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Pupil Access Team, part of the School Improvement Service

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.

Contact details of the Pupil Access Team

For specific enquiries relating to the Pupil Access Team please direct these to ECSPupilAccess.Central@lancashire.gov.uk.

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

We are the team which co-ordinates school admissions on behalf of the Department of Education (DfE) in accordance with the School Admissions Code which is the statutory Code of Practice.

On behalf of Lancashire County Council (LCC), we are the admission authority for community and voluntary controlled schools.

(For all other schools the Governing Body is the admissions authority. This includes Voluntary Aided Schools, Voluntary Controlled Schools, Foundation Schools, and Academies).

We also deal with Home to School Transport; Free School Meals; Welfare Benefits; Exclusions and Appeals.

Why the information stored and how is it used?

Lancashire County Council collects and processes personal data relating to children and families which have requested our assistance with a service. The information given will assist us to provide the service requested.

Category of personal data being processed

  1. a) Personal data (information relating to a living, identifiable individual)
  2. b) 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 your personal data, in accordance with the UK GDPR is:

(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.

Legal basis for processing special categories of personal data

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

(g) Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

Relevant Legislation that supports the admissions authority processing:

School Standards and Framework Act 1998

  • Chapter 1 of Part 3 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 contains the key provisions regarding schools admissions, including the statutory basis for this Code.
  • Section 86 of the SSFA 1998 provides that the admission authority for a maintained school (with the exception of those that select wholly by ability) must comply with any preference expressed by a parent except where to do so would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources.
  • Section 94 of the SSFA 1998 provides that parents (and in some circumstances children) may appeal against a decision to refuse admission to the school. Two or more admission authorities in the same local authority area may make joint arrangements.
  • The Codes largely include the provisions relating to school admissions made in regulations. The most relevant regulations are:
  1. a) The School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012;
  2. b) The School Admissions (Infant Class Sizes) (England) Regulations 2012;
  3. c) The School Admissions (Appeals) (England) Regulations 2012; and
  4. d) The School Information (England) Regulations 2008
  • School Admissions Appeals Code – Statutory guidance for school leaders, governing bodies and local authorities February 2012
  • School Admissions Code – September 2021.

Equality Act 2010

  • This Act consolidates the law prohibiting discrimination, harassment and victimisation and expands the list of protected characteristics. All schools must have due regard to their obligations under the Act and review their policies and practices to make sure these meet the requirements of the Act, even if they believe that they are already operating in a non- discriminatory way.
  • An admission authority must not discriminate on the grounds of disability; gender reassignment; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation, against a person in the arrangements and decisions it makes as to who is offered admission as a pupil. • An admission authority must not harass a person who has applied for admission as a pupil, in relation to their disability; race; or sex.
  • An admission authority must not victimise a person in relation to a protected act either done, or believed to have been done by that person (e.g. bringing proceedings under the Equality Act 2010) in the arrangements and decisions it makes as to who is offered admission as a pupil. • This Act contains limited exceptions to the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion or belief and sex. Schools designated by the Secretary of State as having a religious character are exempt from some aspects of the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief and this means they can make a decision about whether or not to admit a child as a pupil on the basis of religion or belief. Single-sex schools are lawfully permitted to discriminate on the grounds of sex in their admission arrangements.
  • Admission authorities are also subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty and therefore must have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations in relation to persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.
  • The protected characteristics for these purposes are: disability; gender reassignment; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation.

Human Rights Act 1998

  • The Human Rights Act 1998 confers a right of access to education. This right does not extend to securing a place at a particular school. Admission authorities, however, do need to consider parents’ reasons for expressing a preference when they make admission decisions, though this may not necessarily result in the allocation of a place. These might include, for example, the parents’ rights to ensure that their child’s education conforms to their own religious or philosophical convictions (as far as is compatible with the provision of efficient instruction and the avoidance of unreasonable public expenditure)

UK GDPR Article 9 (2) (g) Substantial Public Interest is relied on by virtue of the Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 2 (6) Statutory etc and government purposes

Recipients of the data

The information will be shared with the schools and will be made available to them through the Schools' Portal, on excel spreadsheets from our database which is called IMPULSE.

Information we share

Pupil Access Team collects the following information in order to manage and facilitate the service.

  • Child's Name
  • Date of Birth
  • Contact Number
  • Address
  • Email
  • Gender
  • Current School
  • Parent Guardian details
  • Council Tax Area
  • Details of siblings at current school
  • Known to an Education Psychologist
  • Disability
  • Known to a local authority
  • Adoption status
  • Social Care status
  • Social worker data
  • Fostering arrangement

Any transfers to another country

  • No

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 Retention Period
Email Emails held in Outlook that haven't been exported or moved elsewhere. To allow the allocation of a preferred school place, in accordance with published admission criterion. Retained until the pupil has reached the age of 25. The School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012.
School Admissions - School Preference Data COLLECT – Secondary Statutory requirement for DfE. Held by DfE in accordance with DfE reporting requirements.

School Admissions - School Preference Data COLLECT – Primary

School Admissions - eAdmissions / late application eform; In Year Admissions eform.

Statutory requirement for DfE.

Statutory requirement upon a Local Authority to provide parents with a system to apply for a school place.

Hold in accordance with DfE reporting requirements.

To allow the allocation of a preferred school place, in accordance with published admission criterion. Retained until the pupil has reached the age of 25. The School Admissions (Admission Arrangements and Co-ordination of Admission Arrangements) (England) Regulations 2012

School Admissions - Appeal Check List

To gather information pending School Admission Appeal Submission

Retained for two academic years.

  • School Standards and Framework Act 1998
  • School Admissions Appeal Code

School Admissions - Admission Appeal Form

School Admission Appeals

Retained for two academic years.

  • School Standards and Framework Act 1998.

Free School Meal Forms

Eligibility for free school meals.

School Admissions Appeal Code.

  • Destroyed after 12 months
Home to School Transport Appeal Forms. Application for home to school transport appeal

Destroyed after 36 months.
E7/10 Application for home to school transport. Destroyed after 12 months.

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 yourself. 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 concerning the Pupil Access Team's processes then email ECSPupilAccess.Central@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 on 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 commissioners office https://ico.org.uk/