We keep the Educational Psychology Service Privacy Notice under review. It was last reviewed and updated in December 2022.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice contact the council’s Data Protection Officer.
View the privacy and transparency information for all of the City of York Council (CYC).
- personal data
- collecting personal data
- using personal data
- sharing personal data
- transferring personal data abroad
- retaining personal data
- our legal basis for using personal data
- further processing of personal data
- your rights relating to personal data
Personal data
We collect and use the following personal data and information:
- personal data (including name, date of birth and contact details)
- characteristics (including gender, language and ethnicity)
- details of any special educational needs for children
- where appropriate, relevant medical information for children or parents/carers
- where appropriate, relevant information regarding you/your child’s status as a child/young person in care
- attendance/exclusion data from the child/young person’s educational setting
- any additional personal data (including the name/contact details of the parents/carers) that's necessary for us to assess and provide you with the service you require
- previous involvement with specialist services
See further details about how we define personal data and non-personal data.
Collecting personal data
Information is collected by Educational Psychologists on behalf of the CYC Educational Psychology Service and the Local Authority.
Information about you/your child is collected through:
- completion of the ‘Request for Educational Psychologist Involvement’ form, either electronically or a paper copy. This form will also ask for your consent to the involvement of the Educational Psychology Service
- meetings with you, and your child/young person
- consultation with other professionals
- professional/relevant service reports or CYC databases
- post, email and telephone conversations as appropriate
When we ask you for personal data, we'll:
- ensure you know why we need it
- only ask for what is necessary for the work we're undertaking
- store it securely (electronically from 2017)
- ensure access is only given to authorised staff on a need-to-know basis
We ask that you:
- give us accurate information
- inform us of any changes
- tell us as soon as possible if you notice mistakes in the information we hold about you/your child
Using personal data
We'll use your personal data to:
- ensure that services and practitioners understand how they can best help you/your child
- support our work with your child in his/her school or setting, or in your home or another setting for those children who are unable to attend school because of ill health
- take photographs of work produced by your child for record keeping and assessment arrangements. Photographs will not be used for any other purpose without asking for your additional explicit and informed consent first
- provide the child or young people with appropriate services
- ‘sign post’ the family to support appropriate
- measure whether our services are improving life for children, young people and families
- help us develop and improve our services
- help inform which services and interventions require commissioning across York to support families and communities
- create statistics that are anonymous and cannot be linked back to you or your family for the purposes of local and national surveys
- administer and protect public funds
Sharing personal data
We may share personal data about you/your child with other relevant professionals who are already involved, or who become involved, during the time that they're known to the Educational Psychology Service to provide co-ordinated support and to improve multi-agency working.
We regularly share information with:
- educational settings
- CYC Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Specialist Services
- professionals from Health, Social Care and Early Help teams
We will not share your personal data with any other organisation or third party other than those set out in this privacy notice without your consent, unless required to do so by data protection legislation, in delivering our statutory functions (Children and Families Act 2014), or such actions are necessary for safeguarding children and young people.
We may use personal data to create statistics that are anonymous and cannot be linked back to your family or individuals. We could use these statistics to see how the Educational Psychology Service, the wider Council and its partners are supporting families and individuals, to help design better services and to contribute to national surveys and government returns e.g. to the Department for Education.
We have an agreement in place with Attend Anywhere to provide secure online conversations. See the Attend Anywhere privacy statement.
Sharing data under Data Protection legislation
We may be required or permitted, under data protection legislation, to disclose your personal data without your explicit consent, for example if we have a legal obligation to do so, such as for:
- law enforcement
- fraud investigations
- regulation and licensing
- criminal prosecutions
- court proceedings
We must protect public funds and may use personal data and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, collect taxes and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. To do this, your personal data may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, including the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs, the Police and other local authorities.
Transferring personal data abroad
As a rule, we do not transfer your personal data to third party processors outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
We may use Zoom Pro or Business version of Zoom (version 5) to host some public facing meetings, training sessions etc across different services in the council. Where these meetings are recorded, recordings will be kept locally on our server and will not be retained by Zoom.
Some personal data will be stored securely on Zoom’s system in the USA (that is, outside the EEA) in compliance with the EU, USA Privacy Shield Framework. This data may include a user's:
- name
- email address
- telephone number where applicable
- IP address
- MAC address
- other device ID (UDID)
- device type
- operating system type and version
- client version
- type of camera, microphone or speakers
- connection type
Zoom does not sell personal data to third parties; collects only the personal data required to provide Zoom services; and retains that data only for so long as is necessary for the provision of those services.
Retaining personal data
We will retain your data retain it in accordance with the Practice Guidelines of the British Psychological Society (2017):
- up to the age of 25 years for non-statutory files
- 35 years from closure for statutory (EHC Plan) files
We will securely and confidentially delete/destroy this personal data when we no longer have a need to keep it.
At the end of the retention period, we may pass any relevant information to the City Archives where it is required or appropriate to do so.
Our legal basis for collecting and sharing personal data
The personal data you provide to the Educational Psychology Service enables us to support children and young people 0 to 25 years and their families to meet our legal responsibilities in accordance with the SEND Code of Practice (2015).
We'll ask for your written informed consent for non-statutory work such as consultation and assessment, prior to direct involvement with you or your child.
For statutory work, the personal data you provide enables us to fulfil our legal duties, including:
- statutory advice to the Local Authority as part of an education, health and care needs assessment
- monitoring of provision and outcomes to contribute to the annual review process for children and young people who have an Education, Health and Care Plan
- contributing advice as an expert witness at first tier tribunals
The personal data you give us ensures that we can offer an appropriate assessment of need and provide recommendations regarding special educational provision.
Further processing of personal data
If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Notice, then we'll provide you with a new notice.
The new notice will:
- explain this new use before we start the processing
- set out the relevant purposes and processing conditions
Where and whenever necessary, we'll seek your consent to the new processing, if we start to use your personal data for a purpose not mentioned in this Privacy Notice.
Your rights relating to personal data
When we collect your personal data we'll tell you how we are going to use it. Where we process your personal data, you have a number of rights under data protection law.
See further details of your rights relating to personal data.
If you wish to withdraw consent for the Educational Psychology Service to process your/your child’s data at any time then please contact:
The Principal Educational Psychologist
City of York Council
SEN Services
West Offices
Station Rise
York
YO1 6GA
Email: educational.psychology@york.gov.uk