Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 6 March 2017 (HL5596) and following the subsequent ending of the nationality and country of birth data collection from school children in autumn 2018, how schools and families can now retract such data submitted to the Department for Education.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The department collected data on the nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English of pupils via the school census between autumn 2016 and summer 2018. The data was collected for the purposes of educational research to help us understand the impact of migration on the school system. Understanding trends in migration, and the associated needs in the school system, helps us ensure that all children, wherever they are from, have the best possible education.
The requirement for parents or guardians to provide information on their children’s nationality and country of birth was always optional and the school census guidance expected schools to ensure that they were made aware of their right to decline to provide this data. Guidance also advised schools to inform parents that if they wished to retract any nationality or country of birth information returned in a previous census, they should inform their school of this decision. This would then be transferred to the department which would remove from its systems information previously returned. As this data is no longer collected, the last opportunity for parents to retract this information was via the last collection in summer 2018.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have provided financial or any other types of support to the University of Huddersfield’s new masters course in Security Science for Bahrain’s Royal Academy of Policing.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As the Noble Lord, Lord Scriven, notes, the University of Huddersfield is an independent, autonomous body responsible for the development of the courses it offers. The university was selected by Bahrain’s Royal Academy of Policing to provide an MSc course in security science and this is a private arrangement between these parties.
I can confirm, however, that support for the MSc in security science has not been provided by the Department for Education, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Home Office.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when requests for access made by (1) the Border Force, and (2) the police, to (a) the National Pupil Database (NPD), and (b) the new children’s nationality database, will be included in the published NPD list of third-party data requests.
Answered by Lord Nash
The data collected on children’s nationality is for internal DfE use only and will not be shared with any external organisations. The Department for Education has already made this commitment.
The Department has also committed to bringing together the range of existing guidance and information on the use of pupil data by other government departments over the coming months. DfE intends that this will provide users with improved access and signposting to supporting information. This will include The Memorandum of Understanding with the Home Office alluded to under (1), and the occasional request of an individual record of data by the police alluded to under (2).
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Nash on 7 November 2016 and 8 November 2016 (HL2421 and HL2689) and further to the Written Answer by the Minister of State for School Standards on 2 February (HC61932), when and how former pupils who provided their personal data before 2010 for the purposes of their own education and who are now older than 19 will be informed of the new broader uses of their individual personal data by third parties since 2011; and whether they are able to withdraw these data or refuse these uses, and if so, when.
Answered by Lord Nash
The submission of school census data to the Department is a statutory requirement on schools under section 537A of the Education Act 1996. As such, schools do not need to obtain parental or pupil consent to the provision of information and they are protected from any legal challenge that they are breaching a duty of confidence to pupils. Likewise the Department for Education does not need consent to share the data with named bodies or third parties as long as that sharing is lawful and in compliance with the Data Protection Act.
Whilst the legislative background removes those needs, DfE takes the rights of data subjects very seriously and seeks to ensure all data subjects are aware of what data is used for what purposes. Aligned with the Data Protection Act 1998, DfE focuses on ensuring data subjects know:
A ‘privacy notice’ is a good way to be able to meet data subjects’ rights and DfE strongly recommend that these are used by all schools to explain what personal data they collect, why it is collected, who it is shared with and what it is used for. To support schools with using privacy notices in this way the Department have developed a privacy notice template, which is available for schools to use on GOV.UK, which gives access to further information about the Department's use of personalised data.
To maintain public transparency about the uses made of information held by the Department, we also publish a list of 3rd party uses of the National Pupil Database (NPD) that details which organisations have received NPD data, along with an outline of what the data is being used for. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-pupil-database-requests-received)
Whilst it is not possible for a parent / guardian or an individual child to opt out of the school census collection, and the subsequent holding of such data by the Department, there is certain information (such as ethnicity, first language, country of birth, nationality and whether a child is the child of someone in the Armed Services) which must always be as declared by the parent / guardian or the pupil where a pupil is deemed mature enough to have capacity to consent to sharing their personal data with others. If the parent / guardian or child do not wish to provide any of this information to the school or to the Department, they should tell the school and it will be recorded on the school system as ‘refused’ and will not be transferred to the DfE as part of the child’s school census return. Additionally some data items (nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English) which are collected by DfE are deemed highly sensitive and are not placed into the National Pupil Database, and thus not made available at all for 3rd party re-use.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Nash on 4 November 2016 and 6 January 2017 (HL2515 and HL4240), why schools were not informed by the Department for Education of parents’ right to retract data submitted in the autumn school census in October 2016, until 19 January; and whether this right to retract the optional data already returned will be withdrawn, and if so, when.
Answered by Lord Nash
Whilst the requirement for parents to provide information on their children’s nationality and country of birth is optional, we recognise that there was disparity in how the request for this information was communicated by schools during the autumn school census collection. In view of this, the Department has committed to delete this information from its systems, where parents have since refused to provide it. This offer will continue to remain open to parents and will be reviewed in December 2017.
