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Governor services privacy notice

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 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 Governor Services team offers support, training and advice to clerks and governors to help governing bodies fulfil their role effectively.

Personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In the course of providing governor training and support we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • personal information (such as name, address, contact details, gender)
  • special category characteristics (disability)
  • governing body details
  • governor Type and term of office
  • details of governor training booked and attended

The school where you are a governor will ask you to complete a legal declaration form which confirms your eligibility to be a governor, and meets the school’s statutory requirements.

How we use your personal information

We use your personal information to:

  • maintain a governor database
  • contact governors regarding statutory changes in legislation and details of training opportunities
  • ascertain local authority governor vacancies to be filled (statutory role)
  • assess and report on vacancies across the county
  • plan future training requirements

How long your personal data will be kept

We will hold your personal information for 6 years in line with KCC’s personnel retention record keeping guidelines, after which 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 in the public interest as well as our legal obligation under section 30 of the Education Act 2002 to hold the contact details of Chairs of Governors. We need the details of Local Authority Governors to fulfil our responsibilities to fill these vacancies when they arise. 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)

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

We share your personal information with:

  • the school(s) where you are a governor
  • the school where you are governor has a statutory obligation to publish governor details on their website and the national ‘Get Information About Schools’ (GIAS) website
  • teams within KCC working to improve outcomes for children and young people
  • commissioned providers of local authority services (such as education services)
  • Kent and Medway National Leaders of Governance (NLG), if support is required
  • our governor database provider(s) in order for them to undertake contractual data processing requirements

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
  • 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 Commissioners 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.