Privacy policy

As a registered charity we at Ochil Tower School take your data privacy seriously. In order to provide you with our services we collect and use personal data which means that we are a ‘Data Controller’ and we are responsible for and committed to protecting your privacy and complying with the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018 and any subsequent laws or regulations applicable.

In this Privacy Notice, we want to inform you about what information we collect, how we use it and what rights individuals have in relation to the collection and processing of their personal data.

Our Contact Details:

Ochil Tower School

Email: office@ochiltowerschool.org

Tel: 01764 662 416

If you have any questions in respect of this Privacy Notice or how we manage your personal data, please contact us using the contact details above.

Whose Information Do We Collect?

We collect personal data in the course of delivering our services. This can belong to our pupils, parents / guardians, carers, local authorities, involved community groups, enquirers, funders, donors, and individuals who might be nominated as a point of contact.

What Personal Data Do We Collect And Process?

We collect the following types of data:

· General contact details such as, name, address, email address, telephone number

· Educational history, previous placements, attendance records

· Proof of identify / address

· Details of services, education and care delivered

· General communications between you and us

· Financial details – such as payment or bank details and for donations; information as to whether you are a tax payer to enable us to claim Gift Aid

· Authorities, powers of attorney, guardianships and permissions

· Information obtained through our use of cookies (please see our Cookie Policy)

· For recruitment or potential volunteering purposes: work and education history, previous experience or interests, unspent criminal convictions or pending court proceedings and any other information voluntarily submitted within CV content

· Your marketing preferences

Special Categories Of Personal Data That We Collect

We routinely ask for Special Categories of Personal Data in the provision of our services. We only collect this information in order to provide that appropriate facilities and support to our residents, visitors and other individuals who contact us or are referred for our services.

This information can include such things as details of mental and physical health, behavioural needs, disabilities, medical records and care plans, support needs, religious beliefs, additional background and history, in order to deliver our services. We do this for health and social care purposes.

We also request information about, nationality and ethnicity for diversity and inclusion purposes. We do not retain this information beyond the time period of which it is strictly necessary or where it is required for the purpose of our legal obligations.

How We Collect Your Information

In most cases we collect your data directly from you. We collect data and process it when you:

· Meet with us to discuss education and care plans, or our services or projects

· Speak to us on the phone, email or write to us

· Complete a registration form or process

· In relation to potential employment or volunteering with us:

o Send us a CV

o Complete an application form

o Attend an interview

We also receive your data indirectly from the following sources:

· Local authorities, social work departments, other education facilities

· Medical professionals and support services

· Parents, guardians, those with power of attorney

· Our dedicated staff who oversee houses, education and wellbeing

· Third parties such as trusted organisations working on our behalf

Please Remember: Where you provide any of this information relating to or on behalf of another individual please remember to ensure that you have the consent of the individual and discuss and provide them with a copy of or access to this Privacy Notice.

Why Do We Collect Your Information?

Where we collect and process personal data, we identify our purpose and legal basis for doing so. There are 6 possible legal bases which are:

Consent – where we have consent from the individual to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purpose.

Contract – where the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract.

Legal Obligation – The processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

Vital Interests – Where the processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or another natural person.

Public Interest – Where the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

Legitimate Interests - Where the processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal date, in particular where the data subject is a child.

Our purpose and legal basis for the information we collect, and process allows us to:

Our Purpose for Processing	Our Lawful basis
To understand your requirements prior to entering into a contract with residents and clients	The processing is necessary for the performance of an anticipated Contract
To understand all requirements to ensure that any service provided meets our residents and clients’ needs	The processing is necessary for the performance of a Contract. Where this includes special category personal data we rely on the additional Special Condition of Health & Social Care.
To comply with our legal or regulatory obligations when sharing information with the Charity Commission, Fundraising Regulator and similar bodies	The processing is necessary to comply with our Legal Obligations.
To deal effectively with a medical emergency or immediate danger to our residents or clients wellbeing	We consider this to be in the Vital Interests of the individual
To fulfil our contract and provide pupils with the full scope of services to meet their needs	The processing is necessary for the performance of our Contract Where this includes special category personal data we rely on the additional Special Condition of Health & Social Care
To manage our business operations and comply with any internal policies and procedures	It is in our Legitimate Interests to use your personal information to ensure that we provide and adapt our services Where this includes special category personal data (for example to improve our service and support), we rely on the additional Special Condition of Health & Social Care
To notify you about changes to our service	It is in our Legitimate Interests to use your personal information to keep you informed about any changes that may affect you
For electronic marketing of our facility and services to the local community and donors	We rely on Consent to promote our services to individuals and potential donors
For electronic marketing of services to potential funders or donators incorporated companies via personal business email addresses	It is in our Legitimate Interests to use personal business email addresses for marketing purposes where we can support individual’s rights
To ensure and document compliance in the care, wellbeing and education of pupils / Students by keeping incident reports, completing annual reports and maintaining a statement under Sec 324 of The Education Act 1996	We process personal data to comply with our Legal Obligations Where this includes special category personal data we rely on the additional Special Condition of Health & Social Care
To comply with our legal obligations, law enforcement, The Department of Education, court and regulatory bodies requirements	To comply with our Legal Obligations Where this includes special category personal data we rely on the additional Special Condition of Health & Social Care
To provide feedback, progress and development updates to parents, guardians, support / care teams	This is part of our Contract of service. Where this includes special category personal data we rely on the additional Special Condition of Health & Social Care

Where we rely on your consent you have the right to withdraw this consent at any time by contacting us using the details at the beginning of this notice.