Following completion of the autumn census at the end of November 2016, the Department worked with sector representatives to review, and update, our data collection guidance to provide additional clarity on the collection of personal data from parents / guardians or pupils. Schools were informed via a data collection bulletin on 14 December that the updated guidance would address, amongst other points, parents’ rights to refuse or retract data and the updated guidance would be available in January. Following publication of the updated guidance on GOV.UK, the Department wrote to all head teachers on 10 January to highlight the updated guidance and, in particular, that parents can decide to retract nationality and country of birth information previously provided.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 6 January (HL4240), why the communication on 10 January direct from the Department for Education to all state-funded school heads in England about the expanded school census collection did not mention the Home Office's access to pre-existing or new school census pupil data in national databases; and whether they have yet done so.
Answered by Lord Nash
The autumn school census highlighted the need for clarification of how the new data items on nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English should be collected. The Department, therefore, updated the data collection guidance for schools in advance of the current school census that opened in January. The Department wrote to all head teachers on 10 January to highlight the updated guidance and request their support locally in improving the collection of sensitive data about pupils in the school census.
This communication did not specifically refer to data sharing with the Home Office because this sharing does not include the data relating to the nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English of pupils to which the communication referred. These new data items are collected solely for DfE analysts to use internally for educational research and have not, and will not, be shared by the Department with other government departments.
With regards to data sharing with the Home Office, a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Home Office and the Department for Education, which covers the sharing of limited information between those parties, is available in the house library. This MOU sets out publicly how this process works and the data which is shared. As stated above this does not, and will not, include the new data on nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many incidents of homophobic and transphobic bullying were recorded last year in schools broken down by region.
Answered by Lord Nash
The Government does not hold information on the number of cases of homophobic bullying recorded in schools. The recording of instances of bullying is managed locally by schools.
We are examining the overall prevalence of a range of bullying types, including homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic bullying, through surveys such as the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) Teacher Voice and the Pupil and Parent/Carer omnibus surveys, which will report later this year.
We are committed to promoting LGBT equality, including amongst young people. We are currently investing £3million in a three-year programme to prevent and address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they plan to take to keep gay, lesbian, transgender and bi-sexual pupils safe in schools, in the light of claims that a transgender pupil aged 11 was shot with a BB gun at a school in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Lord Nash
The UK has one of the world’s strongest legislative frameworks to prevent and tackle discrimination.
The Equality Act 2010 protects transgender people from discrimination. The Government has published guidance for schools on how to comply with the Act. The guidance contains advice on supporting transgender children and protecting them from discrimination.
The Government has sent a clear message to schools that bullying, for whatever reason, is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. All schools are required by law to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent bullying amongst pupils. Schools are free to develop their own anti-bullying strategies and they are held clearly to account for their effectiveness through Ofsted.
Homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying is unacceptable and the government is committed to tackling it. In September, the Government announced a £3million programme from 2016-2019 to prevent and address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in a sustainable way. The programme focuses on primary and secondary schools in England.
All schools in England have a legal duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children at their school. As part of this duty all schools must have regard to the statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education. The guidance sets out that all school staff have a responsibility to provide a safe environment in which children can learn and that all schools should have an effective child protection policy.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government under what legislation is information from the national school census passed to the Home Office for immigration purposes.
Answered by Lord Nash
A copy of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Home Office and the Department for Education which covers the legal basis is available in the house library.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what information was given to those completing the national school census regarding the sharing of details with the Home Office for immigration purposes.
Answered by Lord Nash
The Department for Education (DfE) provide a privacy notice template[1] for schools to use to explain to parents what personal data they collect, why it is collected, who it is shared with and what it is used for. The template we provide to schools also gives parents access to further information about the Department’s use of their children’s data[2].
With regards to data sharing with the Home Office, a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Home Office and the Department for Education, which covers the sharing of limited information between those parties, is available in the house library. This sharing does not include data relating to the nationality, country of birth and proficiency in English of pupils which is collected solely for Department for Education analysts to use for research. These data items have not, and will not, be shared by the Department for Education with other government departments.
Whilst it is not possible for a parent / guardian or an individual child to opt out of the school census collection, there is certain information (including ethnicity, first language, country of birth, nationality and whether a child is the child of someone in the Armed Services) which must always be as declared by the parent / guardian or the pupil. The school census guidance[3] is clear that the return of this information is voluntary and parents can withhold this information if they choose.
References:
[1] Privacy notice template:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-protection-and-privacy-privacy-notices
[2] DfE guidance for how we share data:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/data-protection-how-we-collect-and-share-research-data
[3] School census data collection guide:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-census-2016-to-2017-guide-for-schools-and-las