Privacy Policy

Positive Steps Privacy Policy (last updated 15/01/2023)

Positive Steps,

Medtia Place,

80 Union Street,

Oldham,

OL1 1DJ 

Tel: 0161 621 9400

Fax: 0161 621 9401

E-mail – info@positive-steps.org.uk

HOW WE STORE AND USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA 

Positive Steps is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data. This document outlines how we collect and use information about you.

The law states that any personal information that we hold about you must be:

1. Used lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent way;
2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you, and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
3. Relevant to the purposes that we have told you about, and limited to those purposes only;
4. Accurate and up to date;
5. Kept only for as long as necessary for the purposes that we have told you about.
6. Kept securely. 

Positive Steps is a “data controller” This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We do not share your information without consent unless the law allows us to do so. Your information will not be transferred or stored outside the EU.

As a multi-agency support service, we hold personal data on the service users who we are working with. This could relate to one or more of the following services – Careers Guidance Service, Oldham Youth Justice Service, Oldham Missing from Home Service, Oldham Young Carers Respite Service, Oldham Early Help Service (including access to the two-year-old Child Care offer), and Oldham Integrated Health Services (Young People’s sexual health and young people’s drugs service).

This document applies to current and former service users – as we are required to retain data for specified periods after people have stopped using our services.

WHY WE COLLECT AND PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We use your personal data to:

1. enable us to carry out specific functions for which we are responsible 
2. derive statistics which inform decisions such as the allocation of resources and support (you cannot be identified in these statistics)
3. assess performance and to set targets for our staff (you cannot be identified in this data)

The type of personal information we collect

We currently collect and process the following information:

1. Personal information which could identify you (such as name, DOB, address and contact information, and unique identifier numbers). 
2. Characteristics (such as ethnicity, gender, special educational need, and assessment information)
3. Ongoing notes about our work with you (such as interview notes, telephone calls made, appointments booked, contact with other professionals on your behalf etc)

Additional data may be held on you depending on which service you are accessing – see the next section for more information. 

How we get your personal information and why we have it

We use your personal data to:

1. enable us to carry out specific functions for which we are responsible 
2. derive statistics which inform decisions such as the allocation of resources and support (you cannot be identified in these statistics)
3. assess performance and to set targets for our staff (you cannot be identified in this data)

The lawful basis on which we use this information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows it to do so. We will only use personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason, and that the reason is compatible with the original purpose. 

The lawful basis for holding personal data for each of our service areas is as follows;

IF YOU ARE ACCESSING CAREERS GUIDANCE IN OLDHAM, ROCHDALE, OR TAMESIDE: 

On behalf of each local authority we collect and use information about young people attending schools (year 7-11) in the relevant local authority area. We also hold information about young people living in each area, but who went to school outside the local authority in question (clients aged 16 and 17 – and up to 25 for those with special needs).

This data is collected and held in accordance with section 507B of the Education Act 1996 and enables us to provide an impartial career guidance and support service in each local authority area. The data remains the property of each local authority.

Under parts 1 and 2 of the Education and Skills Act 2008, education institutions and other public bodies (including the Department for Education (DfE), police, probation and health services) may pass information to us to help us to support this provision.

We share children and young people’s data with the Department for Education (DfE) on a statutory basis under section 3 of The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013. This data sharing underpins school funding, educational attainment policy and monitoring – and enables them to; produce statistics, assess our performance, determine the destinations of young people after they have left school or college, and to evaluate Government funded programmes.

IF YOU ARE ACCESSING CAREERS GUIDANCE FROM POSITIVE STEPS IN SCHOOLS OUTSIDE OLDHAM, ROCHDALE or TAMESIDE: 

We collect and use information about young people attending specific schools (clients in years 7-11) outside Oldham Rochdale and Tameside for whom we are providing an impartial career advice and guidance service – under section 507B of the Education Act 1996. The data is the property of Positive Steps and the schools we work with.

Under parts 1 and 2 of the Education and Skills Act 2008, education institutions and other public bodies (including the Department for Education (DfE), police, probation and health services) may pass information to us to help us to support this provision.

IF YOU ARE ACCESSING NON STATUTORY VIRTUAL GUIDANCE SESSIONS  – Access Creative College

We collect and use the information provided at the point of booking. By completing the booking form the client provides consent for us to offer our services and store this information. The information collected is used solely to provide the service requested and we will then pass your information back to your educational institute that has commissioned our service.

