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On my amendment relating to Connexions, I am fully aware that the power already exists, but our amendment is to prevent the information being used more widely. A general concern is that, as drafted, this part is worded too widely; it could have allayed some of our fears if the provisions had been worded more tightly.
In conclusion, on this group and the previous group, as the Minister keeps going back to previous groups, I fully acknowledge that the systems that the Government use are of the highest standards and they require that people handle the information with the utmost care. What worries me is what happens when the information is printed off, downloaded onto a disk, or when it is on a laptop computer. Then it is not just a question of highly sophisticated technology but of people, with all their human failings. That is where most of our concerns about that sensitive data arise. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 76:
Clause 14, page 8, line 10, at end insert “which relates directly to the pupil or student’s educational record, or educational and support needs”
The noble Baroness said: The amendment relates to Clause 14, which puts a duty on educational institutions to provide information to the local authority,
Subsection (3) contains a list of what information is required and paragraph (c) mentions,
The purpose of this amendment is to tease out what sort of information the school or the college is under a duty to supply and, more particularly, whether it can legitimately resist supplying it. Would the school be obliged to provide sensitive information about a young person, such as social security information, facts about their background or their family, any services with which they have had dealings—for example, young
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It is important that schools and colleges are clear that this information can be restricted to only that,
- “which relates directly to the pupil or student’s educational record, or educational and support needs”.
In these days when far too much information about all of us is flying around the globe, we should not add to the opportunity for confidential information to get into the public domain. I beg to move.
Baroness Morris of Bolton: We support the Liberal Democrat amendment, which refines the type of information that can be supplied to that which relates directly to the pupil’s education and support needs. As I said in my closing comments to the previous group, the Bill is too widely drafted. In this sensitive area, there is no reason to allow more information than is strictly required to be shared by government agencies.
Lord Adonis: At the risk of becoming a cracked record, let me start by reiterating that learning providers already disclose this information to Connexions under Section 117 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has asked what this additional information comprises. In practice, the additional information shared includes gender and ethnicity, special educational needs at School Action or School Action Plus status, and which year group the student is in.
Schools also inform Connexions about post-16 choices and, in particular, about whether pupils in their last year of compulsory education have been offered a place at the school’s sixth form, if it has one, so that the Connexions service can contact those who are not planning to stay on in school and can help them to obtain a suitable place in learning or work. I imagine that the noble Baroness would find all those aspects of information entirely acceptable for the Connexions service to hold since it is all directly related to the student’s participation in education and training, and the provision of proper support services to them to enable them to do so. It is also already the case that learning providers pass on only information that is relevant to a young person’s educational and support needs. Under Clauses 14 and 57, that would be the case regardless of whether the information was passed on to Connexions or to the local authority.
Perhaps I may reiterate again that personal information can be shared only in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the common law of confidence. Already, without amendments of the kind suggested by the noble Baroness, existing law tightly regulates the circumstances in which data can be disclosed. This means that information disclosures under Clause 14 must be otherwise lawful, in accordance with existing data protection and human rights legislation in the way that I set out in my response to the earlier group of amendments.
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Lord Elton: I am particularly interested in this issue. The noble Lord has sought to reassure us with a statement of what educational institutions now do, but we are concerned with what, under this Bill, educational institutions could do. There is no apparent restraint on the nature of the information in Clause 14(3)(c). The noble Lord refers us to other legislation under which this would be caught. No doubt, research would prove that what he has said is a watertight case for restricting the information to that which he has described. But—
Lord Elton: The noble Lord might prove me wrong, but perhaps I could finish my sentence, which got only to the word “but”. In my view, and that of many others who have to live under the law, it is much more satisfactory to have any constraints within the instrument and not to have to consult a solicitor at great expense to determine what the other provisions might be. I hope that the noble Lord will point to another provision in this Bill that answers our concern, which would of course be a happy outcome.
Lord Adonis: I can indeed do that by referring to Clause 14(2), which states:
“A local education authority may request information under subsection (1) only for the purpose of enabling or assisting it to exercise its functions under this Part”.
That is the part of the Bill concerning the duty to participate in education and training.
Lord Elton: I remind the House of the amount of covert surveillance that is conducted by local authorities. When we passed the legislation under which that is done, we all thought that it related strictly to national security. It now relates to rubbish bins. We need a little more reassurance than that.
