Placement finding for children in care

In order to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), where personal data relating to a data subject is collected, Lancashire County Council would like to provide you with the following details.

Identity and contact details of the data controller

Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Contact details of the data protection officer

Our Data Protection Officer is Paul Bond. You can contact him at dpo@lancashire.gov.uk or Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Purposes for processing

Lancashire County Council (LCC) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about individuals, families and support networks. In doing so, LCC are regulated under the Data Protection Act (2018) and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

LCC also has a legal responsibility in relation to the children taken into their care and is required to safeguard and promote their welfare, including through the provision of accommodation and care. Where it is in a child’s best interests, this should be provided locally, so far as reasonably practicable, in order to ensure education, social relationships, health provision and (where possible and appropriate) contact with their family can remain.

Under this requirement, LCC is responsible for providing, either themselves or by purchasing from another provider, a sufficient number of placements to meet the needs for the children in their care.

The Access to Resources Team (ART) is the team within Lancashire County Council who are responsible for sourcing externally managed placements. These placements could be for fostering, residential or supported accommodation and independent living (SAIL). ART works closely with providers who offer these types of placements to try and ensure that children are placed within the most appropriate setting and receive the right level of support they need.

Within Lancashire County Council, the Fostering Adoption Lancashire Blackpool & Residential Service is responsible for sourcing fostering and residential internal, 'in-house', managed placements.

Some of these purchased and in-house placements may require joint funding with health for therapeutic intervention. All children looked after also require health assessments to be carried out by LCC's health partners.

Personal information will only be used to decide whether:

The right placement is found with services in place to meet any identified support needs
A health assessment is required and allow arrangements to be put in place to ensure this is done on time.

Category of personal data being processed

Personal data (information relating to a living, identifiable individual)
Special category personal data (racial, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation)

Legal basis for processing personal data

The legal basis for processing this personal data, in accordance with the UK GDPR is:

(a) Consent: the individual has given clear consent for you to process their personal data for a specific purpose.

(c) Legal Obligation: the processing is necessary for you to comply with the law. You must reference the applicable legislation if you wish to rely on this basis for processing.

(e) Public Task: the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law. You must reference the applicable task/function and its' basis in law if you wish to rely on this basis for processing.

Lancashire County Council relies on this lawful basis by virtue of:

Children Act 1989 - Section 22G of the Children Act 1989, local authorities are required to take steps to secure, so far as reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation within the local authority’s area which meets the needs of the children it looks after.

Children Act 1989 - Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to provide accommodation for children in need within their area who appear to them to require accommodation in accordance with the provisions of that section.

Children Act 1989 - Section 22C sets out the additional factors which the local authority must take into consideration when deciding the most appropriate placement:

allowing the child to live near his/her home
not disrupting the child’s education or training
enabling the child and a looked after sibling to live together
meeting the particular needs of disabled children; and
providing accommodation within the local authority’s area, unless that is not reasonably practicable.

Children Act 2004 - Sections 10 and 11 of the Children Act 2004 place obligations upon agencies including local authorities, police, clinical commissioning groups and NHS England to co-operate with other partners in promoting the welfare of children and ensuring that they safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area.

Children Act 1989 - For children and young people, the nature of the information that will be shared by ART may fall below a statutory threshold of Section 47 (children in need of protection) or even Section 17 (children in need of services).

In addition to the above, the application of the UK GDPR Article 6 lawful basis above is by virtue of the following legislation:

Adoption and Children Act 2002 and associated regulations

Children and Adoption Act 2006 and associated regulations

Local Authority Social Services Act 1970

Care Standards Act 2000

The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 as amended by The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review and Fostering Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013

The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010

The National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services (England and Wales)

Children and Families Act 2014

The legislation above may be relied upon at different times depending on individual circumstances and the purposes for which we are required to process personal data.

Legal basis for processing special categories of personal data

The legal basis for processing the special categories of personal data, in accordance with the UK GDPR is:

(a) The data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of this personal data.

(f) Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity.

(h) Processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services.

(i) Processing is necessary for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety of health care and of medicinal products or medical devices.

Lancashire County Council relies on this lawful basis by virtue of:

Children Act 1989 - Section 22G of the Children Act 1989, LAs are required to take steps to secure, so far as reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation within the local authority’s area which meets the needs of the children it looks after.

In addition to the above, the application of the UK GDPR Article 6 lawful basis above is by virtue of the following legislation:

Adoption and Children Act 2002 and associated regulations

Children and Adoption Act 2006 and associated regulations

Local Authority Social Services Act 1970

Care Standards Act 2000

The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 as amended by The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review and Fostering Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013

The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010

The National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services (England and Wales)

Children and Families Act 2014

The legislation above may be relied upon at different times depending on individual circumstances and the purposes for which we are required to process your personal data.

Recipients of the data

LCC may be required to send or receive personal data from other organisations in order to fulfil its service functions, statutory responsibilities or where there is an individual's permission to do so.

Dependent on the type of placement needed, independent fostering agencies (IFA's), agency residential providers, supported accommodation and independent living (SAIL) providers, as well as the in-house managed fostering and residential service, require specific and detailed information so they can make an informed decision before offering a suitable placement for a particular individual in our care.

In addition, LCC's health partners are incorporated under the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) and have requested to be involved as early as possible in the placement finding process to be able to influence placement decisions and enable effective planning of required health services.

