Special educational needs and transport privacy notice

The Waltham Forest SEN (Special Educational Needs) team determine eligibility for travel assistance, the allocation of passengers to routes, the contracting of service providers to perform these routes and allocate the appropriate staff to these routes and monitor the performance of contractors throughout the period of their contract to ensure they operate safely, legally and meet our customer standard expectations.

In accordance with the Home to School Travel and Transport Guidance 2014, we have a statutory obligation to make free, suitable, home to school transport arrangements for all eligible children of compulsory school age and promote the use of sustainable travel and transport.

The information you provide us with will be used to undertake the following:

• provide you or your child with appropriate services
• measure whether our services are improving provision for children with SEN
• help us develop and improve our services
• complete statistical returns to Government departments.

In order to process home to school travel applications the following information is collected:

• name
• address
• date of birth
• gender of child
• email address
• contact number
• details of special educational needs and/or disabilities
• educational provision
• medical information
• days transport needed
• details of parent/carer including mobile
• additional emergency contact details
• additional information (free box) in support of the application which can include any detail from the applicant
• details of transport requirements

Your data may be shared with the following:

• internal departments
• other local authorities (education, social care and relevant housing and employment and other services)
• the governing bodies of schools, including non-maintained special schools
• the governing bodies of further education colleges and sixth form colleges
• the proprietors of academies (including free schools, university technical colleges and studio schools)
• the management committees of pupil referral units
• independent schools and independent specialist providers approved under Section 41 of the Children and Families Act 2014
• all early years’ providers in the maintained, private, voluntary and independent sectors that are funded by the local authority
• the National Health Service Commissioning Board
• Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs)
• NHS Trusts
• NHS Foundation Trusts
• Local Health Boards
• Youth Offending Teams and relevant youth custodial establishments
• the First-tier Tribunal (SEN and disability)
• other third-party organisations, as allowed by law
• other partner agencies that provide services on our behalf
• agencies with whom we have a duty to co-operate, such as police

Personal data will not be retained for longer than necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected. For those with Special Educational Needs and/or disabilities, data will be retained until the person reaches the age of 25.

Our Data Protection Officer

Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes, you contact him by email at data.protectionofficer@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 Commissioner’s Office

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