Children's Services: Privacy Notice

Anyone receiving information, advice or assistance from Powys County Council Children's Services will have a record kept about them. Children's Services collects personal information to enable us to provide early help, prevention and social care services to children, young people and families.

Who are we and how are we contacted?

Address: County Hall, Llandrindod Wells, Powys. LD1 5LG

Email: csfrontdoor@powys.gov.uk

Phone: 01597 827666

Data Protection Officer (DPO):

The DPO for Powys County Council and Powys Schools can be contacted via email at information.compliance@powys.gov.uk.

What personal information do we process about you?

As part of the work Children's Services undertake we will process the following information about you:

• personal information (such as name, address, contact details, date of birth, gender, language)
• special category characteristics (such as ethnicity, disability, religion and medical information)
• family network and relationship information
• employment information
• financial information
• information relating to assessments and plans

We also obtain personal information from the following other sources:

• the local authority in whose area you live and previous other local authorities where you may have lived
• other Powys Council departments
• Disclosure and Barring Service
• past and present employer
• social media
• references (personal and employment)
• previous partners
• health
• education
• Soldiers, Sailors & Airman's Families Association

The purposes for which we process your personal information:

Your personal information will be processed to:

• To help us make sure we provide you with the most appropriate support;
• To help us in our work to detect and prevent the abuse of children and young people;
• To make applications for services, support or benefits on your behalf; and
• To help us plan, organise and improve those services, report on the work we have done and show we have used public funds properly.
• To deliver accurate and efficient support to children, young people and their families which may include signposting to additional services e.g. Health, Children and Young Peoples Partnerships and other Third Sector Partners.

Who might we share your personal information with?

The sharing of your information will be undertaken in line with our tasks and in line with legislation.

We will only share information with an organisation if they need it to do their job, or where the law requires us to do so for example:

• Those that provide support and care services;
• If we take a child into care;
• If the court orders that we provide the information;
• Regulatory bodies that inspect or monitor our work;
• Organisations such as the Police, health, education services and Third Sector partners who work jointly with us to provide services and protect individuals

Under Section 83 of The Children Act 1989, we are required to provide a subset of the information we hold on children in need of care and support services, including those looked after, to the Welsh Government (WG), Families First and Flying Start data collection.

The data we have to send will vary each year but will include personal information (with names removed) and details of services provided. WG will use this information to help in planning services for people in Wales, to measure how well services are being provided so that they can be improved and to help conduct research into people's well-being and this may involve combining it with other information e.g. health or education data. 

The Legal Basis (What allows us to process your personal data):

We will process your personal information in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which requires us to indicate which legal basis we are relying on in order to process your personal data.

To process your personal data for the purposes of delivering care and support, we are mainly relying on:

• Article 6 (c) A legal obligation, and Article 6 (e) [UK GDPR] our obligation to perform a public task.  We collect and use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations mainly under The Children Act 1989 and Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014.

However, there may be such times where we rely on:

• Article 6 (a) [UK GDPR] Your consent (in some circumstances). You can withdraw your consent in some circumstances, for example, if you do wish to receive support from Children Services via Care and Support or Early Help levels.

For the processing of special category personal information (i.e., information that is considered sensitive personal data such as Health information), we rely on upon reasons of substantial public interest (equality of opportunity or treatment), for the provision of social care, for social security or social protection law, and for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims whenever Courts are acting in their judicial capacity.

How long will we retain your personal information for?

We will retain information about you for a minimum of 1 years from last contact and up to 100 years depending upon the reason for our involvement. However, there may be circumstances in which any retention period may be extended. At the end of the retention period, information will be deleted.

Further Information:

For further information about how we process your personal data, the rights you are entitled to exercise such as the right of access, and the commissioner's contact details, please visit our overarching privacy notice here: Data Protection and Privacy