Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) Service privacy notice and retention policy
We keep this privacy notice under regular review and was last updated in October 2021.
This notice explains what personal data (information) we hold about you, how we collect, how we use and may share information about you. We are required to give you this information under data protection law.
Who we are
Kent County Council (KCC) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.
Please note that failure to provide your personal data may put children at risk.
Kent Children’s County Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) Service provide advice and guidance for those who employ adults in the children’s workforce where a safeguarding concern is identified as below:
- Behaved in a way that has harmed a child, or may have harmed a child
- Possibly committed a criminal offence against or related to a child, or
- Behaved towards a child or children in a way that indicates he or she may pose a risk of harm to children
- Behaved in a way that indicates they may not be suitable to work with children?
Personal information we collect and use
Information collected by us
In the course of managing concerns, including allegations of harm, against an adult who works with children we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:
- Demographics (such as name, address, contact details, date of birth, gender).
- Protected characteristics (such as ethnicity and disability).
- Details of family relationships, including those of extended family.
- Information gathered during child safeguarding processes (during Section 47 enquiries and investigations and Child Protection Conferences).
- Details relating to all your paid or voluntary employment.
We also obtain personal information from partner agencies:
- Police
- Integrated Children’s Services
- Other Local Authorities
- Education including Early Years, Local Education Authority, academies, private, independent and unregistered schools
- NHS England
- Employers, including voluntary and charity organisations
- NSPCC
- Ofsted and or Governing bodies
- Care Quality Commission (CQC)
- Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
How we use your personal information
We use your personal information to:
- safeguard children
- enable integrated working with other teams and relevant organisations to ensure appropriate actions and responses
- support, advise and guide employers, charities and professionals in their respective roles when an allegation is raised against an employee or volunteer
- reduce the incidents of positions of trust being abused or misused
How long your personal data will be kept
The guidance from IICSA advises all organisations to retain any and all documents, notes, e-mails and all other information, however held, which contains or may contain content pertaining directly or indirectly to the sexual abuse of children or to child protection care. Children relates to any person under the age of 18.
We keep your information securely in line with the retention periods shown below, after which time the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed, unless we are required by legal reasons to retain records for longer than the stated retention period.
No date for review.
| Content or type | Scenario | Timescale for review | Action | Rational to retain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Contacts, initial considerations and referrals that do not progress | Where it is clear that there is no evidence to substantiate the allegation or that it has met the harm threshold for allegation management. | Reviewed 10 years from the date of closure. | All information should be deleted or removed. | A decision to retain information beyond 10 years may be taken by the County LADO Service if patterns or behaviour are emerging that suggest the person could continue to pose risk of harm. |
| Malicious, false or unfounded | All cases that progress to strategy meeting or position of trust whereby the allegation is found to be malicious, false or unfounded. | Reviewed 10 years from the date of closure. | If no additional information or evidence is brought to light during this period, the information should be deleted or removed. | A decision to retain information beyond 10 years may be taken by the LADO if patterns or behaviour are emerging that suggest the person could continue to pose risk of harm. |
| Unsubstantiated | All cases that progress to strategy meeting or position of trust meeting whereby the allegation is found to be unsubstantiated. | No date for review. | These records should be retained until the alleged perpetrator reaches the age of 100 years. Following this time they should be deleted and destroyed. |
For cases that are deemed unsubstantiated there is neither evidence to confirm or deny the alleged incident happened and therefore the risk in deleting this information sooner is too high. The decision made to retain records whereby the outcome is unsubstantiated is informed by the Bichard Inquiry regarding Ian Huntley who had a series of unsubstantiated allegations against him that presented a pattern of concern. |
| Substantiated | All cases that progress to strategy meeting or position of trust meeting whereby the allegation is found to be substantiated. | No date for review. | These records should be retained until the alleged perpetrator reaches the age of 100 years. Following this time they should be deleted and destroyed. | Substantiated cases should not be deleted or removed sooner than this time as the outcome suggests the person poses risk of harm to children.This allows for allegations that may be made once the person has died as seen in Operation Yewtree. |
Reasons we can collect and use your personal information
We collect and use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations, and to carry out tasks in the public interest. If we need to collect protected characteristics or special category (sensitive) personal information, we rely upon reasons of substantial public interest (equality of opportunity or treatment), for the provision of social care, for social security or social protection law, and for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims whenever Courts are acting in their judicial capacity.
We rely on the following laws to process your personal data:
- Children Act 1989
- Children Act 2004
- Children and Social Work Act 2017
- Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018
- Keeping Children Safe in Education 2020.
Who we share your personal information with
- Teams within KCC working to improve outcomes for children and young people
- Commissioned providers of local authority services (such as Independent Foster Care Agencies, Children’s Homes, Semi-Independent Accommodation Providers, Supported Lodgings Providers, Residential Special Schools and Secure accommodation)
- Police
- Integrated Children’s Services
- Other Local Authorities
- Education including Early Years, Local Education Authority, academies, private, independent and unregistered schools
- NHS England
- Employers, including voluntary and charity organisations
- NSPCC
- Ofsted
- Care Quality Commission
- Crown Prosecution Service.
We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you have rights which you can exercise free of charge which allow you to:
- know what we are doing with your information and why we are doing it
- ask to see what information we hold about you (subject access request)
- ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
- object to direct marketing
- make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office
- withdraw consent (if applicable)
Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:
- ask us to delete information we hold about you
- have your information transferred electronically to yourself or to another organisation
- object to decisions being made that significantly affect you
- object to how we are using your information
- stop us using your information in certain ways
We will always seek to comply with your request however we may be required to hold or use your information to comply with legal duties. Please note: your request may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you.
For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under UK GDPR.
If you would like to exercise a right, please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.
Keeping your personal information secure
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
Contact
Please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk to exercise any of your rights, or if you have a complaint about why your information has been collected, how it has been used or how long we have kept it for.
You can contact our Data Protection Officer, Benjamin Watts, at dpo@kent.gov.uk, or write to: Data Protection Officer, Sessions House, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1XQ.
UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.
Read our corporate privacy statement.