Social work and support services for people from abroad privacy notice

This page provides information on how Norfolk County Council's Social Work and Support Services for people from abroad use your personal information.

By 'use' we mean the various ways it may be processed, including storing and sharing the information.

Further details We also provide further details regarding:

Who we are
How long we use your information for
Your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) and
How to exercise them

You can see this information in our general privacy notice or you can ask us for a copy of this information.

Why you need to know this information

Norfolk County Council (the County Council) uses your personal information to provide services to you as a migrant, refugee or person who has arrived in the UK from abroad. 'Use' means how the County Council processes, stores and shares information about you.

Who we are

The County Council is the "data controller" for the personal information we hold. This means we are responsible for deciding how we "process" (collect, hold, use and disclose) your personal information.

The County Council's address is Norfolk County Council, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich NR1 2UA.

Who provides this information

The County Council receives information from:

You and your family
Anyone you have nominated or instructed to act on your behalf
Carers and personal assistants
Relevant teams within the County Council
Health bodies and providers including local GPs, hospitals, mental health trust, community health and care trust, and ambulance service
Health and welfare organisations in other countries
District councils as housing authorities and administering housing benefits and council support benefits
Housing associations and housing support providers
Education providers including schools, 6th form colleges, higher education colleges and other post 16 educational providers
Government departments (eg Department for Work and Pensions, Department of Health, Home Office)
Courts and other judicial agencies including Office of the Public Guardian and the Court of Protection
Immigration advisers
Substance misuse teams
Police
Probation service
Organisations providing care and support, such as home care agencies, care homes, nursing homes
Voluntary Groups, charities and non-government organisations (NGOs)
United Nations High Commission for Refugees

The information we collect and use

The categories of data the County Council may receive includes your:

Contact details about you such as name, gender, address, telephone number, email address and date of birth
National Insurance number
NHS number (if appropriate) as it helps to uniquely identify you when sharing information between health and social care
Immigration status and history
Details about which languages you understand and communication needs
Social care services and support including social care assessments, mental health assessments, reviews and care and support plans
Personal history including educational and employment history
Family history and social relationships generally including relationship information such as next of kin, agent, attorney and other information as necessary
Accommodation and housing needs
Financial details if necessary including income and details of property ownership
Dealings with the County Council including being a child in need, a looked after child - including fostering and residential care, adopted and leaving care

The County Council also collects data about your:

Racial or ethnic origin
Religion or faith
Health data and screenings including any disabilities and medical conditions

This information is classed as "special category data" under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We may only collect these data when it is relevant and for the purposes described above.

The County Council also collects information concerning criminal convictions and offences.

The GDPR includes safeguards to protect the use of your special category data and criminal conviction data. Further details can be found in our Special category data and criminal offences data policy which sets out our procedures for compliance with the principles of the GDPR and the retention and erasure of this information.

What we will use your personal information for

The County Council uses your personal information to:

Carry out social work assessments to determine your needs for services
Provide social work or other services (such as employment support) to help you resettle yourself in the UK, or to help support you whilst we help you to resolve your situation or to return to your country of origin if you decide that's what you would like to do
Undertake human rights assessments if you are affected by Schedule 3 of the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
Provide support to survivors of domestic abuse who, because of your immigration status, cannot access the usual welfare benefits or homelessness assistance system

The County Council also uses this information to prevent, detect or investigate fraud, to assess the quality of our services and evaluate and improve our policies and procedures.

The County Council may also use information in other ways compatible with the above. Primarily this will include supporting the work of other public bodies providing services to migrants and refugees. More details of these services are available at www.norfolk.gov.uk/children-and-families

How the law protects you and the legal basis for processing your information

The County Council has legal grounds to process this information without your specific consent as it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest.

The tasks are carried out are under:

The Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act 2002. Schedule 3 (paragraph 14) of this Act requires a local authority to notify the Home Office of someone who comes to its attention who is
(a) unlawfully present in the UK, or
(b) a failed asylum seeker who has refused to comply with removal directions
Children Act 1989
Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000
Childcare Act 2006
Children and Families Act 2014
Children and Social Work Act 2017
Care Act 2014
Mental Health Acts 1983 and 2007
Mental Capacity Act 2005
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002
Localism Act 2011

The County Council has legal grounds to process special category data where it is in the necessary for reasons in the substantial public interest and to meet our public task set out in the paragraph above.

