Lancashire Regional Adoption Agency

In order to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), where personal data relating to a data subject is collected, Lancashire County Council would like to provide you with the following details.

Identity and contact details of the data controller

Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Contact details of the data protection officer

Lancashire County Council's Data Protection Officer is Paul Bond. You can contact him at dpo@lancashire.gov.uk or Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ

Blackpool Council’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotectionofficer@blackpool.gov.uk or by writing to Data Protection Officer, PO Box 4, Blackpool, FY1 1NA.

Purposes for processing

The Regional Adoption Agency is made up of Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council. These two authorities are Data Controllers for the purpose of collecting and using information from potential adopters, members of the household, adoptive family members, birth relatives, other significant persons and partner agencies such as the Police, Health Services and the Disclosure and Barring Service in order to carry out statutory functions around the recruitment, assessment and approval of adopters; matching of children in need of adoptive families; and post-adoption support.

Lancashire County Council is acting as the host organisation for the provision for these services. The provision of these services will involve the sharing of personal data between Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council.

The purpose of the RAA is to:

Match children who have a plan of adoption with the most suitable adopters as quickly as possible.
Provide a pool of adopters who are prepared and able to meet the needs of the children who need an adoptive placement.
Ensure high quality adoption support is provided in a timely manner.

The RAA will be responsible for the following:

Recruiting and assessing adoptive parents.
Family finding and matching for those children in Lancashire and Blackpool who have a plan of adoption.
Providing adoption support to adopted children, adoptive families and adopted adults who live in Lancashire and Blackpool (where responsibility to assess and support falls to these authorities).
Facilitate ongoing adoption mailbox contact for children who have been placed for adoption by Lancashire or Blackpool.
Non agency adoptions

The children placed for adoption by both Lancashire and Blackpool, and those placed by other adoption agencies within Lancashire and Blackpool once support responsibility falls to them will benefit from the above.

Matching children in a timely manner will mean they are placed with their permanent family at the earliest stage possible so they can begin to form attachments to their new parent(s) and experience stability and consistency of care, and legal permanence.

Adoptive parents assessed by the RAA will feel well prepared to meet the needs of the children who are placed with them and will feel able to ask for support and receive responsive and insightful support.

There will be more opportunity for matches to be made within the RAA which in the shorter and longer term will mean that support to adoptive families is more local and accessible.

Adopted adults who live within the Lancashire and Blackpool boundaries will receive a consistent service in relation to accessing their birth records.

Category of personal data being processed

Personal data (information relating to a living, identifiable individual)
Special category personal data (racial, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, bio-metric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation)

Legal basis for processing personal data

The legal basis for processing your personal data, in accordance with the UK GDPR is:

(a) Consent: the individual has given clear consent for you to process their personal data for a specific purpose.

(c) Legal Obligation: the processing is necessary for you to comply with the law. You must reference the applicable legislation if you wish to rely on this basis for processing.

(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. You must reference the applicable task/function and its' basis in law if you wish to rely on this basis for processing.

The application of the UK GDPR Article 6 lawful basis above is by virtue of the following legislation:

Adoption and Children Act 2002 and associated regulations
Children and Adoption Act 2006 and associated regulations
Local Authority Social Services Act 1970
Local Authority Adoption services (England) regulations 2003
Adoption Statutory Guidance 2014
The Education and Adoption Act 2016
Care Standards Act 2000
The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 as amended by The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review and Fostering Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013
The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010
The National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services (England and Wales)
Children and Families Act 2014

Legal basis for processing special categories of personal data

The legal basis for processing your special categories of personal data, in accordance with the UK GDPR is:

(a) The data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of this personal data.

(h) Processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services.

The application of the UK GDPR Article 9 lawful basis above is by virtue of the following legislation:

Adoption and Children Act 2002 and associated regulations
Children and Adoption Act 2006 and associated regulations
Local Authority Social Services Act 1970
Local Authority Adoption services (England) regulations 2003
Adoption Statutory Guidance 2014
The Education and Adoption Act 2016
Care Standards Act 2000
The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 as amended by The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review and Fostering Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013
The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010
The National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services (England and Wales)
Children and Families Act 2014

Recipients of the data

Lancashire County Council
Blackpool Council
Any adoption agency from which children are placed with RAA adopters
Any other adoption agency we are liaising with in relation to Family Finding
Any adoption agency we are working with to provide adoption support.
Therapeutic providers who are undertaking adoption support work
Courts
Police
Other local authorities for statutory check purposes
Health professionals
Education establishments
Employers
Link Maker
Department for Education
Ofsted
Health Agencies and GPs
Any person undertaking a Statutory Inquiry under section 81 of the Children Act 1989
CAFCASS Officers
The Court and officers of the Court
The Disclosure and Barring Service
Any person appointed to deal with a complaint or representation in respect of which access to the Adoption Case Record is required in order to carry out the responsibilities of his or her appointment.
An Independent Review Panel convened to consider a Qualifying Determination of an adoption agency, e.g. where an adoptive applicant has exercised his or her right to challenge a decision of the adoption agency as to their suitability to adopt or where a decision has been made in relation to the disclosure of protected information
Any person undertaking a Serious Case Review in relation to a child
The Secretary of State or persons authorised on his/her behalf, an Ombudsman or regulatory authority
RAA and relevant social care employees including Adoption Panel members and social workers
Contractor/service provider to support adults who have been adopted or have family who have been adopted

