Who we are and what we do

Waltham Forest Early Years Childcare and Business Development Service (EYCBD) collects, uses, and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

The EYBCD service is responsible for leading the development, implementation, and monitoring of learning and development plans. This is in relation to a child under statutory school age who has or may have:

  • a learning/developmental delay.
  • special educational needs or a disability, but does not have an Education, Health, and Care Plan(EHCP) in place.

These duties are carried out in line with the Children and Families Act 2014  in line with the following:

We also administer and approve additional Special Educational Needs Inclusion Funding (SENIF) funding applications for children and young people. This is in relation to the provision they may require during the Early Years Foundation Stage. We also work with Parents/Carers and early years settings to make EHCP applications. This applies to where despite the early years setting having taken relevant action to identify, assess and meet the special educational needs of the child (including involving appropriate specialists, for example, health visitors, speech and language therapists, Early Years Home Visitors, educational psychologists or specialist teachers), the child has not made expected progress.

We work in a coordinated way with other children and young people’s services in Waltham Forest Council and with partner organisations. We ensure we deliver the best possible outcomes for children and young people with SEND in Waltham Forest. We are fully compliant with the Children and Families Act 2014 and associated regulations and Code of Practice.

Information we hold about you

In the course of assessing and planning the appropriate support, and providing the most suitable early years provision for children with learning/developmental delay, SEND we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:

  • Child and parent/carer personal information. This includes name, address, contact details, date of birth, contact details, gender, and NHS number.
  • details of special educational needs and disabilities
  • ethnicity
  • information about physical or mental health
  • National Insurance number

We also obtain personal information from other organisations or teams that can provide us with advice and information, this includes:

  • Adult or Children’s Social Services
  • Family Hub 
  • educational psychologists
  • mental health services
  • doctors
  • school nurses and other NHS providers
  • early education providers currently or previously attended. This includes schools, nurseries, pre schools and childminders.

Why we need your information and how we use it

We use your personal information to:

  • identify your child’s learning/development, SEND needs
  • identify the support they require which will help them to achieve their outcomes
  • know who we need to speak to, so we can ask them to send us information and advice relating to your child
  • make decisions about whether to provide additional funding to the early years setting that your child attends. For example, a 2 year old Free Early education place, SENIF, DAF, or Early Years Pupil premium
  • make decisions about whether conduct a statutory needs assessment or issue an Education, Health, and Care (EHC) Plan
  • make decisions about the content of a SENIF or EHC Plan including outcomes, placement, and provision
  • support the ongoing monitoring of the provision specified in a SENIF or EHC Plan where one is issued
  • inform SENIF or EHC Plan reviews and monitor your child’s progress
  • to keep you up to date on learning/development, SEND related news, and developments
  • support disagreement resolution or concerns relating to your child’s learning/development, SEND,
  • help to resolve any disagreements
  • enable coordinated working with other teams and organisations
  • evaluate and quality assure the services we provide
  • analyse service provision and effectiveness, and model patterns of service involvement to support future service delivery planning
  • assess for specialist equipment
  • inform future commissioned services, early years, and school placements requirements
  • support and inform council transformation by ensuring the holistic characteristics and needs of the child population are fully understood
  • provide appropriate levels of insight, evidence, and evaluation. This is to embed knowledge and understanding of children and young people’s needs and issues into service programmes and projects. This also includes the commissioning of new services
  • inform future service delivery planning and integrated working in order to improve outcomes for children and young people.

 

The lawful basis for processing data under the GDPR is:

(e) Public task: the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.

The legal basis for processing is as follows:

Who your information will be shared with

  • Teams within Waltham Forest Council working to improve outcomes for children and young people
  • Commissioned providers of local authority services (such as Family Hub, education, or health services)
  • Schools and early years providers as well as wider education or training providers
  • Partner organisations signed up to the Waltham Forest Information Sharing Agreement, where necessary. This may include NHS teams, health visitors, midwives, district councils, housing providers, Police, school nurses, doctors, and mental health workers
  • Other local authorities and social care or health providers outside of the Local Authority
  • Department of Education
  • providers of independent advice and guidance (such as contracted SEND consultants)

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

How long we will keep your data

We keep children and young people’s information from their date of birth until they reach the age of 25. After this time the information is made inaccessible to system users and securely destroyed.

Our Data Protection Officer

Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes. You can contact him at Data.Protection@walthamforest.gov.uk.

Protecting your information

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Your information choice and rights

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Complaints and contact details

These are included in the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Information Commissioners Office

If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).