Privacy notice - South Tees Safeguarding Children Partnership

We work across the boroughs of Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland to ensure that the local councils, police, and health service partners have effective arrangements in place to safeguard children together. We also undertake reviews for the boroughs of Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Stockton-on-Tees when there is a child death in any of those areas.

We use the following personal data as part of our work:  contact details including name, address, email address, telephone number, dates of birth, gender, national identifiers such as NHS number and National Insurance numbers, and information about your family life. We also use the following special category data: physical or mental health details, racial or ethnic origin, and sexual orientation and information about criminal convictions or offences.

We use your personal data to meet our ‘legal obligations’ and where we have legal powers known as ‘public tasks’ that we carry out in the ‘public interest’. We use special category data for reasons of ‘substantial public interest’ where the Law allows this and to allow us to provide or manage ‘health and social care services and systems’.

We use personal data to help us complete serious case reviews, learning reviews, audits, and child death reviews. These reviews and audits help us to check and improve how partner organisations work together to safeguard children. We are required by Law to investigate where a child has been abused or neglected and this has resulted in serious harm or death. They also help us where there is a cause for concern about how authorities or persons have worked together to safeguard children. Where a child has died, the Law also requires us to review the death and investigate how it happened and if it was preventable. We also use data to deliver and assess the quality of training that we provide.

We share your personal data with our statutory partners and other organisations where it is appropriate to make sure we meet our legal obligations and perform our public tasks. The organisations that we may share your data with include: local councils, police, health services, fire and rescue services, youth offending service, probation services, the courts and coroners, housing providers, schools and academies, voluntary sector organisations, and other safeguarding partnerships.

We store your information on electronic systems within our protected computer network. We only allow people to access that data where they have a lawful reason and where they have the correct access permissions. We audit those computer systems regularly to check for any inappropriate access attempts. We only use mobile and computer devices that have encryption software applied to them. We receive or send your information using secure email and secure document sharing sites. Where we publicly publish reports and other documents, we anonymise the data to make sure you cannot be identified.

We only keep your data for as long as the Law requires it and this is set out in our ‘records management retention schedules’. We may keep reports and other documents for longer but will always ensure that your identity is anonymised.

We do not transfer your personal data outside of the UK or the European Economic Area except where we are required by Law or where you have asked us to do so, for example if you live abroad and we contact you.

We do not use your personal data for any direct marketing purposes.

Your Information Rights are set out in law and, subject to some exceptions, you have the:

• Right to rectification - to ask for information to be corrected
• Right to erasure - to have your personal data deleted
• Right to object - to how your data is used
• Right to restriction - to request limits on how your data is used
• Right to portability - to request that we move your data to another organisation
• Right of subject access - to request a copy of data the Council holds about you

If you have a concerns about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner's Office. Visit the website of the Information Commissioner's Office.

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice or your information rights, please contact:

The Data Protection Officer
Middlesbrough Council
PO Box 500, Middlesbrough, TS1 9FT
Phone: 01642 245432
Email: dataprotection@middlesbrough.gov.uk