Privacy Notice for Fostering South West Hub Foster Carers and Prospective Foster Carers

Bath & North East Somerset Council, Lewis House, Manvers Street, Bath, BA1 1JG
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, Civic Centre, Bourne Avenue, Bournemouth, BH2 6DY
Bristol City Council, City Hall, PO Box 3399, Bristol BS1 9NE
Cornwall Council, Treyew Road, Truro, Cornwall. TR1 3AY and Council of the Isles of Scilly, Town Hall, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly, TR21 0LW
Devon County Council, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, Devon EX2 4QD
Dorset Council, County Hall, Colliton Park, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1XJ
Gloucestershire County Council, Shire Hall, Westgate Street, Gloucester, GL1 2TJ
North Somerset Council – Town Hall, Walliscote Grove Road, Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset BS23 1UJ
Plymouth City Council, Ballard House, West Hoe Road, Plymouth, PL1 3BJ
South Gloucestershire Council – Council Offices, Badminton Road, Yate, BS37 5AF
Somerset Council, County Hall, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 4DY
Swindon Borough Council, Civic Offices, Euclid Street, Swindon SN1 2JH
Torbay Council, Tor Hill House, First Floor, South Wing, Castle Circus, Torquay TQ1 3DR
Wiltshire Council, Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 8JN

The above-named councils have gained funding through the Department for Education (DfE) to implement a Regional Fostering Hub.

The Cornwall Council and Wiltshire Council will act as the Lead Authorities for the implementation of the South West Fostering Hub project.

Purpose(s)

The Regional Fostering Hub will collect and use your personal data in relation to your position as a person applying to foster care. Before you can be approved as a foster carer, you must be assessed to consider whether you are suitable to foster children and young people. This involves the collection and recording of personal information about you, your family, and persons in your household.

If you are approved as a foster carer, the Partner Organisation as one of those local authorities listed above for your defined locality will continue to process further personal information in order to progress your appointment.

Categories of personal data

In order to carry out an initial assessment South West Fostering Hub will collect the following:

• Full Name
• Date of birth
• Full postal address
• Email Address
• Preferred contact telephone number
• Other phone number (optional)
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Previously known to Social Services
• Whether you have applied to be a Foster Carer in the past
• Life events in the past 12 months
• Household occupant details (Name/Gender/DOB/Relationship to applicant)
• Relationship details
• Property details
• Parenting/childcare experience
• Employment details
• Lifestyle/financial situation
• Method of contact to the Regional Hub

Legal basis for processing

The lawful bases for processing personal data specified within this agreement as required by UKGDPR are:

• 6(1)(e) Public task: the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public
  interest or in your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
  
• Article 9(2)(g) Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest and is
  authorised by domestic law (See section 10(1)(c) of the DPA2018)
  
• 9(2)(h) Health or social care – 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 of the management of health and social care systems and services on the basis of Union or Member State law or pursuant to contract with a health professional and subject to the conditions and safeguards referred to in paragraph 3.

The principal legislation concerning the protection and use of personal information is listed below.

• Data Protection Act 2018
• UK General Data Protection Regulation
• Children Act 1989 (as amended)
• Children Act 2004
• The Fostering Regulations 2011
• The Fostering Services National Minimum Standards 2011

Information sharing/recipients

South West Fostering Hub will share personal information about you with the following:

The local councils listed on page one of this document.
Local and central government
Regulatory authorities

For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation, all participating local authorities are Joint Data Controllers with regard to the processing of personal data (enquiries, prospective foster carers etc) within the Regional Fostering Hub. This is in recognition of the legal obligations for ensuring that personal information necessary for the Hub function, is processed and shared in accordance with data protection laws and related legislation.

Each local authority will remain data controller for the data they go on to process within their own Local Authority fostering assessment and approval processes.

Automated decisions

All the decisions we make about you involve human intervention.

Data retention/criteria

Enquiry related data will be held in the South West Hub database for a period of three years after the last contact with the Hub. Data generated by the South West Fostering Hub will be held for at least 3 years. Any information held after 3 years will be anonymised.

Rights of individuals

If you have any queries relating to the way we are processing your information, you may contact Wiltshire’s Data Protection Officer as the Lead Authority for the South West Fostering Hub.

These queries may be regarding (but not limited to);

• exercising your rights in relation to the following:
  • access to personal data
  • right to rectification
  • right to erasure (The right to be forgotten, unless there is a legal obligation to refuse this request)
  • right to restriction of processing
  • right to data portability
  • right to object to profiling
• raising a concern with us, or
• guidance on making a complaint to the Information Commissioner

Updates to this Privacy Notice

We may update or revise this Privacy Notice at any time so please refer to the version published on our website for the most up to date details.