IF YOU HAVE BEEN REFERRED TO OLDHAM YOUTH JUSTICE SERVICE:

The Youth Justice Service collect and lawfully process information about young people under the following:

1. Crime and Disorder Act 1998
2. Criminal Justice Act 2003
3. Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012
4. Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1994
5. Children Act 1989
6. Children Act 2004.
7. The Offender Management Act 2007,

We collect, use and share information on behalf of Oldham Local Authority, to enable us to deliver the statutory Youth Justice Service in Oldham. 

We hold information about young people who are involved with the service, including their offending history. 

Other public bodies (including the Department of Justice (DoJ), police, probation and health services) may pass information to us to help us to support these provisions.  

We share children and young people’s data with the Department of Justice (DoJ) on a statutory basis. This data sharing underpins policy and monitoring and enables them to; produce statistics and assess our performance, 

IF OLDHAM MISSING FROM HOME SERVICE HAVE BEEN TOLD ABOUT YOU: 

We collect and use information on behalf of Oldham Local Authority (via The Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011. SI 2011 No 581. Regulation 13 (3), to enable us to deliver the independent Missing from Home interview function in Oldham. We receive children and young people’s data from agencies who have identified a ‘missing from home incident’ – E.G. the police or social services. 

We hold information about young people who are involved with the service, including details of occasions when they went missing from home and notes from our subsequent contacts with them.

We share anonymised statistics with Oldham Local Authority.

IF YOU ARE A PART OF THE OLDHAM YOUNG CARERS RESPITE SERVICE: 

We collect and use information on behalf of Oldham Local Authority to enable us to deliver a respite service for Young Carers living in Oldham. We hold information about young people who are involved with the service – including details of respite activities provided.

We share anonymised statistics with Oldham Local Authority.

IF YOU HAVE SIGNED UP TO THE OLDHAM EARLY HELP SERVICE (INCLUDING ACCESS TO THE TWO-YEAR-OLD CHILD CARE OFFER):

We collect and use this information on behalf of Oldham Local Authority to enable us to deliver contracted elements of the Oldham Early Help offer. Written consent is required for people accessing Early Help. This consent explains what data we will collect and hold, why we hold it, and how long we will hold it for.

IF WE ARE CARRYING OUT A DBS CHECK FOR YOU

We carry out Disclosure and Barring Checks (DBS) on behalf of other organisations and for potential staff and volunteers working for us. No one is DBS checked without their knowledge. For the sole purpose of verifying ID information, we use an external agency (TransUnion). Their privacy policy can be found here https://www.callcredit.co.uk/legal-information/bureau-privacy-notice

IMPORTANT – STORING AND SHARING DATA RELATING TO SAFEGUARDING ISSUES
Safeguarding means protecting people from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up or living in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care. If we are given personal data which indicates that someone is at risk of a safeguarding issue, we will store and share this data with appropriate agencies as part of our duty to protect vulnerable adults and young people.

How we store your personal information

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to people who have a business need to see it.

Positive Steps has put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Information will be stored securely in line with the retention periods shown below, unless we are required by law to retain records for longer than the stated retention period.

We normally hold client data for time periods that they have specified in our contracts (however, see update below). These are;

1. Careers Guidance Service (Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside). Records are destroyed on the clients 22nd birthday – or 26th birthday for clients with identified special needs.
2. Careers Guidance Service (other) – Records are destroyed on the clients 22nd birthday – or 26th birthday for clients with identified special needs.
3. Non statutory Virtual Guidance contracts – Access Creative College – information is securely deleted 3 months after the date of the session.
4. Oldham Youth Offending Service – Including those involved in prevention. We retain records for 25 Years from Date of Birth – or to the end of a supervision order or licence (if appropriate) if offender is aged over 18 & case cannot be transferred. If a category one conviction has been made – this period extends to 75 years from date of birth.
5. Oldham Missing From Home Service – Records are destroyed on the clients 22nd birthday – or 26th birthday for clients with identified special needs.
6. Oldham Young Carers Respite Service – 25 Years from the client’s date of birth – unless child has been or becomes looked after (Date of Birth + 75 Years) or is adopted (Date of Adoption Order+ 100 years).
7. Oldham Early Help (including the two-year-old Child Care offer) – Ten years after the service users last contact with Positive Steps.
8. DBS Checks – Six months after completion

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.

Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.

Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at sar@positive-steps.org.uk if you wish to make a request.

How to complain

If you would like further information about this privacy notice, or how we handle your personal information, or If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, please do not hesitate to contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) – sar@positive-steps.org.uk

You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The ICO’s address:           

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk