How we are using your information?

To understand whether specific central government funding has been effective in helping families turn their lives around and whether it is a good use of public money, the Government would like to combine personal data held by local authorities (such as names and dates of birth) with information routinely collected by Government Departments.

The progress of families who have been supported by this funding will be compared with those who have not. This will provide information about how effective it has been in reducing offending, truancy and getting people ready for work and will be used to help improve the programme and services you may receive in the future. It is important to note that the personal data (names, dates of birth and addresses) will be removed from any combined datasets before they are provided back to the research organisation (the National Institute of Economic and Social Research). This means it will be impossible for anyone to identify you from any published reports because information will be anonymised.

The combined data on your progress cannot be shared with Telford and Wrekin Council or used to make decisions about the treatment you currently receive – it will in no way affect any benefits, services or treatment you may be entitled to. The data can only be used for research with the goal of improving services going forward and is part of a larger evaluation of the programme. Your personal data will be destroyed at the end of the research.

All data will be transferred, handled and stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018. Legally binding agreements are in place between Telford and Wrekin Council and the research organisation and agreements are in place between Government Departments to ensure that all parties comply with the strict rules on handling, transferring, storing and destroying the data under the Data Protection Act 2018.

Telford & Wrekin Council and its partners, including Health and the Police Service, are engaging in the Department of Education’s Strengthening Families Protecting Children programme and are one of a number of authorities adopting the Family Safeguarding Model to improve outcomes for children and families within the borough. Visit the Government Guidance Website for more information.

As part of implementation, Telford and Wrekin will share information with the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care to evaluate our adoption of the Model and measure impact on services within Telford and Wrekin.

For further information please contact Richard Worton, Senior Research and Intelligence Officer, by email at richard.worton@telford.gov.uk.

Frequently Asked Questions

Local Authorities hold your personal information in order to provide services to you. Information on school attendance and attainment, criminal offences, benefits, employment, health and care is collected routinely by Government Departments.

Your data will be shared with a research organisation called the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). NIESR will ask Government Departments to match identifiers such as names and dates of birth to the data they routinely collect to measure your progress. The data will be transferred, handled and stored and securely destroyed after the completion of the research project in accordance with the Data Protection Act.

The reason for linking the information is to help the Government and local service providers understand whether or not the programme and reorganising service delivery has been effective in turning around the lives of families.

It won’t affect you personally. The data used for the research will be anonymised so no one will be able to identify you and results about the success of the programme will be reported at group level.

The results will not be used to make any decisions about the service you currently receive and will not affect any benefits, services or treatment you may be entitled to.

A Data Controller means a person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed.

Example
A government department sets up a database of information about every child in the country. It does this in partnership with local councils. Each council provides personal data about children in its area, and is responsible for the accuracy of the data it provides. It may also access personal data provided by other councils (and must comply with the data protection principles when using that data). The government department and the councils are data controllers in common in relation to the personal data on the database.

A Data Processor in relation to personal data, means any person (other than an employee of the data controller) who processes the data on behalf of the data controller.

Example
A utilities company engages a company which operates call centres to provide many of its customer services functions on its behalf. The call centre staff have access to the utilities company’s customer records for the purpose of providing those services but may only use the information they contain for specific purposes and in accordance with strict contractual arrangements. The utilities company remains the data controller. The company that operates the call centre is a data processor.

For current specific projects being funded by central government:

National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) will be the data processor for the matched data provided by Government Departments.

Government Departments will be the data processor for the matched data they provide to NIESR.

Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) will be data controller for the matched data and anonymised dataset created from the matched data provided by Government Departments.