Our School Improvement Service forms part of Milton Keynes Council.  This Privacy Notice sets out how we deal with your personal information within this Service. It links in with the council’s corporate privacy notice and should be read alongside it. 

Who we are

As the School Improvement Service we provide a number of different services including School Improvement, training and consultancy for educational settings and schools within and beyond Milton Keynes.

Everything we do with information about people, such as how we collect it and who we share it with, has to comply with the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into force in May 2018.  A key part of this is being open about what personal information we hold about you, how we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it for, etc.  You also need to know what rights you have in this respect.

What information do we hold?

Most of the information we hold starts as a result of:

• an individual directly contacting us wanting to use one of our services.
• another organisation, such as Health and Social Care, making a referral to us, generally on the individual’s behalf and with their knowledge.

We also sometimes hold some information about individuals that other organisations are required to provide to us. This may include organisations like the police/NHS, etc.  They will have their own Privacy Notices that explain what information they collect and who they share it with.

Personal information that we hold within the School Improvement Service includes the likes of name, address, phone number, email address, etc.  We also hold sensitive personal data (referred to as Special Categories of data under GDPR) including ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disabilities, medical conditions, etc.

Why do we have it and what do we use it for?

We have a statutory duty to provide the above services under the current Education Act and to deliver these we need to collect and use personal information of those using or affected by these services.

If you access our services then the requirement mentioned above will be our lawful basis for collecting and using your personal data, as we can’t provide you with the service without it.

In a small number of cases we will process personal data solely on the basis of consent, such as where you might opt in to receive email updates or marketing details about certain council services. This will be clearly explained when you sign-up to that service.

Additionally, we collect and use information in line with our requirements as an employer (recruitment, personnel information, payroll and pensions etc).

Whenever we use information, we always limit this to only the details that are needed and we ensure that it is used safely and securely. We require anyone we share information with, or who uses it on our behalf, to do so too. All our staff receive training on data protection and information security.

All of the personal information we hold is kept securely on our council server and there is also no automatic decision-taking when your personal information is processed.

Who we share information with and why

We share information with a range of different types of people and organisations depending on the service being provided or the statutory requirement that we have to comply with.  The types of recipients include:

• service users (and families where relevant)
• local government organisations
• central government departments
• our contractors: organisations that we commission to provide goods and services
• law enforcement agencies, such as Thames Valley Police
• health and social care organisations and professionals (NHS bodies such as GPs, Milton Keynes Clinical Commissioning Group, Milton Keynes University Hospital)
• education establishments such as schools, colleges and early years settings
• examining bodies
• regulatory bodies, investigators and ombudsman (for example Ofsted, CQC, Local Govt Ombudsman)
• courts, tribunals and prisons
• legal representatives
• fraud prevention agencies
• trade unions
• councillors and political parties

How long we keep hold of information for

We only keep information for as long as it is needed. This will differ according to what information we hold and its purpose.  It will be based on either a legal requirement (where a law says we have to keep information for a specific period of time) or accepted business practice. Within our Service, we keep the following information for the following as outlined in the Department for Education document ‘Data protection: a toolkit for schools – Annex 5.1’

Read the 'Data protection: a toolkit for schools' document here.  

What rights you have

You have various rights around the data we hold about you. More information on these can be found on our corporate privacy notice.

If you would like any further information about how your personal information is used within the School Improvement Service, then please contact:

Business Support School Improvement Service
Civic
1 Saxon Gate East
Milton Keynes
MK9 3EJ

Tel: 01908 691691

Email: siservicesmk@milton-keynes.gov.uk

If you wish to access a copy of your personal information or are unhappy with any aspect of how your information has been collected and/or used, you can make a complaint to the corporate Data Protection Officer.