Children's Services

What we do

We provide a range of services including:

Safeguarding and social care

Safeguarding Service (Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), Assessment & Support, including services Children in Need and Child Protection).
Permanence Service (Fostering, Children in our Care, and Carer Leavers).
Practice Improvement & Development (Reviewing service, SafeCore, SHIFT and Pause).
Disabled Children Social Work Service.
Family & Adolescent Support Service.
Youth Offending Service

Inclusion, learning and achievement

Inclusion Service (Primary & Secondary School Behaviour Support, Attendance Advisory Services and the Virtual School for Children in Our Care).
School Admissions and Place Planning Systems Service - coordinating school applications and provision of sufficient school places.
Special Education Needs Assessment & Review Service.
Special Education Needs Outreach Service.
Education Psychology Service.
School Improvement Service.
Direct Services to Schools – provides a platform for schools, organisations, and individuals to commission both development opportunities and services from teams across Royal Greenwich

Quality Improvement

Performance Analysis Service and Management Information Systems- analysis of data and intelligence of our activities to inform, plan and measure outcomes, and ITC support.
Complaints, Information Governance, Business Support & Resilience.
Partnerships, Policy, Research & Planning (including the Greenwich Childrens’ Safeguarding Partnership)

Integrated Commissioning

Joint Commissioning - strategic and operational commissioning of services from our partner agencies to help deliver improved outcomes for children.
Early Learning and Childcare Service - meeting our duty to provide childcare to working parents.

Find out about services provided to children, young people and families

Why we need your information and how we use it

There are several legal reasons why we need to collect and use your personal information. The information you provide helps us to support your family and make sure that we meet our legal duties and responsibilities, for example to conduct a social care assessment.

We then use this data to:

provide you, your family, and schools with appropriate services.
measure whether our services are improving life for children and families.
help us develop and improve our services.
complete statistical returns to Government departments.

Generally, we collect and use personal information when:

you, or your legal representative, have given consent.
you have entered a contract with us.
it is necessary to perform our statutory duties.
it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency.
it is required by law.
it is necessary to deliver health or social care services. 
you have made your information publicly available.
it is necessary for court cases.
it is to the benefit of society as a whole.
it is necessary to protect public health.
it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes.

We will only collect and use personal information if we need it to deliver a service or meet a legal requirement.

If we use your personal information for research and analysis, we will not use personal identifiers, for example it will be anonymous unless you have agreed that your personal information can be used for that research.

What is our power to obtain and use personal data?

Our legal basis for using your personal data is under ’legal obligation’" and ‘public task’” (Data Protection Act / UKGDPR 2018).  Under the Children Act 1989, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the Childcare Act 2006, Section 115 and Section 14 of the Offender Management Act 2007, the Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011, Children and Families Act 2014, and the Care Act 2014 local authorities have the duty to provide relevant social care services for:

service delivery - establishing whether there is a need to safeguard the wellbeing of children and young people within the authority area and supporting the wellbeing of children and young people.
service planning/improvement.

The legal reason for us to collect and use this personal information is:

you, or your representative, have given explicit consent.  Parental consent is required for the processing of personal data of children under the age of sixteen.  Silence or inactivity does not constitute consent; clear and affirmative consent to the processing of private data must be provided. By completing a valid application form, you are giving your consent.
it is necessary to perform our statutory duties, or required by law (see above legislation), or it is necessary for employment purposes.
it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency.
it is necessary to deliver health or social care services, or it is necessary to protect public health.
it is necessary for archiving, research, or statistical purposes.  When it is for research purposes it will be anonymised data only.
it is necessary for the prevention or detection of fraud/crime.  Special category data is processed under the provision of health and social care treatment and management as defined in Art 9 of the GDPR.

Where the lawful basis for the use of personal and special category data cannot be considered, as a 'Public Task' or ‘Legal Obligation’, consent will be sought as the lawful basis for using the information.

What type of information we collect

name
address & post code
date of birth
gender
ethnicity
email address
telephone contact numbers
details of special educational needs and/or disabilities
educational provision
medical information
social work case records
counselling records
details of parent/carer
additional emergency contact details
additional information (free box) in support of application which can include any detail from the applicant.
details to provide you or our child with a service e.g., school transport.
Referrals from other agencies

This list is not exhaustive.

Who we may share your information with

In certain circumstances, when necessary or required by law, we will share the data you provide, or request your personal data from other departments or other authorities such as:

Other Council departments e.g., Housing, Community Safety, Adult Social Care in carrying out our statutory responsibilities.
Central government departments e.g., Department for Education, Department of Work & Pensions, Department of Health.
The NHS, GP, and hospitals.
Law agencies e.g., Police, UK Border Agencies, HM Courts& Tribunal Service.
Schools that pupils attend and other education providers.
Organisations we have contracted with to provide services to you on our behalf or when required to discharge our statutory responsibilities.
Regulatory agencies i.e., Ofsted, Care Quality Commission, Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman, Information Commissioner’s Office.

The above is not exhaustive.

Some information is used to complete statistical returns to Government departments and is also used to help us develop and improve our services. In this situation no personal information is included.

Sometimes we have a legal duty to provide personal information to other organisations, for example:

if we take a child into care.
if the court orders that we provide the information

We may also share your personal information when we feel there is a good reason that is more important than protecting your privacy. This does not happen often, but in such circumstances, we would share the information and we may not seek your consent beforehand - for example, to protect a child, young person, or adult thought to be at risk or to assist the police when investigating a crime.

How long we keep your information

This depends on why we hold the information. Below is an example of how long certain types of information is held for.

Category	Retention period
Adoption	100 years
Children in Our Care	93 years
Supervision Orders	21 years
Adults applying to be adopters or foster carers	25 years from date of closure
Foster carer records	35 years after ceasing to foster
Child Protection Plans and Schedule 1 Offender list	70 years
Child Protection case files, section 47 reports, conference decision and minutes, Core group minutes	35 years from closure
Child and Family Assessments	35 years from closure
Children in Need plans	10 years from closure
Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (who were Children in Our Care)	10 years from closure
Youth Offending Service	25 years from date of birth or 10 years after last contact
SafeCORE and ReSet	Any of the retention periods in this table may apply and is dependent on previous history of Children's Services involvement.
Special education needs files	35 years from closure
School admissions (appeals and exclusions)	25 years from last action
Early help	7 years from closure
Complaints files	6 years from closure
Direct Services to Schools	1 year from last date services or training was accessed, 7 years from closure for Outreach Counselling Services

Version date

8 November 2023