This Privacy Notice explains how we use the information that we collect about you.
Fife Council uses the information provided by you:
- to support your child during the course of their nursery and school career
- to communicate with parents/guardians/carers and children for the purposes of progress monitoring
- to support learning
- for career guidance
- for parent council elections
- for emergency situations
- to pass on other relevant advice
Under the terms of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, it is the duty of a parent of every school-age child to provide them with an efficient education that is suitable for their age, ability, and aptitude. The Education (Scotland) Act 1980 placed responsibility for the day-to-day delivery of public sector education in the hands of local authorities.
In addition, the Standards in Scotland's Schools Act 2000 imposes a number of duties on local authorities, including a duty to provide education that is "directed to the development of the personality, talent and mental and physical abilities of the child or young person to their fullest potential".
Education authorities have wide-ranging statutory responsibilities which extend across all sectors of the community from preschool education to lifelong learning. Guidance on these statutory powers is provided in the Local Government Scotland Act 1994: Local Government Re-Organisation: Guidance on Education Provisions.
The personal information we gather and use includes:
- child's name
- address
- parent/guardian/carer
- date of birth
- ethnicity
- emergency contact details
We also require information on any medical condition, including dietary requirements relating to children during their nursery and school career.
We also use your information when you respond to consultations in accordance with the terms of the Schools Consultation (Scotland) Act 2010 in order to inform the Council of your views as parents/guardians/carers/pupils/staff and other interested parties on the proposal. Your personal information will not be made public or shared with other parties for the purpose of the consultation, although the content of your consultation response may be published online as part of the consultation report on an anonymised basis.
Information may be shared with other Council Services and/or other external organisations, including suppliers of systems for recording and monitoring educational progress, attainment and achievement. We may also share information with other council services and voluntary organisations in order to support your child's health and wellbeing and in order to provide school transport services.
For example, information may be shared with Police Scotland, where it is necessary for the prevention/detection of crime/fraud; to protect vital interests, or where required to do so to ensure compliance with a legal obligation/to fulfill statutory functions.
Education information is shared with Education Scotland and also with the Scottish Government for statistical, research and policy-making purposes. Usually, this data is sent in an anonymised or statistical format, however, sometimes personal information may also be shared. All data sharing will be in accordance with data protection legislation including the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
We may also share your information to support related legislative and regulatory requirements such as accident reporting, complaints, investigations and hearings, duty of candour, or the prevention and detection of crime.
At the end of compulsory education, when young people are thinking about leaving school, the information may also be shared:
- with organisations that support transition to further learning and training establishments such as college or university
- with other Council Services and third-party organisations such as UCAS (Universities & Colleges Admissions Service), Skills Development Scotland (Careers), and further education establishments
We are obliged in terms of the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 to prepare a Young Carer Statement if a young carer requests a statement or accepts the offer to prepare a statement. The information included within the statement will be used to identify personal outcomes; identify any needs and provide the support necessary to meet those needs. It is inevitable that this will include information about other individuals, such as the person being cared for. In order to provide the necessary support, this information may be shared with other Council Services and other organisations such as NHS Fife.
Health Screening
It is a legal obligation under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978, for the NHS in Scotland to undertake programmes of health screening for all children of school age. This includes, for example, immunisations, dental inspections, and routine health screening. Fife Council is also under a legal obligation in terms of this legislation to co-operate with the NHS, to secure and advance the health of the people of Scotland.
To enable the NHS to undertake these programmes and ensure the Council's compliance with the legislation, Fife Council will provide NHS Fife with basic child identifiable data for all children of school age in Fife. The basic data includes your child's:
- name
- date of birth
- home address
- school attended and the class
The information will be securely transferred to NHS Fife and will be used to ensure children and young people receive the correct health screening care. The NHS uses the highest levels of security (in compliance with Data Protection Legislation) when handling your child's health information and will ensure that it is stored securely and is used in accordance with the NHS Privacy Notice, 'How the NHS handles your personal health information'.
The Privacy Notice is available on the NHS Fife and NHSInform websites or from Fife UHB.DataProtection@nhs.net.
Should you not wish your child to participate in the health surveillance programmes you will have the opportunity to opt out of all, or part of these programmes. To opt out of these programmes you should write to NHS Fife. You will be notified of the appropriate time to do this. For further information on the screening programme please contact NHS Fife Business Manager - Children's Services, telephone number 01383 565320.
We gather information about you and other individuals through the data capture processes in schools. It is therefore important that other individuals you tell us about e.g. emergency contacts, are aware that you have disclosed information to us.
We may receive information about you from other local authorities, NHS Boards, and the Health and Social Care Partnership.
We also receive information from Police Scotland regarding concerns about child welfare and wellbeing. Police Scotland will make you aware of this if they have attended an incident involving a child or young person for whom they have a concern.
In the event that we did not request and use this information then it would be impossible to carry out our statutory functions and support your child during the course of their Education.
We may process your information out with the UK, including countries in the EU and US, such as when using web services that are hosted outside the UK but only when we are satisfied that both the party which handles the data and the country it is processing it in provide adequate safeguards for personal privacy.
The Council will not keep your information for longer than is necessary. In some instances the law sets the length of time information has to be kept. The Council has a retention schedule which sets out how long we hold different types of information. This can be found in Security and Compliance.
Further information on how your information is used and why, can be found at fife.gov.uk/privacy.
The Council's Data Protection Officer can be contacted at: dataprotection@fife.gov.uk.
