Advice and support
Schools, under the Data Protection Act, are classed as Data Controllers in their own right and there are certain responsibilities on Data Controllers to inform Data subjects, i.e. your pupils about the data held about them. They and their parents/guardians need to know what you do with the data, who you pass it on to and who they can contact if they want more information or if they want to access the information themselves.
Passing information to Connexions
(for pupils of Secondary school age only)
In addition to the obligation on schools to provide certain information to other schools, to LAs, to the Department, to QCA, to Ofsted and to the LSC, there is a legal requirement under the Learning and Skills Act 2000 to pass information on request to those involved in the provision of Connexions services (the Connexions Service, Connexions Partnerships and the Connexions Card). Connexions services are for pupils in, or approaching, the Connexions age range (essentially secondary age pupils). The Connexions Card is available to pupils aged 16 or over.
For the Connexions Card, DCSF and Capita, which jointly manage the Card, will deal separately with fair processing issues for pupils approaching or above age 16 as they become eligible for a Card, and so this does not need to be covered in the fair processing notice set out below.
The information which secondary schools are required to provide consists of:
a. the names and addresses of pupils and their parents – which must be supplied to those providing Connexions services in any event;
b. other information relevant to the provision of Connexions services– in this case parents (or pupils themselves if aged 16 or over) have the right to instruct the school not to supply this information to those providing Connexions services.
Note that the provision in b. is an opt out, not an opt in. Until and unless the parent or pupil gives an instruction, the school remains under a statutory duty to provide information to those providing Connexions services on request.
Under the Data Protection Act all of the organisations mentioned in the notice are Data Controllers in their own right and therefore they should each have a responsibility to issue FPNs to data subjects that they hold information on. It has been suggested that it would be less confusing for the parents/pupils if the schools were to issue an FPN on behalf of all these organisations. This is completely lawful and in no way commits the school to any other responsibilities on behalf of the other organisations.
Best Practice
Our recommended practice is for schools to issue a Fair Processing Notice annually to parents in the Autumn Term, about the same time as issuing the SIMS Data Checking Sheets so that the school can update the schools’ SIMS or IMS with corrected data.
An alternative would be for schools to issue a Fair Processing Notice to all new students at least once during their career at the school. For a typical Primary school this could well be when the school has a large Year R intake or for a Secondary school when the school takes in its new Year 7 cohort. During the academic year, a Fair Processing Notice would then form part of any welcome pack that you give to parents when a new pupil is to be admitted.
Passing Information to ContactPoint
Provisions in The Children Act 2004 Information Database (England) Regulations 2007, made under section 12 of the Children Act 2004, require all maintained schools to provide certain information to the database known as ContactPoint. ContactPoint will provide a quick way for practitioners (e.g. headteachers) to find out who else is working with the same child.
This information includes basic identifying information, on both the pupil and the parents or carers of the pupil. As this is the first time that personal data about parents and carers has been collected via the School Census it is extremely important that the appropriate FPN is sent to all parents or carers who have parental responsibility for the child. It is also important as school data will be collected locally by the LA and sent to ContactPoint.
The FPN needs to be set together with a data sheet, showing what information is currently held by the school about the pupil and a process to allow the parents to update their own data before the first data collection in January 2009.
Report Definitions were e-mailed last year to all schools and should be in your SIMS .net system. To access the report, go to reports|run report|Click on the cross next to the, Focus folder|Click on the, Student folder|Scroll down the list of reports shown in the right hand panel, until you find the 'FPN Letter Non/Secondaries' report |Double click the report to run. All new schools will be emailed the report definitions for import with instructions.
The letter templates can be edited to add your school details and head teachers name if required. The edits required are small in number and should take no longer than 20 minutes of office time. Printing of letters may take longer.
Schools should not expect any replies from parents/pupils except where they have indicated connexions 'consent' refused. It is anticipated that schools will discourage such refusals in order to support the work of this agency.
Pupils aged 12 and above, need to be reminded that they are deemed mature enough to act independently of their parents’ wishes in this area.
For SIMS enquiries, contact the SIMS Helpdesk on 0117 90 37999
For Data Protection issues and any 'subject access request' enquiries, contact: Data Protection Officer on 0117 92 22725
Definition: a subject access request is where an individual parent or pupil makes a request to have access to information held about them on both IT and non-IT based systems. Schools should contact Data Protection Officer in the first instance if any such requests are made.
A detailed account of the DCSF Guidance is available in the links at the bottom of the page called: related documents.
Updated November 2008
The documents in the related document link below are in MS Word format.
You must ensure that your PC has MS Word installed on it to support this process.
Choose Open, from File choose Print . Each child will need a copy of this notice but it would be more cost effective to photocopy the original rather than print the number required.
New Format for 08/09
In order the cut the burden on schools, and after consultation with the Information Commissioner, the Fair Processing Notice (FPN) has been broken down into two layers. Layer One is a brief one/two page notice, outlining simply the core fair processing information, to be sent to pupils and/or parents. Layer Two is the full FPN. Layer Two can be made available via a School or LA website with hard copies available from schools on demand from those parents without internet access.
The footnotes in both layers provide instructions about text which the issuing school and/or LA should add to meet local circumstances (for example the school's address or website URL). See the Guidance document for further information.
For SIMS enquiries, contact the SIMS Helpdesk on 0117 90 37999
For Data Protection enquiries, contact: Data Protection Officer on 0117 92 22725