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Complaints and feedback regarding The Education People privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and was last updated in June 2022.

Kent County Council respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This 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 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 United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (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.

Kent County Council commissions The Education People to provide certain statutory duties within education services on behalf of The Council to Kent maintained schools. The Education People is a KCC owned company who also offer traded education services nationally. Find out more about the services offered by The Education People.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

When you submit a complaint or feedback regarding the provision of services through The Education People we collect the following personal information:

  • your personal information (such as name, contact number, job title, organisation and email address)

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

  • to check The Education People received your complaint first by sharing your information with The Education People and, if they have not, forward the complaint to The Education People to handle through their complaints procedure
  • ensure The Education People have followed their complaints procedure correctly and fairly regarding your complaint
  • work with The Education People to improve services in light of any issues raised in your complaint
  • to contact you if further information is required to investigate the complaint
  • inform you of any outcome of your complaint
  • inform The Education People of any feedback relevant to their services
  • respond to any feedback if you have requested a response.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We collect and use your personal information to carry out tasks in the public interest.  For additional/specific interventions we will seek your consent where this is required. We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

  • Article (6)(1)(e) - Public task: the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions (task or function has a clear basis in law).
  • Article (6)(1)(a) - Consent: the individual has given clear consent to process their personal data for a specific purpose.

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

  • Article 9(2)(g) - Reasons of substantial public interest. We rely on the ‘equality of opportunity or treatment’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(g) to process your special category data.

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your complaint which contains your personal information securely in an electronic file on KCC databases which are only accessible by employees who have specific access. We will hold your personal information for date complaint resolved + a maximum of 10 years, after which the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed.

Who we share your personal information with

We share your personal information with:

  • The Education People
  • Teams within KCC working to improve outcomes for children and young people (if relevant to the complaint)
  • The Education People’s third-party providers (if relevant to the complaint)

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 Commissioners Office (ICO)
  • withdraw consent at any time (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 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 our use of your data at any time.  You can do this by emailing 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.