To support making the decision to place a child with an externally managed agency, LCC may share personal data with the following organisations:

Fostering, Residential or supported accommodation and independent living (SAIL) agencies
The Court and Officers of the Court
Health professionals
Health Agencies and GPs
Education establishments
Relevant social care employees including social workers.
SCAYT
Therapeutic providers who are undertaking support work
Police
Other local authorities for statutory and non-statutory safeguarding purposes
Other fostering, residential or supported accommodation and independent living (SAIL) agencies for statutory check purposes
Ofsted and CQC
Department for Education
Any person undertaking a Statutory Inquiry under section 81 of the Children Act 1989
CAFCASS Officers
Any person appointed to deal with a complaint or representation in respect of which access to the Care Record is required in order to carry out the responsibilities of his or her appointment.
Any other adoption agency we are liaising with in relation to Family Finding
Any adoption agency we are working with to provide adoption support.
Therapeutic providers who are undertaking adoption support work
RAA and relevant social care employees including Adoption Panel members and social workers
Outreach providers
LADO (Local Authority Designated Officer) for Safeguarding
Any person undertaking a Serious Case Review in relation to a child
The Secretary of State or persons authorised on his/her behalf, an Ombudsman or regulatory authority

Information we share

ART will share, where possible, anonymised, referrals with external agencies. The referrals will contain the following information: age, gender, legal status, ethnicity, needs of the child, specific placement requirements, and previous placement history.

Once in a placement, LCC will share a greater level of personal data, this will include the following special category personal data:

Title
Surname
Forename
Preferred Name
Gender
DOB
Address
Ethnicity
Contact numbers and email address
Relationships
System ID numbers generated by data controllers

As described, through making arrangements to accommodate children within an external agency, LCC will also hold a significant amount of additional personal and highly sensitive information such as:

Details of past offences
Education history
Medical history
Personal beliefs and views
Social history
Parenting capacity
Personal circumstances.

It is possible that any of this information may be shared with the court, legal representation, CAFCASS officers and or the court if required to do so.

LCC will only share personal data where there is a clear lawful basis for doing so and will ensure the security and confidentiality of personal data at all times.

Any transfers to another country

Personal data would only be transferred to another country in specific circumstances where there is a clear lawful reason to do so.

Retention periods

Lancashire County Council will only store your information for as long as is legally required or in situations where there is no legal retention period, they will follow established best practice.

File type	Description	Security	Retention period
Email	Emails held in Outlook that haven't been exported or moved elsewhere.	Stored on a secure network within access-controlled systems and emails.	Retained in accordance with appropriate internal retention guidelines
Children Looked After	The arrangements for Placement of Children (General) Regulations 1991 and the Children’s Homes (Amendment) Regulations 2011	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility or in treasure chest.	Files of children who are looked after, or who cease to be looked after, before the age of 18 years, should be retained completely intact until the 18 birthday is reached. 75 years from date of birth or if the child has died before reaching 18 years, for the period of 15 years from the date of death or when the age of 18 would have been achieved, whichever is the later.
Adoption records	Adoption records where an Adoption Order is made	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility or in treasure chest.	At least 100 years from the date of the adoption order.
Adoption records	Adoption records where an Adoption Order is not made.	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility or in treasure chest.	An adoption agency must keep the child’s case record and the prospective adopter’s case record for such period as it considers appropriate. Where an adoption order is not made and the agency decides to close the child’s adoption case record, it should transfer the information from this record to the looked after case record. If the child has never been looked after, the agency should destroy the records when no further action is necessary. An example of when this may be appropriate is if the possibility of adoption of a baby was discussed before the child’s birth, but the baby remained with the birth parents.
Finance and procurement, financial agency's, payments: all records relating to the payment of foster carers	Records relating to Foster carers	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	6 years

Your rights

You have certain rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), these are the right:

to be informed via Privacy Notices such as this.
to withdraw your consent. If we are relying on your consent to process your data then you can remove this at any point.
of access to any personal information the council holds about you. To request a copy of this information you must make a subject access request in writing. You are entitled to receive a copy of your personal data within 1 calendar month of our receipt of your subject access request. If your request is complex then we can extend this period by a further two months, if we need to do this we will contact you. You can request a subject access request, either via a letter or via an email to Information Governance Team, address below.
of rectification, we must correct inaccurate or incomplete data within one month.
to erasure. You have the right to have your personal data erased and to prevent processing unless we have a legal obligation to process your personal information.
to restrict processing. You have the right to suppress processing. We can retain just enough information about you to ensure that the restriction is respected in future.
to data portability. We can provide you with your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable form when asked.
to object. You can object to your personal data being used for profiling, direct marketing or research purposes.
in relation to automated decision making and profiling, to reduce the risk that a potentially damaging decision is taken without human intervention.

If you want to exercise any of these rights then you can do so by contacting:

Information Governance Team
Lancashire County Council
PO Box 78
County Hall
Preston
PR1 8XJ

Email: dpo@lancashire.gov.uk

To ensure that we can deal with your request as efficiently as possible you will need to include your current name and address, proof of identity (a copy of your driving licence, passport or two different utility bills that display your name and address), as much detail as possible regarding your request so that we can identify any information we may hold about you, this may include your previous name and address, date of birth and what council service you were involved with.

Further information

If you would like more information about this specific service then please contact Annette.mcneil@lancashire.gov.uk.

For more information about how we use personal information see Lancashire County Council's full privacy notice.

If you wish to raise a complaint about how we have handled your personal data, you can contact the Information Governance team who will investigate the matter.

Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ or email: dataprotection@lancashire.gov.uk

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).