Children's Social Care privacy notice

How Children's Social Care and Early Help/Troubled Families use and share your data.

This departmental privacy notice should be read in conjunction with the Council's corporate privacy notice.

Child-friendly privacy notice

We have produced a privacy notice especially for children and young people, to explain how we use your personal information.

Wandsworth Children's Services child-friendly privacy notice

Using your data

Reasons for using your data:

• Statutory requirements e.g. reporting to Government
• Service delivery
• Service improvement and planning
• Regulatory, licensing and enforcement functions
• Prevention and detection of crime
• Financial transactions
• Research inc. consultations
• Safeguarding Children & Adults
• Equality Monitoring Children’s Social Care
• Support these children and monitor their progress
• Identify children as part of the CP-IS (Child Protection – Information Sharing) programme
• Early Help
• Provide them with pastoral care
• Assess the quality of our services
• Evaluate and improve our policies on children’s social care
• The effective identification of families for the national Supporting Families programme and Payment by Results scheme (PbR)
• Equality monitoring

Why we are allowed to use your data

Legal obligation or public task under various UK laws including but not limited to:

• The Children Act 1989, 2004
• The Health & Social Care Act 2012
• The Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015
• The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013
• The Children and Social Work Act 2017
• The Care Act 2014
• The Mental Capacity Act 2005
• Mental Health Act 1983, 2007
• Local Safeguarding Children & Adults Boards Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/90)
• The Localism Act 2011
• The Crime and Disorder Act 1998
• The Welfare Reform Act 2012
• The Childcare Act 2006
• The Equality Act 2010 Consent – consultations, surveys, some consent-based research
• Freedom of information Act 2000
• Environmental Regulation 2004
• Data Protection Act 2018
• General Data Protection Regulation 2018

Obtaining and sharing your data with others

We collect your personal data from you, or from others (e.g. council staff in other departments or external organisations or individuals) who inform us of matters relevant to this service area.

We can share your data with:

• National Regulators e.g. Information Commissioner’s Office, Ombudsman, Investigatory Powers Commissioner
• Judicial Agencies e.g. Courts
• Police
• Childrens Social Care
• Adults Social Care
• Department for Education (for Children’s Social Care) and their agencies
• Probation
• Health Agencies
• GP Surgeries
• Housing & Housing Support providers
• Education Providers
• Other Local Authorities
• Substance Misuse Teams
• Education Providers including early years providers, pre- and post-16
• Youth offending Service
• Government agencies e.g. DWP
• Safeguarding Boards
• Voluntary Sector Partners
• Prepaid cards providers
• Direct Payment support services
• Universities (social workers training)
• Care Quality Commission
• Disclosure & Barring Service
• Domiciliary, Residential, Nursing Home and Day Care Care Providers
• Transport / Community Link providers
• Supported Living Providers
• Elected Members & MPs (as your representative)
• Contractors providing IT and research services
• Funding Bodies
• Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
• Other Council departments including shared services
• Children's Commissioner

Sharing your data electronically - Connecting your Care

We are working with South West London Health and Care Partnership to improve the way we connect your care records across South West London. At the moment each care organisation has a different system for manging your records. Connecting your Care is an electronic way of securely sharing information about you between these systems. This means that Health and care professionals can access your records from NHS services to make the best decisions about your care.

You can find more information on South West London Health and Care Partnership.

Do I have a choice?

If you are happy for your information to be shared electronically in this way, then you don’t need to do anything. 

You have the 'right to object' to information sharing by individual data controllers (the organisations that hold information about you). For citizens of South West London this means that if you do not want specific health and care records shared with other health and care providers via our Connecting your Care system, you can register an objection with each or any of those organisations to request that your information is not electronically shared.

You will need to contact each health and care organisation individually that holds the records that you do not want to be shared.

For Childrens Social Care you can do this by contacting the Council’s Data Protection Officer (DPO): dpo@wandsworth.gov.uk setting out:

• The specific elements of your record that you object to being shared
• The specific personal reasons for your objection

All health and care organisations are required to have a process in place to respond to, review and manage such requests. Your request will be acknowledged, and you should receive notification of the outcome of the review within 30 days of receipt of your request (if there is a delay you will receive notification of this).

All requests will be reviewed on an individual basis by the lead professional in charge of your care, in accordance with your health and care needs, supported by the DPO. The right to object to sharing is not absolute. For more information see South West London Health and Care Partnership or search ICO Right to Object.

Objecting to the electronic sharing of your information through the Connecting your Care does not mean that your health and care records will never be shared. Organisations who are directly involved in your care may still share information about you, but this may be done by email, letter, or telephone, and is less secure than sharing information through Connecting your Care.

It is vital that you are aware that in an emergency situation, having the ability to share your health and care records safely and securely can impact your immediate assessment or care.

We would like to assure you that information shared through Connecting your Care is only available to those immediately involved in your care, at the time when they are caring for you or providing you with a service. The Connecting your Care view is a read-only, 'virtual' display of data that is viewed directly from within each organisation’s record system. No information from this view can be electronically transferred.

What type of information is collected about you?

• Contact details: including name, address, email address, telephone number
• Date of birth
• National identifiers such as: NHS number and NI numbers
• Information about your family and people who care for you, 
• Information about people who you care for
• Lifestyle, social and personal circumstances
• The services you receive
• Visual images, personal appearance and behaviour

We may also collect sensitive personal data that may include:

• Physical or mental health details
• Details about help you might need looking after yourself
• Racial or ethnic origin
• Gender and sexual orientation
• Languages you speak and how you prefer to communicate
• Offences (including alleged offences)
• Religious or other beliefs of a similar nature
• Criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences
• Sections of the Mental Health Acts that may have applied to you

Using your data to make automated decisions

We do not use your data to make automated decisions.

Data sent to countries outside of the EEA

Generally, the Council will not process your personal data outside of the UK or the EEA. In exceptions where we do, we will ensure equivalent data protection controls are in place.

Supporting Families programme

Wandsworth Borough Council supports the Government’s ‘Supporting Families’ programme for families with complex needs.

The Council will be identifying those families with the most pressing and complex needs. This will involve some sharing of information between Council departments and with other organisations (such as education and employment). Any such sharing will be done proportionately and lawfully for the purpose of identifying those families who meet the initiative’s criteria and most need this support. It will be done to ensure that services are better coordinated and focused for those families.

Read more information about the Supporting Families programme.

Further information

To see what data is collected and how to exercise your rights to your data, read our corporate privacy notice.