Supporting Families Privacy Notice

Purpose for processing your information

The Supporting Families programme is the council’s response to the Government’s national Troubled Families programme. The programme aims to improve the lives of families who have multiple, complex needs by providing help and support.

We collect the following information:  

By working closely with partner organisations and sharing information with them we can identify families who are experiencing difficulties to ensure they receive co-ordinated help and support.

To be eligible for the programme a family must be experiencing at least two of the following:

• Children who have not been attending school regularly, i.e. with attendance levels of less than 90%
• Children of all ages who need help who are identified as in need or are subject to a Child Protection Plan.
• Adults out of work or at risk of financial exclusion and young people at risk of worklessness e.g:
  • Parent(s) who is receiving out of work benefits  or universal credit because they are not earning
  • Parent(s)/families with unmanaged debt or considerable rent arrears 
  • a young person not in education, employment or training
• Families affected by domestic violence and abuse
• Parents and children with a range of health problems e.g:
  • Parent(s)/child/young person with mental health problems
  • Parent(s) receiving out of work benefits relating to a disability
• Parents and/or children involved in crime or antisocial behaviour e.g:
  • a child/young person who has commited a proven offence within the last 12 months or has received a police caution
  • a parent/child/young person who has received an ASB (anti-social behaviour) intervention within the last 12 months

This information is only used for the intended purpose of identifying families who are experiencing difficulties to ensure they receive co-ordinated help and support. For example, where a social worker or Early Help practitioner is working with a family identified, they will be informed that they meet Supporting Families criteria and the reasons for this. They will then work with other services to make sure that, where possible, any problems identified are addressed.

However, if we intend to use information for any other purpose; we will normally ask you first. In some cases, the Council may use your information for another purpose if it has a legal duty to do so, such as to provide further services to you, or if there is a risk of serious harm or threat to life.

How we use information to identify families who meet the criteria

For the Supporting Families programme we collect data from internal departments and partner organisations to identify families who are experiencing serious difficulties and ensure they receive co-ordinated help and support. These organisations are:

• Department for Work and Pensions
• Children’s Centres
• Metropolitan Police Service
• Some partner agencies in the voluntary sector

Who the information is shared with 

In order to identify families who may need help and the kind of support they may require, the council will share information with partner organisations as follows:

Department for Work and Pensions

Full addresses and unique property reference numbers will be shared for individuals who meet any of the eligibility criteria listed above. The purpose of this information sharing is to enable the local authority to confirm which families include adults who are receiving out of work benefits and so may benefit from support relating to finding employment.

Office for National Statistics

As part of the programme, the local authority is required to share some information with the Government’s nominated evaluation partner, the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This includes personal information on individuals and families (such as names and dates of birth) who have been assessed as meeting criteria for the programme and those who have not been included on the programme but may have received other services.

The ONS will link this with information routinely collected by Government departments to develop a wider picture of the needs of families and the progress they have made. The results will be shared with the Government and Local Authorities but in an ‘anonymised’ form to protect families’ privacy. Anonymised data is data that cannot be used to identify an individual.

Prior to this sharing of information with the Government a Data Agreement has been put in place to ensure that all information is transferred, handled and stored in accordance with the Data Protection Act, security measures are in place to prevent the unauthorised use of information and ensure individuals cannot be identified from the information sets directly or any published reports.

The Metropolitan Police Service

Personal data restricted to name, date of birth and postcode will be shared. The purpose of this information sharing is to identify which individuals (who may benefit from a wider service from the local authority) may need help to avoid future involvement in crime or anti-social behaviour.
All information will be used in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, as informed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation, Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Children Act 1989 and 2004, Welfare Reform Act 2012, Localism Act 2011, Local Government Act 1972 and other relevant legislation.

Information will be held securely and will only be used and shared on a strict need to know basis with authorised partners in Kensington and Chelsea for the purpose of identifying, supporting and evaluating the work with families who have the most need.

How long do we keep your information? 

The Government wishes to understand whether the programme has been effective in helping families turn their lives around, whether it is a good use of public money and the degree to which services improve over time. All information gathered for the purposes of the programme will be retained for up to one year after the end of the programme to allow for evaluation. It will therefore be deleted when no longer needed under strict information security  arrangements.

Your Rights and Access to your information

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you.

The new General Data Protection Regulation also gives you additional rights about the information we hold about you and how we use it. 

• You have a right to withdraw consent and the right to object and restrict further processing of your data; however, this may affect service delivery to you.
• You have a right to request to have your data deleted where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing and provided that there are no legitimate grounds for retaining it.
• You have a right to request your data to be rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
• You have a right to have your data transferred or copied should you move to another authority.
• You have a right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling

If you have any concerns

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or data protection issues generally, you can contact [email protected].

If you would like to know more about Supporting Families please contact [email protected] or write to us at:

Supporting Families
Children’s Services
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Kensington Town Hall
Horton Street
London W8 7NX

You have a right to complain to us if you think we may not have complied with our obligations as to how personal information should be handled you can make a complaint.

If you think we may not have complied with our obligations regarding the handling of your personal information and should you remain dissatisfied with the Council’s response, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

Report a concern by visiting the ICO website

Changes in your circumstances

You must notify us immediately if there are any changes in your circumstances and personal details in order for us to maintain an accurate and up to date record of your information.