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Essex Safeguarding Children Board

Essex Safeguarding Children Board Privacy Notice

The Essex Safeguarding Children Board (ESCB) is committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services.

This Privacy Notice explains how we use information about you and how we protect your privacy. You can be assured that any information we collect about you will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

We have a Data Protection Officer who makes sure we respect your rights and follow the law. If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, please contact the Data Protection Officer, Paul Turner, at DPO@essex.gov.uk or by calling 03457 430 430 and asking to speak to the Data Protection Officer.

Do you know what personal information is?

Personal information can be anything that identifies and relates to a living person. This can include information that when put together with other information can then identify a person. For example, this could be your name and contact details.

How the law allows us to use your personal information

There are a number of legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information. The privacy notices below explain these for each area.

How do we protect your information?

We’ll do what we can to make sure we hold records about you (on paper and electronically) in a secure way, and we’ll only make them available to those who have a right to see them. Examples of our security include:

  • Encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password). This is done with a secret code or what’s called a ‘cypher’. The hidden information is said to then be ‘encrypted’
  • Pseudonymisation, meaning that we’ll use a different name so we can hide parts of your personal information from view. This means that someone outside of the Council could work on your information for us without ever knowing it was yours
  • Controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it
  • Training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong
  • Regular testing of our technology and ways of working including keeping up to date on the latest security updates (commonly called patches)

You can find more details of our Information Security expectations on our online policy.

Where can I get advice?

If you have any worries or questions about how your personal information is handled please contact our Data Protection Officer at DPO@essex.gov.uk or by calling 03457 430430.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate number.

Alternatively, visit ico.org.uk or email casework@ico.org.uk.

Cookies (not the edible ones) and how you use this website

To make this website easier to use, we sometimes place small text files on your device (for example your iPad or laptop) called cookies. Most big websites do this too.

 They improve things by:

  • remembering the things you’ve chosen while on our website, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you visit a new page
  • remembering data you’ve given (for example, your address) so you don’t need to keep entering it
  • measuring how you use the website so we can make sure it meets your needs

By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device.

We don’t use cookies on this website that collect information about what other websites you visit (often referred to as privacy intrusive cookies).

Our cookies aren’t used to identify you personally. They’re just here to make the site work better for you. You can manage and/or delete these files as you wish.

To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit AboutCookies.org or watch a video about cookies.

How you use this website (something called Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use this site. We do this to make sure it’s meeting peoples’ needs and to understand how we can make the website work better.

Google Analytics stores information about what pages on this site you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on while you are here.

We do not collect or store any other personal information (e.g. your name or address) so this data cannot be used to identify who you are.

We also collect data on the number of times a word is searched for and the number of failed searches. We use this information to improve access to the site and identify gaps in the content and see if it is something we should add to the site.

Unless the law allows us to, we do not:

  • share any of the data we collect about you with others, or
  • use this data to identify individuals

Other people’s cookies

We use videos from YouTube and feeds from other websites such as Facebook. These websites place cookies on your device when watching or viewing these pages.

Below are links to their cookie policies:

Turning off cookies

You can stop cookies being downloaded on to your computer or other device by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. If you do this, you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website.

There is more information about how to delete or stop using cookies on AboutCookies.org. You can also opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.

Further guidance on the use of personal information can be found at ico.org.uk.

How the Essex Safeguarding Children Board uses your information

The Essex Safeguarding Children Board carries out work to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in Essex. This work includes:

  • conducting Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews when a child dies or is seriously harmed and abuse or neglect is suspected;
  • collecting and analysing information about all child deaths that occur in the area to identify issues of concern;
  • providing multi-agency training and development to staff on safeguarding children; and
  • communicating to professionals and the public.

In order to deliver this work we sometimes need to collect personal information. The sections below explain how we use your information in each of the services.

Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews

The three safeguarding partners in Essex (Local Authority, Essex Police and three Integrated Care Boards) hold responsibility for:

  • identifying serious child safeguarding cases which raise issues of importance in relation to the area
  • ratifying the decision making of the ESCB Child Safeguarding Practice Review Sub-committee
  • commissioning and overseeing the review of those cases, where they consider it appropriate for a review to be undertaken

There is an ongoing commitment to continuous learning and improvement leading to enhanced practice, improved outcomes and experiences. Safeguarding partners will continue to take account of the findings from all local and national reviews with a view to considering how identified improvements should be implemented locally. This includes the way in which organisations and agencies work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.

For these reasons we collect the following information on our referral forms:

Child/Children

  • Name of Child / Children        
  • Date/s of Birth             
  • Date/s of death (if applicable)           
  • Date/s of critical incident     
  • Housing type (e.g., privately rented, housing association)
  • Cultural identity (religion, ethnicity, community etc)
  • Education Provider/s
  • Are they subject to a Child Protection Plan
  • Are they subject to a Child in Need Plan?
  • A Looked After Child (LAC)?
  • Subject to Police Protection?
  • Whereabouts at time of critical incident       
  • Who resided in household at the time

Family Composition/Significant Others

  • Name
  • Relationship to child
  • DoB   
  • Address       
  • Legal Status and/or current criminal proceedings       
  • Ethnic Origin
  • Is/was subject of a CPP/CiN/LAC or Police Protection

For chronologies (historically Individual Management Review) we request any significant information in relation to the subject under review and their families/significant others. These include personal information such as name, age, address and medical information.

We will share this information with:

  • All ESCB partner agencies to check for their involvement with the family
  • Other identified Local Safeguarding Children Boards/partnerships to check for involvement
  • Child Safeguarding Practice Review Sub-Committee to consider the case for review
  • Lead Reviewers for the case when appointed to undertake the review
  • Review Team for the case
  • ESCB Legal Advisors
  • Practitioners who have involvement with the family and have agreed to contribute to the review (via a review team member. Confidentiality is stressed)

It is a statutory requirement to publish the findings from Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews, and all reports are fully anonymised to protect the identity of the children and families involved.

Learning and Development

For the purposes of learning and development opportunities we ask you for the following information when you book a course

  • Name
  • Job role and organisation
  • Finance and payment details
  • Telephone number and email address
  • Sector and area of the county you work in
  • Any access requirements you may have

For in person courses or workshops, you will be asked to sign in, this is only used to confirm your attendance at the course and is destroyed once the database of attendees has been updated. For virtual courses, a member of ESCB Support Team or the trainer will cross reference booked delegates by those in attendance.

The following information is held by ESCB for 5 years after the course dates for the purposes of anonymous learning and development reports and as a record of when people attended training.

  • Name
  • Job role and organisation
  • Email address
  • Sector and area of the county you work in

The following information is destroyed once payment has been received, six week online post course evaluation completed and certificate sent.

  • Finance and payment details

Evaluation forms are kept for one year from the course date for monitoring and evaluation purposes and as a record of whether you consented to be added to our email distribution list.

Communications

If you sign up to receive communications from the ESCB (bulletins, policy updates, and campaign and event details) we will collect and store your name and email address. This information will not be shared outside of the organisation. Your details will be stored until you request to no longer receive updates from the ESCB, in which case they will be deleted from the system.

We take your privacy seriously and will only use it for the reasons stated above.