Health and Social Care Partnership - privacy notice

The personal information you give to us through any of our forms relating to adult and child social work services, and any other personal information we obtain or hold about you in this context, will be processed by us (East Renfrewshire Council, Eastwood Park, Giffnock, G46 6UG) for the purposes of our statutory functions relating to the provision of adult and child social work services.

Your information is processed to help us fulfil our statutory functions relating to the provision of social work services to adults and children in the council's area, including providing support and / or advice to those who need it. Your information may also be shared with other departments within the council and other organisations for the same purposes and also to check the information we have is accurate, prevent and / or detect crime and protect public funds. Other organisations include:

• bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds
• other councils
• public sector agencies
• government departments
• regulatory and law enforcement bodies
• other private companies or entities involved in the provision of social care services

We processe your information in order to perform a task carried out in the public interest and in the exercise of official authority, namely the task of performing our statutory functions under legislation relating to adult and child social work, including:

• Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968
• Children (Scotland) Act 1995
• Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007
• Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014
• the extent that tasks may involve financial grants or other expenditure
• to fulfil legal obligations to ensure proper administration of our financial affairs in terms of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.

The law gives certain types of information special significance because of its sensitivity such as health information. If we process this type of information about you in relation to social work services we do so on the basis that it's necessary for the purpose of exercising functions relating to legislation and necessary for reasons of substantial public interest. These reasons include us being able to process the personal data of in-need or at-risk children and adults and other individuals connected to them, so as to be able to support them or to intervene to protect them.

Without the correct information we may be unable to provide important services to people who need them. You don't have to give information to us in relation to the social work services we provide, but we have powers to get information by other means including by carrying out investigations to ensure that those in need of the social work services given by us get them and that vulnerable children and adults are appropriately safeguarded.

In circumstances where you're seeking advice or support from us, we may be unable to give this to you unless you give us the information we need. We may also need information from you in order to determine whether you'll need to contribute towards the cost of any services we give to you. Where you don't give that information we may assume that you're able to meet the cost of our services and require you to pay for them, in which case you may not get certain benefits, reductions or discounts to which you're entitled.

Much of the personal data that we hold in relation to social work matters will come directly from the individual themselves. Other information may come from third-party sources including other local authorities, schools, the NHS, the police, charities, individuals and others in the East Renfrewshire area, or from the council's own investigations. Such information may include:

• your name
• your age
• your family circumstances
• your economic circumstances
• medical information such as information on your sex life
• details of any interactions with the police or social work services
• information relating to criminal convictions and offences
• dates of residence in particular premises

We'll hold your information for as long as it's necessary for the purposes of our statutory functions relating to the provision of social work services within our area, for the purposes of recording, monitoring and / or managing the provision of social work services and expenditure of public funds by us, or for the purposes of otherwise satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting needs. If we don't need to keep information for these purposes it will be destroyed under confidential conditions.

Your information will be accessed by our staff who need to do so to provide, administer or manage social work services. We also need to ensure proper administration of its funds so details will be checked internally for fraud prevention and verification purposes.

Information is also analysed internally in order to provide management information and inform future service delivery. Your information may, where it's necessary for the purposes recorded above, also be shared with:

• other departments within the council
• bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds
• other councils
• schools
• the NHS
• the police
• public sector agencies
• governmental departments
• other private or charitable companies or entities (such as service providers or, in relation to any assessment of your ability to contribute financially to services, credit reference agencies)

We also meet requests for specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate.

In general, we don't transfer personal information outside the UK but on the rare occasions we do we'll inform you. We'll only transfer information outside the UK when we're satisfied that the party that will handle the data and the country it's being processed in have adequate safeguards for personal privacy comparable to those which are in place in the UK.

The council do not use profiling or automated decision-making in relation to our social work functions. Some processes are semi-automated but a human decision-maker will always be involved before any decision is reached in relation to you.

Depending on why we need to process your information you'll have rights to how your information is used. More information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, can be found within our main privacy policy.

If you've concerns about the processing of your personal data by us, you can contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing, visit the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website (opens new window).

Please contact us if you need this information in an alternative format.