Children and Family Services

1. The purpose for which we use your personal data

The information we collect about you will be used for the following purpose(s):

• To support the planning and delivery of services to help meet your needs
• To help safeguard children from risk of abuse or harm
• To support the continuous review and improvement of services to ensure they are being delivered as effectively and efficiently as possible.

The legal basis for the processing of your information is in order to deliver a statutory function under legislation.  Specifically in accordance with:

• Children Act 2004
• Social Services & Wellbeing Act 2014
• Local Government Act 2000

If you do not give us the information we need when we ask for it, this may result in less effective planning and delivery of services to help meet your needs.

2. What type of information do we use?

We may collect the following types of personal data about you to deliver this service, depending on your circumstances:

• Name
• Address
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Unique reference number
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Your family composition
• Your social circumstances
• Your financial circumstances
• Employment and education details
• Your housing needs
• Images/photographs
• Information about your health
• Your racial or ethnic origin
• Religious or philosophical beliefs
• Information about your sex life or sexual orientation
• Criminal convictions and offences

3. Do we use information received from other sources?

To provide this service, we collect information directly from you but also receive information from the following sources:

• Local Health Boards
• Other Carmarthenshire County Council departments (e.g. Housing Services, Council Tax)
• Other Local Authorities
• Regional Police forces (e.g. Dyfed Powys Police, South Wales Police)
• National Probation service
• Other Local Education Authorities and Schools
• GP Practices
• Department for Work and Pensions

The following types of personal data may be obtained, depending on your circumstances:

• Name
• Address
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Unique reference number
• Telephone number
• Email address
• Your family composition
• Your social circumstances
• Your financial circumstances
• Employment and education details
• Your housing needs
• Images/photographs
• Information about your health
• Your racial or ethnic origin
• Religious or philosophical beliefs
• Information about your sex life or sexual orientation
• Criminal convictions and offences

4. Transferring your information abroad

We use Microsoft Office 365 to process our electronic documents under the terms of a strict agreement, which safeguards your information. This personal data is hosted on servers outside the UK, but only in EU countries which are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation.

We don’t transfer any other information about you outside of the UK.

5. Who has access to your information?

We may share your information with the following recipients depending on your circumstances:

• Local Health Boards
• Other Carmarthenshire County Council departments (e.g. Housing Services, Council Tax)
• Other Local Authorities
• Regional Police forces (e.g. Dyfed Powys Police, South Wales Police)
• National Probation service
• Other Local Education Authorities and Schools
• GP Practices
• Department for Work and Pensions

There are also other specific situations where we may be required to disclose information about you, such as:

• Where the Council is required to provide the information by law
• Where disclosing the information is required to prevent or detect a crime
• Where disclosure is in the vital interests of the person concerned

6. How long we will keep your information

Your information will be kept in accordance with the Council’s Retention Guidelines.

• Additional Learning Needs: 21 years from closure
• Adoption (children’s files): 100 years from adoption
• Adoption (adoptive parents’ files): 100 years from adoption
• Adoption (carers who are not approved): 10 years from closure
• Child in Need: 10 years from closure
• Educational and Child Psychology: 35 years from closure
• Education Welfare: 21 years from closure
• Fostering (children’s files): 75 years from 18th birthday
• Fostering (carers’ files): 35 years after last contact or death
• Fostering (carers who are not approved): 10 years from closure
• Learning Disabilities: 10 years from closure
• Looked-After Children: 75 years from 18th birthday
• Physical Disabilities: 10 years from closure
• Safeguarding: 35 years from closure
• Residential Homes (Looked After): Permanent
• Residential Homes (Respite): 75 years from 18th birthday
• Youth Offending and Prevention: 25 years from date of birth

7. Your Data Protection rights

You have the right to:

• Obtain access to the personal data that Carmarthenshire Council is processing about you
• Have any inaccurate or incomplete information rectified (corrected)
• Withdraw your consent to processing, where this is the only basis for the processing
• Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the independent body in the UK which protects information rights

In some circumstances, you may have the right to:

• Object to the processing of your personal information
• The erasure of your personal data
• Restrict the processing of your personal information
• Data portability

8. Contact details

For more information regarding this privacy notice and your rights, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
Carmarthenshire County Council
County Hall
Carmarthen
SA31 1JP

Email: dataprotection@carmarthenshire.gov.uk

Contact details for the Information Commissioner’s Office along with further guidance on Data Protection legislation can be found on the ICO website .