Children's Services Policy and Guidance

Scrutiny Panel Reports

Overview and scrutiny is a key part of the checks and balances necessary to hold the County Council's Cabinet to account and review the services provided by the Council. View the reports.

School Finance Reports

Information on S251 Budget Statements and S52 Outturn Statements

School Planning Obligations

Section 106 (or S106) refers to a section in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, by which housing developers can be obliged to make contributions to local authorities to mitigate any adverse impact of their development on the local infrastructure. Find out more on School Planning Obligations.

Privacy Notice Information

Pupils in Schools, Alternative Provision and Short Stay Schools and children in Early Years Settings

The Local Authority (LA) uses information about children for whom it provides services, to enable it to carry out specific functions for which it is responsible, such as the assessment of any special educational needs the child may have. It also uses the information to derive statistics to inform decisions on (for example) the funding of schools, and to assess the performance of schools and set targets for them. The statistics are used in such a way that individual children cannot be identified from them.

The Local Authority will use information about its school workforce for research and statistical purposes, and to evaluate and develop education policy and strategies.  The statistics are used in such a way that individual staff cannot be indentified from them. The LA may also use it to support and monitor schools regarding sickness and recruitment of staff.

Privacy Notice Information

Primary Care Trusts (PCT) use information about pupils for research and statistical purposes, to monitor the performance of local health services and to evaluate and develop them. The statistics are used in such a way that individual pupils cannot be identified from them. Information on the height and weight of individual pupils may however be provided to the child and its parents and this will require the PCTs to maintain details of pupils’ names for this purpose for a period designated by the Department of Health following the weighing and measuring process. PCTs may also provide individual schools and LAs with aggregate information on pupils’ height and weight.

Online information, advice and support on a range of issues affecting young people can be found on the Directgov Young People page with access to trained helpline advisers, via SMS text message, telephone, webchat and email. 

Influenza Pandemic

DFE has produced the following guidance for parents  (64 KB) in consultation with other Government departments and various external bodies as part of the Government's coordinated efforts to encourage prudent planning across all sectors, supporting the Department of Health, as lead department, in preparing and planning for a possible pandemic.