University of York care leaver research data sharing privacy notice

The Council has been approached by researchers from the University of York to conduct a research project on care leavers transitioning into the labour market in England.

The researchers will process anonymised quantitative data from national care and educational databases to track the care and educational histories of care leavers in England. This analysis will focus on identifying pre-and post-16 care and educational trajectories leading care leavers to better or worse education, employment and training ("EET") outcomes.

If you have questions regarding this service or our privacy practices, you can contact us by email or in writing. Email  Kobus.grobbelaar@walthamforest.gov.uk for more information.

You can also contact us by post. Please write to:

Corporate Parenting Service
Waltham Forest Town Hall
Forest Road
Walthamstow, E17 4JF

Please note that face-to-face meetings are by appointment only and can be arranged with the service by email.

The University of York will undertake the following quantitative and qualitative data gathering:   

Quantitative data (measures of values or counts expressed as numbers)

Anonymised quantitative data from national care and educational databases to track the care and educational histories, 11 to 21 years, of a complete cohort of care leavers in England. This analysis will focus on identifying pre-and post-16 care and educational trajectories leading care leavers to better or worse EET outcomes.

The Council will provide the data that we hold to the University researchers for their quantitative data analysis.

Qualitative data (data that can be observed and recorded)

Interviews will be completed by University researchers with care leavers, senior Council managers in leaving care services, and virtual school heads. All interviews will be conducted using encrypted voice recorders and anonymised transcripts from audio files will be produced from these interviews.

Focus groups will be held with foster carers, leaving care teams and stakeholders from NGO’s and the employment sector, focus groups will be recorded using encrypted voice recorders and anonymised transcripts from audio files will be produced. Anonymised data will also be collected throughout the focus groups on flip charts.

The Council will arrange meetings between University researchers and care leavers, senior managers in leaving care services, and virtual school heads who are willing to participate in the research

The data processing to be undertaken by the Council will be the sharing of the data with the University of York researchers and the arrangement of meetings. This will be necessary to comply with the request for assistance with the research.

The processing undertaken by the University is the research activities necessary to gain further insight into the reasons why care leavers are struggling to access EET and to consider what support local authorities and the government can put in place to support better outcomes for young people

The data processing will be based on your consent.

There will be two levels of consent involved: 

1. The Council will obtain your consent to share your data with the University and to arrange meetings with University researchers
2. The University researchers will then obtain their own consent to conduct the research prior to conducting any interviews with you.

The Council will only share the data with the University of York.

According to the University’s contract with their funder, the project outputs (the anonymised transcripts and anonymised respondent characteristics) are owned by the funders. The transcribed data will be checked by the York Research team prior to sharing and any identifiable respondent information will be removed protecting respondent confidentiality.

Raw data will not be shared openly.  All raw data will be archived with restricted access to the research teams at Oxford and York only.

Data will be kept for at least 3 years and no more than 10 years.

Data will be archived by the University to enable the funders and/or the research team to return to the raw data to verify findings and check any queries/discrepancies that arise in relation to evaluation results and findings.

Details regarding research data archiving and restrictions can be found on the University of York website.

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)