Skip to content

Early Years and Childcare privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and it was last updated in December 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 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.

The Early Years and Childcare Service supports early years and childcare providers (including childminders) to deliver early education, and childcare free entitlements and ensures sufficient free places across Kent to meet the needs of parents and carers. We work in an integrated way with other children’s services teams in KCC and with partner organisations to ensure we support the best possible outcomes for children, young people and families in Kent.

Management Information collects child level data from providers and parents, and financial information from parents where applicable, to administer Early Years funding. This information is used to check eligibility and calculate payments to providers, so parents and their children can receive their free entitlement to early years education.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of working with early years and childcare providers we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

For children:

  • Personal information (such as name, address, contact details, date of birth, gender).
  • Parent/Carer information (such as name, address, contact details, date of birth, NINO/NASS number).
  • Parent/Carer social worker name & contact details where applicable.
  • Details of your child’s special educational needs and disabilities.
  • Information relating to your financial and personal circumstances.
  • Information relating to your eligibility to the government’s early education and childcare schemes.

For childcare providers and their staff:

  • Your personal information (such as name and contact details).
  • Your financial information/bank details (to enable you to be funded for free early education).
  • Details of previous events and services your business has attended and/or purchased from KCC (or for you, if you are a sole trader).
  • Notes of visit forms (which may contain staff names).
  • The reports of any compliance visits (which may contain staff names).
  • Details of events and services that you access through us, and feedback from those events and services.

We also obtain personal information from other sources as follows:

  • Information from Ofsted about registered settings.

How we use your personal information

We may use your personal information to:

  • fund your free early education places
  • support our statutory duty to ensure sufficient, sustainable early years and childcare places
  • in line with our statutory duty, make available information, advice, support and training that supports inclusive and high quality provision on either an individual provider or collaborations basis
  • facilitate the hire and booking of venues and resources
  • administer and deliver funding for Free Early Education and Childcare, to provide funding for all 3 and 4 years olds, and for 2 year olds who meet the Government's eligibility criteria
  • administer and deliver funding and opportunities as part of the Reconnect programme, the community-led programme designed to get Kent’s children and young people back to enjoying the activities and opportunities they took part in before COVID-19.

How long your personal data will be kept

Information relating to provider funding will be held for 7 years from date of contact.

Other information and contacts (such as compliance note and notes of visits) will be held for up to 7 years from date of contact.

Personal information such as name and contact details of the registered provider will be kept all the time the setting is open, and for 7 years after the setting closes or the manager changes.

However, if the data is subject to another lawful basis, such as legal requirement, the data might be held for a longer period than required under contract.

We will hold your child’s personal information from the child /young person’s date of birth until they reach the age of 25.

The Free for Two financial details are retained for 6 years from the last payment for successful applications and date of application + 1 year for unsuccessful applications.

After these periods, the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We collect and use your personal information to carry out tasks to comply with our legal obligations, and to carry out tasks in the public interest. We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

  • Article (6)(1)(c) - Legal obligation: the processing is necessary to comply with the law
  • 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)(f) - Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, unless there is a good reason to protect the individual’s personal data which overrides those legitimate interests.

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.

Who we share your personal information with

  • Teams within Kent County Council working to improve outcomes for children and young people
  • Commissioned providers of local authority services
  • Schools
  • Partner organisations signed up to the Kent & Medway Information Sharing Agreement, where necessary, which may include health visitors, midwives, housing providers, Police, school nurses, doctors, and mental health workers
  • Department for Education and other government departments as required
  • Government departments including the Department of Education
  • Ofsted.

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 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 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.

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.

UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with Information Commissioner, who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.