Anonymous information only will be shared with the following organisations

Adoption Support Fund
ASGLB – Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board

Information we share

All information about adopters, children and services delivered by both councils. This will include the following personal data and special category personal data:

Title
Surname
Forename
Preferred Name
Gender
DOB
Address
Ethnicity
Contact numbers and email address
Marital Status
Relationships
System ID numbers generated by data controllers

Within assessments we will also hold a significant amount of additional personal and highly sensitive information such as

details of past offences
employment and education history
medical history
motivation to adopt
personal beliefs and views
social history
parenting capacity
personal circumstances
motivation to access adoption records
experiences of adopting and being adopted

Any transfers to another country

Your personal data would only be transferred to another country as part of the work of the Regional Adoption Agency in specific circumstances where there is was clear lawful reason to do so.

Retention periods

Lancashire County Council will only store your information for as long as is legally required or in situations where there is no legal retention period they will follow established best practice.

File type	Description	Security	Retention period
Prospective Adopters (not approved)	Records relating to prospective adopters who are not approved	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Review 25 years from decisions date
Approved Adopters who withdraw before a child is placed	Records relating to adopters who withdraw prior to child placement	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Destroy 100 years from the date of withdrawal
Adoption Case Files – Children	Adoption case files relating to individual children	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Destroy 100 years from date of adoption order
Adoption Agency	Adoption agency records	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Destroy 100 years from date of adoption order
Adoption Welfare Supervision Files	Adoption Welfare Supervision Files	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Destroy 100 years from date of adoption order
The Court refuses to make an Adoption Order (incl. Step- Parent Adoption, Overseas Adoption, and Older Child Adoption)	The Court refuses to make an Adoption Order (incl. Step-Parent Adoption, Overseas Adoption, and Older Child Adoption)	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	100 years from the date of the decision (the child is not looked after)
A Freed Child never placed for Adoption	Records relating to freed child never placed for adoption	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Destroy 100 years from the date of Freeing Order
Natural parents reclaim a relinquished child directly placed for adoption	Records relating to circumstances where natural parents reclaim a relinquished child	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Destroy 100 years from the date the child is reclaimed
Prospective Adopters – Approved and a child placed	Records relating to prospective adopters who are approved and have a child placed with them.	Electronic – Stored in dedicated case management system. Physical – Held in secure on-site storage facility.	Destroy 100 years from date of adoption order

Your rights

You have certain rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), these are the right:

to be informed via Privacy Notices such as this.
to withdraw your consent. If we are relying on your consent to process your data then you can remove this at any point.
of access to any personal information the council holds about yourself. To request a copy of this information you must make a subject access request in writing. You are entitled to receive a copy of your personal data within 1 calendar month of our receipt of your subject access request. If your request is complex then we can extend this period by a further two months, if we need to do this we will contact you. You can request a subject access request, either via a letter or via an email to Information Governance Team, address below.
of rectification, we must correct inaccurate or incomplete data within one month.
to erasure. You have the right to have your personal data erased and to prevent processing unless we have a legal obligation to process your personal information.
to restrict processing. You have the right to suppress processing. We can retain just enough information about you to ensure that the restriction is respected in future.
to data portability. We can provide you with your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable form when asked.
to object. You can object to your personal data being used for profiling, direct marketing or research purposes.
in relation to automated decision making and profiling, to reduce the risk that a potentially damaging decision is taken without human intervention.

If you want to exercise any of these rights then you can do so by contacting:

Information Governance Team
Lancashire County Council
PO Box 78
County Hall
Preston
PR1 8XJ

Or email: dpo@lancashire.gov.uk

To ensure that we can deal with your request as efficiently as possible you will need to include your current name and address, proof of identity (a copy of your driving licence, passport or two different utility bills that display your name and address), as much detail as possible regarding your request so that we can identify any information we may hold about you, this may include your previous name and address, date of birth and what council service you were involved with.

Further information

If you would like more information about this specific service then please contact Karen.barker2@lancashire.gov.uk.

For more information about how we use personal information see Lancashire County Council's full privacy notice.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact the Information Governance team who will investigate the matter.

Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ or email: dataprotection@lancashire.gov.uk

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).