Adult Education privacy notice

Coventry City Council complies with the Data Protection Act and the UK GDPR and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a Data Controller.

This Privacy Notice explains how personal information is going to be used, what for, who it will be shared with and why.

Why we collect and use personal data about you

We collect and use personal information about you to provide learning opportunities to help you achieve your life and career goals.

We collect and use your information so we can provide the best service for our learners, and:

  • Enrol you in your chosen Adult Education Course
  • Complete statistical returns to Local and Central Government departments
  • Improve our services
  • Do what the law says we have to
  • Carry out tasks in the public interest
  • To put you in touch with partner organisations where consent has been provided

We process personal data because it is necessary to comply with the contracts, we have with the DfE and WMCA to fund our courses.

What information do we collect about you?

  • Contact details (e.g. phone number, address and email address)
  • Gender
  • Your age
  • Family details
  • Name and contact details of person to be contacted in case of emergency
  • Personal Reference Numbers – e.g. Unique Learner Number / National Insurance / case management system references
  • Education details
  • Employment details
  • Financial details
  • Records of complaints
  • Safeguarding reports
  • Visual images, personal appearance and behaviour

Who we share your personal data with

We will share data with:

  • Other Council service areas
  • The Social Care Team - for safeguarding purposes
  • Department of Education (DfE), including LRS and the Education and Skills Funding Agency
  • The West Midlands Combined Authority
  • Emergency services
  • Health and Social Services, e.g. NHS – incl. NHS Digital, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), Coventry & Warwick Partnership Trust
  • Ofsted
  • Police
  • National Careers Service Providers
  • Groundwork (where consent has been obtained)
  • 3rd Party Nurseries and Creche Services (where consent has been obtained)

Information will only ever be shared when it is strictly necessary to help us provide services and you may have the right to refuse. We have data sharing agreements in place with local agencies and sometimes the law demands that we pass your details on to a third party, for example, to prevent crime. We will not pass your personal information onto any other parties outside of those agreements unless the law says we must.

We sometimes use third party organisations to provide some of our services. Examples include organisations who conduct surveys on the Service's behalf and e-learning platforms that provide learning and assessment opportunities. We remain the data controller for your data in these cases.

How long will we keep your information?

We will only keep your information for as long as we need to, so we can give you the service you need, unless we must keep it for legal reasons. The time can be different depending on the service you have asked for.

  • For courses funded solely by the ESFA/WMCA we keep data for 6 years after the academic year in which your enrolment occurs.
  • For learners who started their current course(s) with us before academic year 2023/24 where match-funding against the European Social Fund was used, we keep data until at least 31st December 2030.

Your rights

You have the right to:

  1. Ask to see the personal information we hold about you
  2. Withdraw consent or change consent in some cases (see below)
  3. Ask us to change information we hold about you if it is wrong
  4. Ask us to delete the information we hold about you
  5. Ask us to limit the way we use your personal Information
  6. Ask for human intervention regarding decisions made about you by a computer
  7. Data portability (have your data transferred to another Authority)
  8. Complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office

To exercise any of these rights please contact the Management Information Services Team at adulted-queries@coventry.gov.uk

Withdrawal of consent

You have the right to withdraw or change your consent to be contacted with other information or services we think may be of interest to you.

The rest of the personal data processed by Coventry Adult Education Service is necessary in order to comply with our legal obligations and to enable us to perform tasks carried out in the public interest. You cannot change or withdraw your consent in regard to this processing.

In some circumstances we have to contact you regardless of your consent.

  • We will contact you if we are unable to run a class you are enrolled on (e.g. due to tutor illness)
  • We will contact you if you fail to attend your class to establish whether you still require your place or to inform you that it has been withdrawn
  • Our contract for the supply of services with the ESFA and WMCA requires us to contact you after you have completed your course to:
    • Get feedback to measure and improve the quality of our courses
    • Collect information about what you intend to do next
    • Measure the impact your learning has had on your life

Complaints

You have the right to submit a complaint if you are unhappy with the way your request is handled or disagree with a decision made by the council regarding your data. In these circumstances, you can contact the Data Protection Team (DPO) and request a review of the decision.

If you are not satisfied with any outcome from the DPO you may wish to apply to the Information Commissioner’s Office at:

The Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF.

Date of last review: May 2023

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