Privacy Policy

We keep this privacy notice under regular review, and it was last updated in July 2022.

Kent County Council respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. The privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Who are we?

Kent County Council (KCC) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). We are responsible as 'controller' of that personal information. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

Community Learning and Skills (CLS) provides learning opportunities for adults, young people and families across Kent in order to meet their aspirations for improved work skills, better development, strong families and healthy creative lives. We engage with local communities throughout Kent to provide educational services which match the needs of local communities based on levels of prosperity, employment and priorities. CLS works in an integrated way with other teams in KCC and with partner organisations to ensure that our services provide learning appropriate to the needs of individuals and families at various stages in their lives.

The personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us.

In the course of enquiries, enrolment, recruitment, engagement, planning and delivering learning we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

Personal information (such as name, date of birth, unique pupil number, contact details, language and bursary eligibility)
Financial information to enable the processing of course payments and evidence towards claiming concessions for courses if applicable.
Attendance information (such as sessions attended, number of absences and absence reasons)
Curriculum assessment results
Destination and progression information (such as details about current and future employment and education)
Ask you for a self-declaration of state benefit claims for fully funded provision.
Previous or current education or employment information

We collect information about you via the following websites:

https://communitylearningandskills.co.uk/

https://www.kentadulteducation.co.uk/

https://www.kenttrainingandapprenticeships.co.uk/

Our websites use cookies - for more information about the cookies we use you can view our Cookie Policy:

https://www.kenttrainingandapprenticeships.co.uk/cookie-policy/

We also collect the following 'special category data' (personal data which is more sensitive and is treated with extra care and protection) when you provide it to us:

Information such as your origin nationality, country of birth, and racial or ethnic
Information about any health conditions, disabilities or learning difficulties that may apply to you
Information about you and your circumstances, including any health and safety concerns that may be relevant
Information about current criminal convictions and offences, allegations, or related security measures/incidents

Whilst the majority of learner information you provide to us in mandatory, some of it is provided to us on a voluntary basis. To comply with UK GDPR, we will inform you whether you are required to provide certain learner information to us or if your consent is required.

We also obtain personal information from other sources as follows:

Information about young people aged 16-19 requiring learning opportunities to prevent being Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)
Personal information, characteristics, assessment results, Unique Learner Number (ULN) and Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) information from national personal learning records, schools or colleges that you have previously attended
Referrals from partnership organisations, Children's Centres, Schools & Department of Work & Pensions
From your employer, if you are being sponsored to undertake a course with us or are following an Apprenticeship programme.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

Work with other teams and organisations to ensure appropriate learning, employment and career opportunities are accessible to you
Support learners' learning
Monitor and report on learners' progress
Provide appropriate pastoral care
Support you to decide what to do after you leave the programme of learning
Provide Information, Advice and Guidance and to promote further learning opportunities
Register learners for accredited qualifications and non-accredited courses
The information you supply is used by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), an executive agency of the Department of Education (DfE), to issue you with a Unique Learner Number (ULN) and to create your Personal Learning Record, as part of the functions of the Dfe
Process your enrolment and notify you of your enrolment status
Evaluate and quality assure the services we provide
Contact you for feedback or evaluation on any of our services or courses delivered
Inform you of special offers, promotions, website changes, and new services that may be of interest, if you have consented for us to do so
Undertake analysis, profiling, or statistical research for marketing purposes and to plan new services or courses
Use your images, quotes or coursework for good news information stories or promotional material if you have consented for us to do so
Administer and protect our websites and Management Information systems (including data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support)
Provide relevant reports and data to facilitate any inspection or assessment
Provide internal training to our staff such as how to conduct an enrolment using our MI systems
Investigate and respond to any communication, complaint or request made by you
Create and/or provide you access to on-line platforms or products that will be used in the course of your studies, including the creation of a CLS education e-mail address if applicable
Investigate and process any Safeguarding or Prevent issues that may be relevant

Marketing

Where you have consented to receiving marketing communications from us, by selecting the relevant consent options at enrolment, we may use your personal data to send you targeted emails for marketing purposes.

We send emails to learners with whom we want to develop or maintain a relationship with, in accordance with applicable data protection and marketing laws. This may include information about events, new and upcoming courses, surveys, and topical updates.

If you have consented to receive marketing communications, we may use some of your personal anonymised data, such as age, postcode, and gender to create a profile of the potential interests and needs of the wider community.

We use Campaign Monitor to manage our email updates to our learners. Campaign Monitor uses page tags and web beacons for the purposes of tracking visitors as they use an email. For example, web beacons track whether an email sent through Campaign Monitor was delivered and opened and whether links within the email were clicked. This information is collected for the purposes of providing email campaign performance information and measuring the performance of email messages sent.

Find out more information about Campaign Monitor cookies by visiting the Campaign Monitor website.

https://www.campaignmonitor.com/policies/#cookie-policy

For further information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

Reasons we collect and use your personal information

When we collect your personal data, we rely on the following lawful basis:

For Learners under 19:

We collect and use your personal information to carry out tasks under our legal obligation.