Who we share your information with

The County Council shares your personal information with:

Teams within the County Council to provide our services to you
District councils as housing authorities and administering housing benefits and council support benefits
Housing associations and housing support providers
Voluntary sector
Government departments (eg Department for Work and Pensions, Department of Health, Home Office)
Health bodies and providers including local GPs, dentists, hospitals, mental health trust and community health and care trust
Housing departments and housing support providers
Other local councils
Education providers including schools, sixth form colleges, higher education colleges and other post 16 educational providers
Police
Department for Education (DfE) in respect of children in need and looked after children to help the DfE develop national policies, manage local authority performance, administer and allocate funding and identify and encourage good practice
Substance misuse agencies
Advocacy services
Courts and other judicial agencies including Office of the Public Guardian and the Court of Protection
Equipment providers and suppliers
Approved building contractors
Organisations commissioned to provide care and support, such as home care agencies or care homes
Adult safeguarding board
NHS and other health agencies
Norfolk Safeguarding Children Board
Voluntary agencies providing services
Probation
Youth Offending Team
Other public authorities
Voluntary Sector Partners [for example, Leeway, New Routes, Bridge+, English+, GYROS, Refugee Council, Red Cross, port welfare and chaplaincy services]
Embassies, Consulates and officials of other countries where this is necessary
Prepaid cards providers
Transport / Community Link providers
Elected Members and Members of Parliament (as your representative)
Funding bodies

Your personal information can also be given to a third party contracted by the County Council to provide a service to the County Council or directly to you. For example, contractors providing information technology to the County Council. These service providers are known as data processors and have a legal obligation under GDPR and to the County Council to look after your personal information and only use it for providing that service.

How long the County Council keeps your information

The County Council will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

In some circumstances the County Council may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case the County Council may use such information without further notice to you.

Once you are no longer require services, the County Council will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with its information retention schedule.

How this information is stored

The information is stored electronically on Liquid Logic Adults System; Liquid Logic Children's System, Liquid Logic Early Help System, NRPF Connect national database and some information is held on a paper file.

Transfer of information to other countries

The County Council will not be routinely transferring your information to other countries outside of the European Economic Area but, if it is necessary to do so in order to provide a service to you or to safeguards others, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are put in place before the information is transferred.

Automated decision making

The County Council does not use automated decisions about you and your family

Your responsibility to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information the County Council holds about you is accurate and current.

Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us. You can help us with this by:

Telling your social worker when any of your details change
Telling your social worker if any of the information held on you is wrong

Your rights under the GDPR

You have the following rights (but they do not apply in all circumstances). You have the right to:

Be informed about the processing of your personal information. This is why you have been given this document.
Have your personal information corrected if it is inaccurate and to have incomplete personal information completed
Object to the processing of your personal data
Restrict processing of your personal information
Have your personal data erased ("the right to be forgotten"). This right is subject to several restrictions which will be discussed further with you if you choose to exercise it
Move, copy or transfer your personal information ("data portability") in some circumstances.
Request access to your personal information and information about how the County Council processes it
Withdraw any consent you have given for the processing of personal data at any time.

If you want to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Information Compliance Team by:

For access to your personal information (Subject Access Request) complete our online form
Emailing: information.management@norfolk.gov.uk
Writing to: Information Compliance Team, Norfolk County Council, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich NR1 2UA

Questions or complaints

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how the County Council handles your personal information, you can write to DPO, Norfolk County Council, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich NR1 2DH or email dpo@norfolk.gov.uk

You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. The ICO can be contacted:

By writing to the ICO, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
By telephoning 0303 123 1113
Online at ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

Changes to this privacy notice

The County Council keeps this privacy notice under regular review and will provide you with a new privacy notice when any substantial updates are made. The County Council may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

This notice was last updated in July 2022.