This privacy notice is designed to help you understand how we use personal information when delivering our school travel assistance we have set out below the services types, the information we may use to deliver the services, who we may share it with, and how long we will keep it.

Information we hold about you

We only collect and use the minimum amount of personal information required when delivering a service to you. Wherever possible we use non-identifiable personal information.

The service may use some or all of the personal information provided:

your name, address, date of birth
financial details (if you have asked for financial hardship or low income to be considered as part of your application or you have requested a travel budget which will be paid directly into your bank or building society account)
education establishment attended
characteristics including gender and disability
physical or mental health details (medical evidence provided by GP or consultant)
religious or other beliefs of a similar nature
any exceptional circumstances you wish to be considered as part of your case to request a departure from policy

We get most of this information from you, but we may also get some of this data from family members.

Why we need your information and how we use it

We use your information to:

deliver the service, or handle your query
plan and improve the services we offer
assess your eligibility for assistance with home to education establishment travel assistance in accordance with our statutory duties and powers set out in statutory guidance
process any payments made to you should you be offered and accept a personal travel budget
assess the suitability of proposed travel arrangements to the individual child’s needs
assess eligibility on the grounds of extended rights or a reduction of travel costs on the grounds of low income or hardship should we apply a cost to the travel offered
consider individual circumstances presented to the Transport Appeals Committee

We will be unable to assess eligibility and/or suitability without consent to process, or seek access to additional information and evidence of an educational, financial, social and medical nature, as appropriate to the application and the category of eligibility.

The applicant may withdraw their consent to allow us to progress its investigations at any point in time. However, this may lead us to decline to travel application or appeal due to insufficient information.

Who your information may be shared with

Sometimes we may need to share your information, but we will only do so where it is necessary or required by law. We will only share the minimum information for each circumstance.

We may sometimes need to share some of your information with:

other council departments (education, social care, relevant housing and employment services and other services)
other local authorities
schools, colleges, early years settings and other education providers
first-tier tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability) or mediation services
health service providers, including NHS agencies
transport providers
law enforcement agencies
housing providers
benefit agencies

The Data Controller

We are the Data Controller for this processing.

The lawful basis for the processing

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you, under the Data Protection Act 2018, the lawful bases we rely on for using your personal information are:

we need it to perform a public task (UK GDPR Article 6 (e)

When we collect data about your race, health (including biometric or genetic data), sex life, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, politics or trade union membership, we also rely on the following lawful basis:

we need to collect it for Substantial Public Interest in order to comply with UK legislation (UK GDPR Article 9 (2) (g)

The legislation we rely on when using your personal information to meet our legal obligations or public tasks includes but is not limited to:

Sections 444, 508A, 508B, 508C, 508D, 509AD and Schedule 35B of the Education Act 1996 as inserted by Part 6 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006
Regulation 5 and Part 2 of Schedule 2 to The School Information (England) Regulations 2002, amended
Equality Act 2010
School Admissions Code
European Convention on Human Rights
The School Travel (Pupils with Dual Registration) (England) Regulations 2007
Public Service Vehicles (Carrying Capacity) Regulations 1984
Section 48 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

Protecting your information

Your information will be securely stored on our network.

How long will we keep your personal information?

We will only use your personal information whilst delivering the service to you and to deal with any questions or complaints that we may receive about this, unless the law requires us to keep it for a longer period. In practice, this means that your information will be kept for seven years beyond the duration of a child/young person’s career in education or training in order to help ensure consistency and continuity of decision making and to avoid the need for repeated requests for the same information. For most young people the age at which they are in education or training will be considered to be 19; for those with an Education Health and Care Plan it will be considered to be up to the age of 25.

Your rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

your right of access - you have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information
your right to rectification - you have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
your right to restriction of processing - you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances
your right to object to processing - you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances
your right to data portability - you have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

To make a request follow the instructions on our Data protection for you page.

How to complain if you are unhappy about how your data is used

You can complain directly to our Data Protection team online or by post.

Online: Contact the DPO
By post: Data Protection Officer, The Portal, Wellington Road, Ellesmere Port, CH65 0BA

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website
By post: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Will my personal information be accessible outside the UK?

Should the transfer of personal information outside of the UK become necessary, it will only take place if permitted by law, and then only where there are appropriate safeguards in place to protect the personal information.

Your information is stored within the UK.

School transport

Will you qualify?

Policies and further information

School travel assistance faqs

Independent travel training

Personal travel budget

Eligibility appeals procedure

Suitability appeals procedure