We rely on the following legal basis under UK GDPR:

Article (6)(1)(c) - Legal obligation: the processing is necessary to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations).

The legal basis is underpinned by acts of legislation that dictate what actions can and show be taken by local authorities, including:

537A of the Education Act 1996
Section 83 of the Children Act 1989
507B of the Education Act 1996
Section 3 of The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013

For other learners:

We collect and use your personal information to carry out tasks under legitimate interests.

We rely on the following legal basis under UK GDPR:

Artice (6)(1)(a) - Consent: the individual has given clear consent to process their personal data for a specific purpose
Article (6)(1)(f) - Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party.

Our Legitimate interests are:

We need to collect and process data and retain records in order to fulfill our functions as an education provider and to maintain our relationship with our learners and the wider community, providing the best possible educational and societal benefits.

When we collect or share special category personal data, we rely upon the following legal basis under UK GDPR:

Article 9(2)(g) - Reasons of substantial public interest. We rely on the 'explicit consent', 'equality of opportunity or treatment' and 'safeguarding of children and individuals at risk' purpose conditions from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(g) to process your special category data
Article 9(2)(j) - Archiving, research and statistics. We rely on the 'Research' purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(j) to process your special category data.
We further rely on Schedule 1, Part 2 (18) 'Safeguarding of children and individuals at risk' condition in the Data Protection Act 2018 to process your criminal convictions data.

We take the following appropriate safeguards in respect of your special category and/or criminal convictions data when relying on the conditions above:

We have Special Category and Criminal Records Appropriate Policy; this policy is retained throughout the time we use of your data and for 6 months after we cease to use it
We have a Retention Schedule which explains how long data is retained
We maintain a record of our processing in our 'Record of Processing Activities' and record in it any reasons for deviating from the periods in our Retention Schedule

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information securely and retain it for no longer than 14 years from your last enrolment with CLS in line with central Government audit requirements, after which the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed.

For specific learner data retention please see below:

Enrolments starting prior to 01/08/2016: Until Dec 2022; Enrolments starting on or after 01/08/2016: Until Dec 2030

Documents created or held for Learners enrolled with Community Learning and Skills (CLS):

Individual Learner Records (ILR)
E-mail Learner declarations
Programme forms
Commitment packs
Attendance registers
Awarding body examination results
Agreed Break in learning evidence
Work Placement attendance sheets
Destination & Progression information

For the following provision types:

Kent Adult Education Learners aged 19+: Accredited courses

Kent Adult Education Learners aged 19+: ESOL, Employability/Work Skills & English and Maths

Kent Training and Apprenticeships Learners aged 16-18 and 19+

Kent Training and Apprenticeships - Study Programme Learners aged 16-18: Work Ready, Traineeships, Pathfinder, Supported Internships & Skills Study Programmes

Current academic year + 6 years:

Documents created or held for Learners enrolled with Community Learning and Skills (CLS):

Individual Learner Records (ILR)
E-mail Learner Declarations
Attendance registers
Individual Learning Plans (ILPs)

For the following provision types:

Kent Adult Education Community Learning, Learners aged 19+: PCDL and Pay as you go (PAYG)
Kent Adult Education Community Learning, Family Programmes, Learners aged 19+: Family English, Maths and Language (FEML), Wider Family Learning (WFL) and Parenting
Kent Adult Education Community Learning, Learners aged 19+: Neighbourhood Learning in Deprived Communities (NLDC)/RESPONSE

Current financial year + 6 years:

CLS: Additional Learner Support (ALS) information
CLS: Apprenticeship Grant
CLS: Records relating to Learner refunds
CLS: Discretionary Learner Support (DLS)
CLS: Applications for funding from the Learning Skills (Bursary) Fund (funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency)
CLS: Advanced Learner Loans (ALL) recording of financial information & allocation of income

Current year + 1 year:

CLS: Kent Adult Education Learner screening forms and Initial Assessment Forms
CLS: Course evaluation forms - all Learners

Retain by CLS for 5 years from date of last contact, records to be transferred to Central KCC Records Management Service for retention until 10 years from data of last contact:

Learner records relating to Safeguarding

Current year + 3 years:

Market Research outputs undertaken for Community, Learning and Skills
Information relating to Learner voice & Learner Walks

Current year + 2 years:

CLS: Learner health questionnaires

Operational use:

Information relating to customer profiling

Life of the photograph:

Permission to publish photographs taken at KCC events - a copy should be stored with the photograph

Date of birth of child + 16 years or the life of the photograph whichever is the longer:

Parental permission slips for photographs taken of children to publicise KCC events

Kept with copy of quote/wording, operational use + 6 years:

Permission to publish wording/quotes obtained from learners for marketing purposes

Who we share your personal information with

We routinely share your contact details, learning aims and courses that you are enrolled on, attendance, any learning or health disabilities/difficulties to support you in your studies, achievement, and progression data (what you did after your course). financial data in order to process any payments or to check your eligibility towards bursaries or concessions.