Legitimate Interests - Where the processing of personal data is based on our Legitimate Interests, it is to improve our service and security, keep all parties appraised of progress and developments and prevent fraud or illegal activity in favour of the wellbeing of our customers, employees and stakeholders.

Direct Marketing

Where we send promotion of our facility and services via email or text, this is considered to be direct marketing. You can opt out of receiving this information from us at any time by contacting us at the above address or clicking ‘unsubscribe’ on any messages you may receive.

We will never share or sell your information to any other party for marketing purposes.

Who Do We Share Your Information With?

From time to time we may share your personal information with the following third parties for the purposes set out above:

· Local Authorities, Social Work Departments, Care Facilities

· Other Educational facilities

· Medical Professionals

· Parents / Guardians or Other Persons with Authority/Permissions.

· Employees, Volunteers and Care Teams.

· Authorities, Boards and Regulators

· Our Accountants, Solicitors or Payment Service Providers

· Software and Cloud storage providers

· Police and Law Enforcement agencies where reasonably necessary for the prevention or detection of crime.

· Regulators and Governing Bodies such as the Department of Education, HMRC or the Charity Commission where required

· Selected Third Parties in connection with any future sale or transfer of ownership of our organisation.

International Data Transfers

With today’s modern technology including Cloud Storage and Software, some recipients of your personal data can be located outside your country or have offices in countries where data protection laws may provide a different level of protection than the laws in your country.

Where this is the case, we make sure that additional safeguards are in place such as ensuring that those countries have a decision of adequacy under the UK GDPR. Other safeguards include where the recipient is party to the UK-US Data Bridge or those firms have entered into standard contract clauses with us in their terms to support the ongoing protection of your data.

Automated Decision-Making Or Profiling

We do not process personal data for automated decision making or profiling.

How Long Do We Keep Personal Data For?

We will retain personal data in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements and for no longer than is necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in this privacy policy. We maintain and review a detailed retention policy which documents how long we will hold different types of data. The time period will depend on the purpose for which we collected the information and is never on an indefinite basis. Subsequently, we will delete your personal data in accordance with our data retention and deletion policy or take steps to properly render the data anonymous, unless we are legally obliged to keep your personal data longer (e.g. for tax, accounting or auditing purposes).

The following details the criteria used to establish the retention period set out within our policy:

Where it is still necessary for the provision of our Services
This includes the duration of any residency and for a period of 25 years from birth for pupils or those individuals who are party to those records. For other matters we retain records for up to 24 Months after the end of any contract with a view to maintaining and improving the performance of our products, keeping our systems secure, and maintaining appropriate business and financial records. Most of our retention periods are determined on the basis of this general rule.

Where required by Statutory, contractual or other similar obligations
Corresponding storage obligations may arise, for example, from laws or regulation. It may also be necessary to store personal data regarding pending or future legal disputes. Personal data contained in contracts, notifications and business letters may be subject to statutory storage obligations depending on national law. Where this is the case will retain the data in accordance with our obligations.

Your Rights As A Data Subject

As a data subject, you have rights in relation to your personal data. These are:

The Right to Access – You have the right to request details of personal information held or processed and to copies of this data. We do not usually charge for this service.

The Right to Rectification – You have the right to request that any information be corrected that you believe is inaccurate or to complete any information that you believe is incomplete.

The Right to Erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal information under certain conditions

The Right to Restrict Processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances

The Right to Object to Processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your data, under certain conditions.

The Right to Data Portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organisation or directly to you, under certain conditions.

You also have the Right to Withdraw Consent where you have previously provided this at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, or if you have a complaint, please do contact us first and we will aim to help in any way we can. You can use the contact details at the beginning of this notice.

You also have the right to complain to the Supervisory Authority. In the UK, where you wish to report a complaint or feel that we have not addressed your concern in a satisfactory manner, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at:

The Information Commissioner’s Office – Scotland
Queen Elizabeth House
Sibbald Walk
Edinburgh
EH8 8FT

Telephone: 0303 123 1115

Email: Scotland@ico.org.uk

Contractual Obligations and Consequences

In some circumstances, the provision of personal data is partly required by law (for example, tax regulations, Government, Employment and legal obligations) or can also result from contractual provisions. This means that it may sometimes be necessary to conclude or fulfil a contract, that the personal data be provided. In those circumstances where the data is not provided or where certain rights are exercised, (Erasure, Object) there is a possible consequence that the contract could not be fulfilled or concluded and may be cancelled.

Cookies & Similar Technologies

When you visit our website, we use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better, faster and safer user experience or to show you personalised advertising. Cookies are small text files that are automatically created by your browser and stored on your device when you visit or use the Website. For full information on our use of cookies and how to manage them, please see our Cookie Policy

To learn more about how to manage your browser cookie settings in general please see www.allaboutcookies.org

Remember: When clicking on external links via our website or when you find us via social media platforms, you are visiting or redirected to the domain of those websites. We have no control over the privacy settings on these websites or the cookies they set, so please bear in mind that you should set your preferences in line with their own policies and cookie controls separately.

Data Security

We protect your personal data through technical and organisational security measures to minimise risks associated with data loss, misuse, unauthorised access and unauthorised disclosure and alteration.

We store records in secure physical storage and cloud-based services which have controlled and restricted access. We also operate internal policies and procedures detailing physical security, cloud storage security monitoring, access control and password security measures.

Changes To Our Privacy Notice

All businesses change from time to time. We keep our Privacy Notice under regular review.

This Privacy Notice was last updated on 16^th July 2024.