Privacy notice – family group conference

North Somerset Council is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for the purposes of processing personal data.

The information you provide will be held and used in accordance with the requirements of UK and European data protection law. The information will form part of your family group conference records, and held by the Family Group Conference for no longer than three years after the creation. The records will also be added to the child(ren)’s social care record.

Unless otherwise agreed with you, we will only process the minimum personal data required to deliver the service. This includes names and contact details of your family and support network, specific circumstances relating to your family, previous involvement from support agencies including children’s social care and relevant details linked to physical or mental health. When relevant, we also process data relating to criminal record history, where the conviction may have a bearing on the welfare of a child. In accordance with Article 10 of GDPR, we have a legal obligation to process this data under children’s social care legislation.

The information will be used for the administration of the family group conference service, a voluntary service designed to enable families to come together to address the concerns identified by children’s social care. The processing of this information is lawful as we are acting in the public interest to deliver this service, and to aid in the delivery of social care (GDPR Articles 6(1)(e) and 9(2)(h)).

We will not use your personal information in a way that may cause you unwarranted nuisance. Failure to provide the information could result in difficulties in providing necessary care services to you.

The information provided may be shared with agencies that are already involved with your family, or, in consultation with you, we may share with other agencies who could provide additional support for your family. These include schools nursery settings, health visitors, CAMHS, adult mental health services, voluntary agencies (for example Addaction), domestic violence support services, young carers, youth offending team, probation, housing support services (for example Support Alliance) and Cafcass, who have demonstrated that they have a lawful and legitimate interest in the information for the purposes of improving the welfare of your child. We also have a legal obligation to share information with health, social care or the police, where we have legitimate concerns about an individual’s welfare.

We may lawfully disclose information to public sector agencies to prevent or detect fraud or other crime, or to support the national fraud initiatives and protect public funds under the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. Under the conditions of the Digital Economy Act 2017, we may also share personal data provided to us with other public authorities as defined in the Act, for the purposes of fraud or crime detection or prevention, to recover monies owed to us, to improve public service delivery, or for statistical research. We do not share the information with other organisations for commercial purposes.

You have the right to see the personal data we process about you, as well as the right of objection, rectification, and restriction (to destruction of records only).

If you have any questions or concerns about the way we process your personal data, contact our Data Protection Officer at DPO@n-somerset.gov.uk