We are required to share information about our learners with KCC and the ESFA under section 3 of The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013.

Our Learners aged 16-19

KCC has a legal responsibility to track all young people up to the age of 19 (and young adults with learning difficulties or disabilities up to the age of 25). The purpose of collecting this information is to assist in the planning of education and training for young people and the support services they require. KCC will inform us of your current activity once you have left the school. This is in relation to education, training, employment with training you may be undertaking and whether you are NEET (not in Education, Employment or Training). Some of this information is then shared with the DfE who use the information to plan to a national level.

This enables KCC to provide and arrange:

post-16 education and training provision
youth support services
learning and career information, advice and guidance

The National Pupil Database (NPD)

The NPD is owned and managed by the Dfe and contains information about pupils in schools in England. It provided invaluable evidence on educational performance to inform independent research, as well as studies commissioned by the DfE. It is held in electronic format for statistical purposes. This information is securely collected from a range of courses including schools, local authorities and awarding bodies.

We are required by law, to provide information about our learners to the DfE as part of statutory data collections such as monthly National Client Caseload information System (NCCIS) submissions about young people's post-16 activities. Some of this information is then stored in the NPD. The law that allows this is the Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2013.

The DfE may share information about learners from the NPD with third parties who promote the education or well-being of children in England by:

conducting research or analysis
producing statistics
providing information, advice or guidance

The DfE has robust processes in place to ensure the confidentiality of our data is maintained and there are stringent controls in place regarding access and use of the data. Decisions on whether DfE releases data to third parties are subject to a strict approval process and based on a detailed assessment of:

who is requesting the data
the purpose for which it is required
the level and sensitivity of data requested:and
the arrangements in place to store and handle the data

To be granted access to this information, organisations must comply with strict terms and conditions covering the confidentiality and handling of the data, security arrangements and retention and use of the data.

We also share information with

Teams within Kent County Council working to improve outcomes for children and young people
Commissioned providers of local authority services (such as education services, call centre and payment services)
Schools, colleges and other providers of education and training
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA)
Ofsted
Matrix standard
Awarding Bodies for accredited courses
Third party sub-contractors and partner organisations who deliver courses on behalf of CLS (such as First Intuition, Hi Kent, Kent Fire and Rescue service)
Partner organisations signed up to the Kent & Medway Information Sharing Agreement, where necessary, which may include health visitors, midwives, district councils, housing providers, Police, school nurses, doctors and mental health workers
Sponsors or employers paying for Learners courses
Organisations that have made a referral to us, such as the Job centre, CXK etc

For a list of organisations that we share information with please see the link below:

https://communitylearningandskills.co.uk/privacy-policy/partners-and-sub-contractors/

This data sharing enables us to provide you with high quality services, training, and employment opportunities. To register you with awarding bodies or assessment organisations or platforms.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law or in connection with legal proceedings.

We transfer your data to the following countries or organisation outside the UK:

Zoom Video Communications Inc

This is based on Safeguards prescribed by the UK GDPR, a copy of which can be obtained by contacting our CLS GDPR Team.

By email: CLSGDPR@kent.gov.uk

By telephone: 03000 41 22 22

Or by writing to:

CLS GDPR Team

Community Learning & Skills

Unit A-B London Road Trading Estate

London Road

Sittingbourne

ME10 1SX

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 Requests)
Ask to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
Object to direct marketing
Make a complaint to the Information Commissioners 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 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 Information Commissioner's Office 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

Your Right to Withdraw your Consent

Where we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you can withdraw your consent to your use of your data at any time.

You can do this by:

Email: CLSGDPR@kent.gov.uk
Contacting any of our local Adult Education centres, details of centres can be found on our website at Adult Education Centres and online courses in Kent| Kent Adult Education
By telephone: 03000 41 22 22

By writing to:

CLS GDPR Team,

Community Learning & Skills

Unit A-B London Road Trading Estate

London Road

SITTINGBOURNE

ME10 1SX

For marketing and promotional information, you can also click on any of the unsubscribe links within our marketing materials.

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.

Who to 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.

If you would like to get a copy of the information about you that KCC shares with the ESFA or DfE or post-16 providers or how they use your information, please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.

For more information about our services please go to: https://communitylearningandskills.co.uk/ or the KCC website at http://www.kent.gov.uk/

UK GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner, who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement

For further information about the government uses your information:

For more information about how your information is processed, and to access your Personal Learning Record, please refer to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lrs-privacy-notices

For more information about how the ESFA use your information, please refer to their privacy notice:

To find out more about how your information is used by the ESFA to fund learning, go to:

To find out more about the learner information we share with the DfE, for the purpose of data collections, go to https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-department-for-education-dfe-personal-data

For more information about the DfE's data sharing process, please visit:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/data-protection-how-we-collect-and-share-research-data

For information about which organisations the department has provided pupil information, (and for which project), please visit the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dfe-external-data-shares

To contact DfE: https://www.gov.uk/contact-dfe

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