Privacy Notices - Special Educational Needs and Disability Service Privacy Notice

You need to be aware of this Privacy Notice if you are making an application for an Education, Health and Care Plan ((EHCP), or a transport application.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Service (which consists of the Statutory SEND Team, SEND Operations Team, Children’s Services Travel Team and the Educational Psychology Service), collects and processes personal data relating to personal situations regarding a child or young persons special educational needs.

We are committed to being transparent about how we collect and use that data and meeting our data protection obligations.

A Privacy Notice is a statement issued by an organisation which explains how personal and confidential data about individuals is collected, used and shared.

The Local Authority is our data controller and remains responsible for disposing of data in a lawful way.

The SEND Service takes your privacy seriously. We will only use your personal information to provide services or information to you, or to create anonymised data for general reporting and statistical purposes. We will ask for your consent to store your personal information (securely, under data protection legislation.) 

You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time. You can ask us to delete your personal information at any time.

The SEND Service collects a range of data about your child or young person during your request for help.

This includes:

• your name, address and contact details, as well as email address and telephone number
• details of your child or young persons health, social and educational needs

Swindon Borough Council complies with its obligations under the GDPR. This means it keeps personal data up to date; stores and destroys it securely; does not collect or retain excessive amounts of data; protects it from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure; ensures that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect it.

The SEND Service will use the information you supply for a variety of reasons:

• To contact you about your application by post, telephone or e-mail
• For fraud prevention
• For statistical analysis and evaluation
• To deliver services and support to you
• To manage those services we provide to you
• To train and manage the employment of our workers who deliver those services
• To help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your services
• To keep track of spending on services
• To check the quality of services
• To help with research and planning of new services

There are a number of legal, legitimate or lawful reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information.

Generally we collect and use personal information in circumstances where:

• you have entered into a contract with us
• it is necessary to perform our statutory duties. The details of our statutory duties can be found in the Education Act (1996), Children and Family’s Act (2014) and the SEND Code of Practice (2014).
• it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency
• it is required by law
• it is necessary for employment purposes
• it is necessary to deliver health or social care services
• you have made your information publicly available
• it is necessary for legal cases
• it is to the benefit of society as a whole
• it is necessary to protect public health
• it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes
• you, or your legal representative, have given consent

If we have consent to use your personal information, you have the right to remove it at any time.

If you want to remove your consent, contact DataProtection@Swindon.gov.uk and tell us which service you are using so we can deal with your request.

In accordance with article 6 of the GDPR, data processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller.
 

We will share your personal data outside of Swindon Borough Council, with out of Borough providers for example; paediatricians, health care professionals, schools, and nurseries during the EHCP assessment process, or when placing a child at an out of borough education placement.

We may contact you in the future as part of the analysis and evaluation.
 

We take the security of your personal data seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your personal data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees and partners in the proper performance of their duties.

Your data will be kept for 10 years after we cease a child or young people’s Education, Health or Care plan (or the age of 25 years if this occurs earlier than the 10 year point), otherwise six years after the year in which we receive your information. This is in accordance with the Borough Council Data Retention and Disposal policy and our statutory duties.

You can ask to see the personal information that the SEND Service holds about you, and can choose to receive that personal information in paper or electronic form.

Unless subject to an exemption under GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

• The right to request a copy of your personal data which Swindon Borough Council holds about you
• The right to request that Swindon Borough Council corrects any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date
• The right to request that your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for Swindon Borough Council to retain it
• The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing
• The right to object to the processing of personal data
• The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office.

For further details on how your information is used, how we maintain the security of your information, and your rights to access information we hold on you please contact customerservices@swindon.gov.uk or contact the Data Protection Officer at:

Swindon Borough Council
Civic Offices
Euclid Street
Swindon
SN1 2JH
 

We will do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we will only make them available to those who have a right to see them.

Examples of our security include:

• encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password). This is done with a secret code, or what is called a 'cypher'. The hidden information is said to then be 'encrypted'.
• pseudonymisation, meaning that we will use a different name so we can hide parts of your personal information from view. This means that someone outside of the Council could work on your information for us without ever knowing it was yours.
• controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it
• training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong
• regular testing of our technology and ways of working including keeping up to date on the latest security updates (commonly called patches).

You are viewing the Privacy Notice for the SEND Service.

Read the main Privacy Notice