Privacy notice - School admission appeals
Overview
This privacy notice covers data collected by the School Appeal Service when you submit a school admission appeal to East Sussex County Council.
East Sussex County Council takes data protection seriously. Please be assured that your information will be used appropriately in line with data protection legislation, will be stored securely and will not be processed unless the requirements for fair and lawful processing can be met. This is inline with our responsibilities as a data controller.
What information is being used?
When you submit a school admission appeal to the School Appeal Service you are sending personal data to East Sussex County Council as the data controller. Please note that we also process appeals on behalf of academies who have asked East Sussex County Council to administer the school appeal service on their behalf.
When you submit a school admission appeal we will collect the following information:
- child’s name
- child’s date of birth
- gender
- child’s home address
- parent’s name
- parent’s contact details (including address, phone number and email address)
- other details you provide as part of your appeal submission (including any supporting evidence and/or documentation you may submit).
How will your information be used?
The information you provide will be used solely for the purposes of ensuring your appeal is administered in accordance with the requirements of the School Admission Appeals Code and other relevant legislation.
We aim to maintain high standards, adopt best practice for our record keeping and regularly check and report on how we are doing. Your information is never sold for direct marketing purposes.
Our staff are trained to handle your information correctly and protect your confidentiality and privacy.
Your information is processed in the UK or in a country with an adequacy agreement with the UK.
What is the lawful basis for processing your information?
East Sussex County Council has a statutory duty under the School Admissions Appeals Code 2012 to process school admission appeals. To deliver and effectively manage this public task, it is necessary to collect and process your personal data.
The school appeal service also processes school appeal data for academies who use the Council’s school admission appeal administration service and voluntary aided and foundation schools who may request assistance with their appeal arrangements.
How long will your information be kept for?
We will retain your personal data for 6 years from the date of submission. Your personal data will be stored in a database (Appeals Management System).
At the end of the retention period, your data will be either securely destroyed, or anonymised so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.
Accounts which do not have an appeal record linked to them will be destroyed after 3 months.
Details about the retention of information stored in relation to a school appeal can be found in our Records retention and disposal schedule.
Sharing your information
Your appeal submission and other submissions will be shared with the Independent Appeal Panel (IAP). The IAP is the body who will hear your appeal and make a decision as to whether to uphold or dismiss your appeal.
Your personal data will be shared with:
- those members of staff who need to see it in order to perform their functions, roles and responsibilities under the School Admissions Appeals Code and the School Admissions Code
- the admission authority responsible for the school you are appealing for
- volunteer Panel Members.
We will also share your personal data with relevant schools/academies/other local authorities, if you have submitted your appeal to us by mistake.
Any sharing of personal data is always done:
- on case-by-case basis
- using the minimum personal data necessary
- with the appropriate security controls in place
- in line with legislation.
Information is only shared with those agencies and bodies who have a "need to know" or where you have consented to the sharing of your personal data to such persons.
We may use the information we hold about you to assist in the detection and prevention of crime or fraud. We may also share this information with other bodies that inspect and manage public funds.
Use of third party organisations
East Sussex County Council may share your information with trusted external organisations to process your data on our behalf.
It is necessary to share information with schools that are an admission authority in their own right and neighbouring local authorities.
Any organisation commissioned by the Council will be under contractual obligation to comply with data protection legislation.
Your rights
Under data protection legislation, you have the right:
- to be informed why, where and how we use your information
- to ask for access to your information
- to ask for your information to be corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete
- to ask for your information to be deleted or removed where there is no need for us to continue processing it
- to ask us to restrict the use of your information
- to ask us to copy or transfer your information from one IT system to another in a safe and secure way, without impacting the quality of the information
- to object to how your information is used
- to challenge any decisions made without human intervention (automated decision making)
Please visit data subject rights for further details.
How to find out more or complain
Should you have any further queries on the uses of your information, please speak directly to our service:
School Appeal Service
Email: school.appeals@eastsussex.gov.uk
Phone: 01273 482290
School Appeals Service
East Sussex County Council
County Hall
St Anne’s Crescent
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 1SG
Making a data protection complaint
You have the right to complain if you consider that the Council has not handled your personal information in accordance with data protection law.
You can make a complaint by contacting our Customer Services Team:
- details on our data protection page.
Alternatively, you can contact our Data Protection Officer:
Data Protection Officer
Email: dpo@eastsussex.gov.uk
Address:
Data Protection Officer
East Sussex County Council, County Hall
St Anne's Crescent
Lewes
East Sussex
BN7 1UE
We will:
- acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it;
- take appropriate steps to investigate and respond to your complaint; and
- tell you the outcome of your complaint without undue delay.
Further information about how we handle data protection complaints, including how to make a complaint and what information you should provide, is available on our data protection complaints page.
Complaining to the Information Commissioner
If you are dissatisfied with the Council’s response, you can ask the Information Commissioner’s Office to consider your complaint. The Information Commissioner will normally expect you to have raised your concerns with the Council first.
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: Make a complaint to the ICO