendance in education data
- Child/young person’s attainment in education data
Parent /carers
- Full name
- Contact details
- Relationship to child
- Access needs
- Communication preferences
- Details of funding accessed to support the Child/Young person’s education
- Details of SEND professional support and cycles of support implemented in the child/young person’s education in relation to their Special Educational Needs (often detailed in a ‘My Support Plan’)
- Child/young person’s health and social care needs (if applicable, details of their social worker and level of social work involvement)
- Information around the outcomes being sought for the child/young person in Education, Health and Care
- The supporting evidence provided relevant to the child/young person’s Education, Health and Care assessment.
- Your feedback on our services - received via text message
- Any other reports related to your child’s special educational needs and services working with them, provided as part of a request for an EHC assessment.
Who we share your Personal Data with
Depending on the services we need to give you, we share your information with
- Other internal Council departments
- Other local authorities
- Governing bodies of schools, including non-maintained special schools
- Governing bodies of further education colleges and sixth form colleges
- Other educational bodies including free schools, university technical colleges and studio schools
- Management committees of pupil referral units
- Independent schools and independent specialist providers approved under Section 41 of the Children and Families Act 2014
- Early years providers in the maintained, private, voluntary and independent sectors that are funded by the local authority
- National Health Service (NHS) Commissioning Board
- Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) across the UK
- NHS Trusts
- NHS Foundation Trusts
- Local Health Boards
- Youth Offending Teams and relevant youth custodial establishments
- The first-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability)
- agencies with whom we have a duty to co-operate, such as police, SENDIST Tribunal and Mediators
- Other third-party organisations, where the law allows us to.
We also have Personal Data about you, shared with us by
- Schools
- Post 16 providers
- Early years settings
- Other Local Authorities
- Internal departments including Social Care (see below)
- Health commissioners
- Health providers
- The Department for Education.
As part of the EHC needs assessment process, we have a duty to gather information about your/your child’s education, health and care needs. Therefore, we will be asking social care if there any social care needs to contribute to the assessment. This may include details of a statutory child in need or child protection plan, or an adult social care plan. If you/your child does not already have a case open with Social Care, a case file will be opened to collect information and advice to contribute to the EHC assessment.
Other Personal Data we collect and share about you
When we have to undertake an EHC needs assessment for a child or young person to identify any potential barriers to their learning and development, we are required by law to provide the following agencies with copies of any representations made in the request for the assessment, and any evidence submitted, when we seek the following required advice and information from them:
- Educational advice and information from the manager, headteacher or principal of the early years setting, school or post-16 or other institution attended by your child
- If the child/young person is either vision or hearing impaired, or both, educational advice and information provided after consultation with a person who is qualified to teach pupils or students with these impairments
- Medical advice and information from health care professionals with a role in relation to the child/young person’s health
- Psychological advice and information from an educational psychologist. The educational psychologist should consult any other psychologists known to be involved with the child/young person
- Social care advice and information, including, if appropriate, children in need or child protection assessments, information from a looked after child’s care plan, or adult social care assessments for young people over 18. If the child/young person already has a statutory child in need or child protection plan, or an adult social care plan, information will be drawn for the EHC needs assessment. If the subject does not already have a case open with Social Care, a case file will be opened to collect information and advice to contribute to the EHC assessment
- If the child/young person is Year 9 or above, advice and information from services related to provision to assist your child in preparation for adulthood and independent living
- Advice and information from any person it has been requested we gather it from by the person submitting the request, where we consider it reasonable to do so. For example, it may be suggested we consult a GP or other health professional
- Advice from the youth offending team, if the child/young person is detained in a Young Offender Institution or if they are serving their sentence in the community, we will seek such advice from there, where we consider it appropriate; and
- Any other advice and information which we consider appropriate for a satisfactory assessment, for example Early Help Assessments or in the case of children of members of the Armed Forces, from the Children’s Education Advisory Service; in the case of a looked after child, from the Virtual School Head in the authority that looks after the child and the child’s Designated Teacher and the Designated Doctor or Nurse for looked after children.
How long will we keep your information?
We will only keep your information for as long as we need to so we can give you the service you need, unless we must keep it longer for legal reasons. The Special Education Needs information will be kept until the child’s 31st birthday because of the Children and Families Act 2014 s.46. Information about children who are looked after this data will be kept until their 75th birthday.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- Ask to see the personal information we hold about you
- Ask us to change information we hold about you if it is wrong
- Ask us to delete the information we hold about you
- Ask us to limit the way we use your personal Information
- Data portability (have your data transferred to another Authority)
- Complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office
To exercise any of these rights please contact the Coventry SEND team SEN@coventry.gov.uk.
Withdrawal of consent
Where personal data is processed on the basis of consent, you will have the right to withdraw that consent. However Coventry City Council process personal data that it is necessary to do so in order to comply with our legal obligations and to enable us to perform tasks carried out in the public interest.
Contact us and complaints
You have the right to complain if you are unhappy with the way your request is handled or disagree with a decision made by the Council about your data. In these circumstances you can contact the Data Protection Team (DPO) and request a review of the decision Data Protection Team (DPO) .
If you are not satisfied with any outcome from the DPO you may wish to apply to the Information Commissioner's Office at:
The Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF