Who is responsible for your data?
Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ
Blackpool Council, PO Box 4, Blackpool, FY1 1NA
Contact details of the data protection officer
Lancashire County Council's data protection officer can be contacted at dpo@lancashire.gov.uk or Lancashire County Council, PO Box 78 County Hall, Fishergate, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 8XJ
Blackpool Council’s data protection officer can be contacted at dataprotectionofficer@blackpool.gov.uk or by writing to Data protection officer, PO Box 4, Blackpool, FY1 1NA
Why do we collect your information?
The regional adoption agency is made up of Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council. These two authorities are data controllers for the purpose of collecting and using information from potential adopters, members of the household, adoptive family members, birth relatives, other significant persons and partner agencies such as the police, health services and the Disclosure and Barring Service in order to carry out statutory functions around the recruitment, assessment and approval of adopters; matching of children in need of adoptive families; and post-adoption support.
Lancashire County Council is acting as the host organisation for the provision for these services. The provision of these services will involve the sharing of personal data between Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council.
The purpose of the RAA is to:
- Match children who have a plan of adoption with the most suitable adopters as quickly as possible
- Provide a pool of adopters who are prepared and able to meet the needs of the children who need an adoptive placement
- Ensure high quality adoption support is provided in a timely manner
The RAA will be responsible for the following:
- Recruiting and assessing adoptive parents
- Family finding and matching for those children in Lancashire and Blackpool who have a plan of adoption
- Providing adoption support to adopted children, adoptive families and adopted adults who live in Lancashire and Blackpool (where responsibility to assess and support falls to these authorities)
- Facilitate ongoing adoption mailbox contact for children who have been placed for adoption by Lancashire or Blackpool
- Non agency adoptions
The children placed for adoption by both Lancashire and Blackpool, and those placed by other adoption agencies within Lancashire and Blackpool once support responsibility falls to them will benefit from the above.
Matching children in a timely manner will mean they are placed with their permanent family at the earliest stage possible so they can begin to form attachments to their new parent(s) and experience stability and consistency of care, and legal permanence.
Adoptive parents assessed by the RAA will feel well prepared to meet the needs of the children who are placed with them and will feel able to ask for support and receive responsive and insightful support.
There will be more opportunity for matches to be made within the RAA which in the shorter and longer term will mean that support to adoptive families is more local and accessible.
Adopted adults who live within the Lancashire and Blackpool boundaries will receive a consistent service in relation to accessing their birth records.
What is our lawful basis?
The legal basis for processing your personal data, in accordance with Article 6 (1) of GDPR is:
(a) Consent: the individual has given clear consent for you to process their personal data for a specific purpose.
(c) Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for you to comply with the law.
(e) Public task: the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
The application of the GDPR Article 6 lawful basis above is by virtue of the following legislation:
Adoption and Children Act 2002 and associated regulations
Children and Adoption Act 2006 and associated regulations
Local Authority Social Services Act 1970
Local Authority Adoption services (England) regulations 2003
Adoption Statutory Guidance 2014
The Education and Adoption Act 2016 Care Standards Act 2000
The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 as amended by The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review and Fostering Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013
The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010
The National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services (England and Wales) Children and Families Act 2014
Legal basis for processing special categories of personal data
The legal basis for processing your special categories of personal data, in accordance with Article 9 (2) of GDPR is:
(a) The data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of this personal data.
(h) Processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services.
The application of the GDPR Article 9 lawful basis above is by virtue of the following legislation:
Adoption and Children Act 2002 and associated regulations Children and Adoption Act 2006 and associated regulations
Local Authority Social Services Act 1970
Local Authority Adoption services (England) regulations 2003
Adoption Statutory Guidance 2014
The Education and Adoption Act 2016
Care Standards Act 2000
The Fostering Services Regulations 2011 as amended by The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review and Fostering Services (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2013
The Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations 2010
The National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services (England and Wales) Children and Families Act 2014
What types of information do we collect?
Personal data (information relating to a living, identifiable individual)
Special category personal data (racial, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation)
Who do we share your information with?
Recipients of the data
- Lancashire County Council
- Blackpool Council
- Any adoption agency from which children are placed with RAA adopters
- Any other adoption agency we are liaising with in relation to family finding
- Any adoption agency we are working with to provide adoption support.
- Therapeutic providers who are undertaking adoption support work
- Courts
- Police
- Other local authorities for statutory check purposes
- Health professionals
- Education establishments
- Employers
- Link maker
- Department for Education
- Ofsted
- Health agencies and GPs
- Any person undertaking a Statutory Inquiry under section 81 of the Children Act 1989
- CAFCASS officers
- The court and officers of the court
- The Disclosure and Barring Service
- Any person appointed to deal with a complaint or representation in respect of which access to the Adoption Case Record is required in order to carry out the responsibilities of his or her appointment.
- An Independent review panel convened to consider a Qualifying Determination of an adoption agency, e.g. where an adoptive applicant has exercised his or her right to challenge a decision of the adoption agency as to their suitability to adopt or where a decision has been made in relation to the disclosure of protected information
- Any person undertaking a Serious Case Review in relation to a child
- The Secretary of State or persons authorised on his/her behalf, an ombudsman or regulatory authority
- RAA and relevant social care employees including adoption panel members and social workers
- Contractor/service provider to support adults who have been adopted or have family who have been adopted
Anonymous information only will be shared with the following organisations
- Adoption Support Fund
- ASGLB – Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board
Information we share
All information about adopters, children and services delivered by both councils. This will include the following personal data and special category personal data:
- Title
- Surname
- Forename
- Preferred Name
- Gender
- DOB
- Address
- Ethnicity
- Contact numbers and email address
- Marital Status
- Relationships
- System ID numbers generated by data controllers
Within assessments we will also hold a significant amount of additional personal and highly sensitive information such as
- Details of past offences
- Employment and education history
- Medical history
- Motivation to adopt
- Personal beliefs and views
- Social history
- Parenting capacity
- Personal circumstances
- Motivation to access adoption records
- Experiences of adopting and being adopted
- Any transfers to another country
Your personal data would only be transferred to another country, as part of the work of the regional adoption agency in specific circumstances where there is was clear lawful reason to do so.