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Troubled Families Evaluation privacy notice

Families with a range of problems often struggle to get the help and support they need. To address this, the Council is working with partner organisations such as schools, health service, employment advisers, etc. to ensure that families receive co-ordinated help and support when it is needed.

Please see the council’s main privacy notice for details about your rights and who to contact about the use of your personal data.

This privacy notice relates to the national evaluation of the Troubled Families Programme, which is led by the Troubled Families Analysis team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

What’s the purpose of this study?

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is responsible for supporting families and improving services they receive from local authorities. By carrying out this research MHCLG aims to find out:

  1. How well services for families with multiple problems are working across England
  2. How those families use public services and what benefits they get
  3. The costs of providing services to families with multiple problems

To do this, MHCLG wants to link information about your family with past and future information on your use of public services and your benefits.

MHCLG will use your personal information - name, date of birth, gender, last known address, National Insurance number (if known).

Please note that any information you provide will not be used to make any decisions about what benefits you get, or services you use, now, or in future.

Why do you want to use my data?

Your data has been identified as suitable because your family has two or more of the following problems that the local services hope to help families with:

  1. Worklessness or at risk of financial exclusion (experience problem debt, have young adults who are NEET)
  2. School absence problems
  3. Children in need (those at risk, on child protection plans, looked after children)
  4. Offending and anti-social behaviour
  5. Domestic abuse
  6. Mental or physical health problems

You may or may not currently be receiving a service to help you deal with your problems.

What will happen to the information provided?

In order to assess how well services for families with multiple problems are working, what public services families use and what benefits they receive, MHCLG would like to use your personal information to gather information held by other government agencies. This information will only be used for research and will be anonymised so the researchers will not know whose data they have.

This information will be provided by Islington Council to MHCLG’s partner for the evaluation, Office for National Statistics (ONS). They will keep your data secure.

Your personal information (name, date of birth, gender, last known address) and some information provided by the local authority will be linked to information held by other government departments:

  • Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – to see what benefits you have received and whether you have been employed
  • Ministry of Justice (MoJ) – to see what contact you may have had with the criminal justice system
  • Department for Education (DfE) – to see when your child has been in school, how well they are doing at each Key Stage and whether they are a Child in Need.

MoJ, DWP and DfE will not keep your name on file for longer than a month and will not keep records showing you were part of this research.

The information gathered from the local authority will be linked with the information on your benefits, your child’s information and any contact you or your children have had with the criminal justice system.

All information collected about you will be kept strictly confidential. Your name, date of birth, gender, address and National Insurance number will be kept separately from all the other information in a secure, password-protected document on a computer system. You will be assigned a unique reference number, so that even though a researcher will see all your information, they will not be able to identify you.

How long will my information be kept?

All personal information held by ONS for this research will be securely destroyed by December 2022. The personal information held by DWP, MoJ and DfE for this research will be securely destroyed after a month and they will not keep records showing you were part of this research. All data use is strictly within the terms of data protection legislation.

Lawful bases for using your data

To legally share data for this research the Council and MHCLG rely on the Digital Economy Act 2017.

The collection of personal information by MHCLG for this project is compliant with data protection legislation and processing of personal data is necessary for the Council to perform its tasks in the public interest or for its official functions. Processing of more sensitive (special category) data is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

The Council will collect and use the personal and/special category data under the public task and substantial public interest lawful bases (to fulfil its functions, in this case to deliver services to troubled families) and will share this data with MHCLG under the public task basis (to fulfil its functions as a Government Department, in this case to improve services for troubled families).

What happens if I change my mind and what are my rights?

You can contact your key worker about whether your data is being used for this project without it affecting your legal rights or routine care. You can also see copies of all the data MHCLG hold about you and ask for it to be corrected or deleted.

You can also contact MHCLG’s Knowledge and Information Team about seeing your data or withdrawing from the research by emailing MHCLG’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@communities.gsi.gov.uk

If you are unhappy with the way your personal information is being handled, you can contact the independent Information Commissioner at:

 Information Commissioner's Office, at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. 

Telephone: 01625 545 700 

Web: www.ico.org.uk

What will happen to the results of this research?

The final results of this research will be published on the main government website. You will not be identified in any research report.

Where can I get more information?

If you would like further information about the research, what will happen to your information, and your rights please speak to your key worker if you would like to have more information.

Contact

If you would like to discuss anything in this privacy notice, please contact:

Leila Ridley – Information Compliance Manager and Data Protection Officer

Information Governance Team

Resources

Islington Council

3rd Floor, 7 Newington Barrow Way

London N7 7EP

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Data protection: We will handle your personal information in line with the Data Protection Act 1998 and in accordance with the council’s Fair Processing Notice.