How we use your information
If you are sentenced to a Community Payback Order, we will receive a copy of the Order from the Clerk of the Court before we start working with you.
You will be allocated a social worker or an order supervisor who will open a case file for you in our Case Management System and who will keep records about you in your case file as you progress through your Order. If we already have a case file for you then we will add these records to your existing case file.
We receive information from partners which is added to our records. In some cases, information will be added to our records using automated processing, to speed up the time it takes to deal with simple processes. Decisions about you are not made using automated decision-making.
We will use your information to
- Help decide how much supervision is required (the level of service)
- Inform what the focus of any period of supervision or intervention would be
- Help evaluate the progress of the person who is subject to social work supervision. It helps us to assess whether your behaviour has posed / will pose any risk to you or others in the future.
- Help assess your individual needs regarding rehabilitation and case management
- Help us to monitor your compliance with any order imposed upon you by the Court
- Information gathered contributes to your individual Criminal Justice Social Work Report.
How we share your information
We will treat your case file confidentially, although you should also be aware that we may need to share information with relevant agencies and other relevant professionals in the following circumstances:
- There are concerns about a risk of harm to individuals, groups/communities or the general public or to public safety
- There is a need to prevent, detect or prosecute a serious crime
- You have told us about historical abuse from when you were a child where there might still be ongoing risk posed to children from the same perpetrator
- A court has instructed us to do so.
Information may be used for evaluation, assurance and policy development by the Scottish Government, the Risk Management Authority and Community Justice Scotland. The data for evaluation and research purposes does not enable any individual to be identified by these organisations and this use will not impact on your supervision or case.
Sometimes, during the process of supporting you, you and your social worker may decide that it would be beneficial to refer or assist you to access other Council services (for example, housing) or outside organisations for further help or support. To do this on your behalf will normally mean the social worker sharing some information about you with that service or organisation. If this is the case, this will always be discussed between you and your social worker, on a case by case basis, and be done with your agreement.
We may also be required to provide information from case files to Scottish Ministers as part of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups Scheme. This is something we are required to do under Section 19 of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007.
Where you have a Programme Requirement as part of your Order, we will share limited, necessary and relevant information about you with the programme provider. We remain the Data Controller for this information and we make sure that they process your data appropriately through our arrangements with them.
How long we keep your information for
Unless you have any other interactions with the Council’s Social Work Service, once you have completed your Community Payback Order, we will close your case file. We keep closed case files for the current year, plus five years, from the point at which your case is closed.
Your rights
You have rights to your data, including the right to ask for a copy of it. See more information about all of the rights you have. You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. That is the body responsible for making sure organisations like the Council handle your data lawfully.
Our legal basis
Aberdeen City Council is the Data Controller for your data. Wherever the Council processes personal data, we need to make sure we have a legal basis for doing so in data protection law.
The Council has a range of tasks, powers and duties relating to the provision of justice social work services, which will normally require processing special categories of personal data, and sometimes personal data relating to criminal convictions. Our legal basis for processing is because we have a legal obligation to do so, our because its part of our public tasks, and carried out under our official authority. Where we process special category data, we do so because it’s necessary for social care purposes.
Sometimes these tasks are defined as processing for law enforcement purposes. Where this is the case, we process personal data on the basis that it is necessary for us to carry out our statutory functions as a competent authority.