Elective home education privacy notice

This privacy notice is designed to help you understand how and why the LGA digital inclusion project service processes your personal data. This notice should be read in conjunction with our corporate privacy notice.

Who are we?

North Yorkshire Council is a ‘data controller’ as defined by Article 4(7) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The elective home education (EHE) team has a duty to ensure all children and young people who are electively home educated in North Yorkshire are receiving an efficient suitable full-time education for the child’s age ability and aptitude as set out in DfE Guidance 2019 ‘elective home education: departmental guidance for local authorities. In order to fulfil this duty effectively, the elective home education team needs to collect and process your personal and special category data.

The council has appointed Veritau Ltd to be its data protection officer. Their contact details are:

Information Governance Office

Veritau

West Offices

Station Rise

York

North Yorkshire

YO1 6GA

Email: infogov@northyorks.gov.uk

Tel: 01904 552848

What personal information do we collect?

In order to deliver our duty the council will need to collect both personal and special category data, specifically: 

Personal data collected:

  • parent and child’s personal information (for example, name, address, date of birth, gender)
  • free school meals Information, pupil premium information, young carer information
  • history of families interactions with children and young peoples services
  • early year provider information
  • education history
  • elective home education information (for example, relevant dates, pre-decision meeting information, reason/s for elective home education)
  • record of education in place
  • enforcement action (s.437, school attendance order, education supervision order, prosecution)
  • destination information, for 16+
  • qualifications (qualifications entered for and grade achieved)

Special category data collected:

  • special educational needs and disability information
  • looked after or adoption status
  • mental and physical health information
  • ethnicity
  • religion

Why do we collect your personal information?

We need to collect this information in order to fulfil our duty to ensure all children in North Yorkshire are receiving an efficient suitable full-time education for the child’s age ability and aptitude as set out in Department for Education Guidance 2019 ‘elective home education: departmental guidance for local authorities. We need to collect the information to ensure all parents/carers who are electively home educating are fulfilling Section 7 of the education act 1996 by providing an ‘efficient, suitable full-time education’. The information is needed for us to fulfil our duty under s.436A of the education act 1996 – to make arrangements to enable the authority to establish, so far as it is possible to do so, the identities of children in its area who are not receiving a suitable education.

We collect certain data to ensure that we can determine that suitable education is being provided so that we as an authority can fulfil our obligation with regard to statutory returns and so that we can understand the service we are providing and make improvements where necessary.

How long do we keep your information?

In the course of performing our duties, we may share your information with a number of agencies who are key to delivering our service. 

Within North Yorkshire Council: 

  • staff who provide inclusion services to you or your child(ren) 

Agencies we share information with: 

  • Department for Education (DfE) (Statutory returns)
  • Ofsted (statutory reporting)
  • educational establishments attended by your child(ren)
  • early years providers
  • health partners, including the NHS

Other local authorities (if your child moves outside of North Yorkshire).

How long do we keep your information?

Data held Retention period
Elective Home Education Pupil Records 25 years from date of birth

What is our lawful basis for processing your information?

North Yorkshire Council relies on the following lawful basis to process your personal data:

  • UK GDPR Article 6(1)(c) – processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject
  • Article 6(1)(e) – processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest

When processing special category data, the Council will rely on the following lawful basis:

  • UK GDPR Article 9(2)(g) – Substantial public interest  (DPA  Schedule 1 Part 2 - Substantial public interest, condition (6) – statutory and government purposes) 

UK GDPR Article 9(2)(h) – processing is necessary for the provision of health and social care services meeting Schedule 1, Part 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as below:

  • (2) health or social care purposes

The legislation, policies and guidance that relate to this service include, but is not limited to:

  • Children and Families Act 2014
  • Children Act 2004
  • Education Act 1996
  • European Conventions of Human Rights, Article 2 of Protocol 1
  • Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015 
  • Department for Education Guidance 2019 ‘Elective home education: Departmental Guidance for Local Authorities
  • early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities
  • special educational needs and disability (SEND) code of practice: 0 to 25 years

For more information about how we use your data, including your privacy rights and the complaints process, please see our corporate privacy notice.