Independent Domestic Violence Advice service

This privacy notice explains what personal information is collected, what it is used for and who it is provided to. The notice also describes why we require your data, and the legal basis on which we do this.

This privacy notice relates to the Council’s Independent Domestic Violence Advice service, and provides additional information that specifically relates to this particular service. It should be read together with our general privacy notice, which provides more detail.

This service uses personal information about you, such as your:

• name
• address
• date of birth
• national insurance number,
• telephone number 
• email address
• NHS number
• GP details.

This service may also need to use more sensitive information about you (which is known as special category personal information), such as your:

• ethnicity
• nationality
• religion
• first language
• sex-life or sexual orientation 
• any disability or additional health needs you have.

We use your personal data for the following reasons:

• to assess you and your family’s needs, identify and plan the appropriate support or advice for you and your family, and to provide our services.
• to maintain a record of the advice and support we provide you. This helps us to increase the safety, health and wellbeing of victims of domestic violence and abuse and their families (ie: other adults and children in the household).
• to see how well our service is performing, and to set targets for the IDVA service
• to undertake research around who uses our service, what support is provided and the impact of that support. We do this to create statistics which help us to see whether our service is reaching as many people as possible, and to decide what types of support we should focus on in the future.
• to get feedback from the people using our service, and to help us improve the IDVA service.

We are also legally required to use your personal information in a particular way:

• The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 s.17 places an obligation on local authorities, police and fire and rescue services to prevent and detect crime and disorder (including domestic violence) in the execution of their functions.
• The Children Act 2004 s.10 places an obligation on police, local authority, probation, youth offending teams, health authorities, primary care trusts and relevant partners of the children’s services authority to cooperate to improve the physical, mental health, emotional well-being of children; and protection from harm and neglect.

This means that, in certain circumstances, the law requires us to share information with other organisations to prevent and protect victims (and the family of victims, such as any children living in the household) from domestic abuse.

We will only use your personal data where it is necessary and we are under a legal obligation to do so (Art 6(1)(c) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’)), or where it is necessary in order to perform our public tasks and duties as a Local Authority (Art 6(1)(e) of the UK (GDPR)).

In some cases, we may be required to share your information where it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency (Art 6(1)(d) of the UK GDPR).

We may also need to use special category data when:

• it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (including carrying out our statutory functions, and preventing/detecting unlawful acts) (Art 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR
• it is necessary to protect someone in an emergency (Art 9(2)(c) of the UK GDPR)
• it is necessary for legal cases (Art 9(2)(f) of the UK GDPR)
• it is necessary for the provision of social care (Art 9(2)(h) of the UK GDPR)
• it is necessary for employment purposes (Art 9(2)(b) of the UK GDPR)
• it is necessary for archiving, research or statistical purposes ((Art 9(2)(j) of the UK GDPR)

If we do not have one of the lawful reasons above for using or sharing your personal information, but we still think it is appropriate to do so (for example to refer you to a voluntary service), we will ask for your consent. (Art 9(2)(a) of the UK GDPR).

• Greater Manchester Police or other police authorities
• fire and rescue services
• national probation service
• Community Rehabilitation Service
• Mental Health Trust
• registered social landlords
• Adult Social Care services (from Manchester City Council and other Local Authorities where you and your family have previously lived)
• Children’s Social Care services (from Manchester City Council and other Local Authorities where you and your family have previously lived)
• homelessness service
• primary care services
• drug and alcohol services
• Hospital trusts Northern Care Alliance, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust)
• Department for Work and Pensions
• education/schools

Your personal data is shared securely with the following organisations only where it is both necessary and when we have one of the lawful bases listed above:

• Greater Manchester Police or other police authorities
• Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue service
• national probation service
• Community Rehabilitation Service
• Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust
• registered social landlords
• Adult Social Care
• Children’s Social Care
• homelessness service
• primary care services
• drug and alcohol services
• hospital trusts (Northern Care Alliance, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust)
• department for Work and pensions
• education/schools
•  

In order to promote the safety of people across Greater Manchester, we are part of the “Greater Manchester Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC) Information sharing agreement and operating protocol”.

The protocol is an agreement that is entered into by a number of local authorities and public bodies, to agree a joined up way of working. This means that the safety, health and well-being of victims and their families right across Greater Manchester is increased, and helps ensure that we can provide the best support to victims and their families in the Manchester area.

The purpose of the protocol is:

• to increase the safety, health and well-being of victims
• to determine whether the alleged perpetrator poses a significant risk to the victim, other individuals or to the general community
• to work together to create ‘risk management plans’ which provides professional support to all those at risk and that reduces the risk of harm
• to reduce repeat victimisation
• to improve support for staff involved in high risk domestic abuse cases
• to ensure issues are dealt with by the most appropriate agencies and groups, for example by matching them to victims from their knowledge or experience
• to help everyone involved in the protocol to create meet their legal requirements to have ways of intervening to prevent or detect domestic abuse and sexual offences.

As part of the protocol, we:

• only share information that is directly relevant to the safety of the victim and their family
• share names of victims and alleged perpetrators, including pseudonyms or aliases
• share the names of any children in the household and their ages
• share information on key risk factors including, where appropriate, professional opinion on the risks faced
• share any relevant history of domestic abuse or other associated behaviour (child abuse, sexual assault) by the alleged perpetrator or the victim
• share the victim’s views.

There are some circumstances when we are obliged to share information, for example:

• to protect you or another person in an emergency (for example with the police, NHS or with Immigration/Border Control)
• for the administration of justice (such as providing information to Court)
• to meet other legal obligations, such as where we are required to share safeguarding information by law to other agencies and other Councils, or where we are required to provide information to a regulator as part of an audit or inspection.

Our retention schedule sets out how long we keep personal information for.

You can find out more about your rights regarding the personal information used for this service. Your rights apply to the information held by the Council as a data controller, and the information we hold on behalf of the other data controllers.

Automated decision making and profiling:

Your personal data is not subjected to automated decision making or profiling. 

We may change this privacy notice from time to time. Tell us if you want to know when we change this notice, or any related documents. 

If you have any questions or concerns about how we use your personal information, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you're unhappy about how we process your information.