Lord Adonis: We have eight years’ worth of experience in this area. These duties already apply; they are set out in the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which led to the creation of the Connexions databases for precisely the same purposes. I am not aware of concerns that local authorities have been using these powers to collect information which the noble Lord thinks undesirable. It is always possible to imagine that powers could be used for purposes other than those for which they are intended to be used, but Clause 14(2) is explicit and we have the real experience of local authorities in this area, which I do not think justifies concerns that powers are being used unduly to interfere in or conduct surveillance about young people beyond the promotion of education and training which is necessary for their own needs. However, I am happy to listen to any cases that the noble Lord might bring to my attention.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: Is the Minister right in saying that we have the experience of local authorities in this area? To date, we have the experience of the Connexions service in putting together a database which authorities have used for support.
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Lord Adonis: That is what I meant—the experience of Connexions. Exactly the same powers will be transferred to local authorities in maintaining the Connexions database.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: Except that the Connexions service will have somewhat extended powers in the sense that it has helped and supported a number of vulnerable young people and got them into education and training. But we know that quite a number fall outside the purview of the Connexions service, and we are extending its powers in that sense.
There is one issue about which I am not clear. If a young person has had a connection with a youth offending team because, say, at the age of 14 he got in with a gang who carried out petty burglaries, would that be passed on to the Connexions service even if he had outgrown that period and was less vulnerable? I do not know whether that is the sort of information that is passed on.
4.30 pm
Lord Adonis: It clearly is the case that such information may be supplied. Clause 16(2) specifically mentions,
as bodies which can provide information. But one would expect that information to be relevant to the purposes of the Bill and thus only for the Connexions service, and in due course the local authority, to make appropriate use of it.
Lord Elton: Committee is the point at which to exercise the imagination. I can see a local authority saying that in order to establish what a certain young person is doing and whether he really is behaving as he should, it would be interesting to know if he has previous convictions which involved him in doing things when he ought to have been studying. The noble Lord looks as if I am straining at the possible, but we have experience of authorities vastly exceeding the constraints we thought we had placed on them under one piece of legislation. Therefore I return to what I said before: it is best to have the constraints set out precisely in the Bill that is to provide the powers. I shall not go on further because I am sure I have made myself clear. We shall have to see what happens next.
Lord Adonis: Perhaps I may press the point a little further. The noble Lord has a great concern, as do we all, about the educational well-being of students who have come into contact with young offender institutions or have been involved in youth offending activities. That could be highly relevant information to assist them with their learning needs. The key issue here is that the information is only for the purpose of enabling or assisting local authorities to exercise their functions under that part of the Bill. I am sure that the noble Lord would himself accept that information of this kind could be highly relevant to enabling a local authority, and/or at the moment the Connexions service, to provide precisely the type of support that could be so important to a young offender to progress with their education and training. Indeed, in other debates we have considered the failure of public authorities to
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Again, what is key is that the purposes for which the information is used are properly defined, and as I read the Bill, they are.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: I do not know whether the Minister saw in the Guardian on Tuesday that a young man with a criminal record had clearly done a great deal of voluntary work and gained himself a place at a very famous university in London. However, he is about to be refused his place, even though the General Medical Council has said that even if someone has a criminal record they can train to be a doctor. We are concerned about adding to the criminal records of this group of young people, and we rely on what is in existence because it is meant to protect young people. However, we find that what we are relying on is not as protective as we had hoped. Indeed, it causes a lot of concern.
Lord Adonis: I think the case the noble Baroness is referring to concerns a decision taken by a university about the admission of a student. A university is of course an independent body and it would not be appropriate for us to specify precisely how such a body should take its admissions decisions. The offence, as I understand it, was one of burglary. That has to be an issue for the university in following proper procedures itself. I do not think it would be appropriate for me as a Minister to tell a university who it should or should not admit.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: Nevertheless, we have had assurances from the Minister that a conviction gained when young will be off the record after two and a half years. In this case, the conviction seems to have come up again. Perhaps it was slightly under the two and a half years; I am not quite sure. We will come back to the issue when we consider the degree to which the enforcement mechanisms will ultimately involve those who fail to meet their duties under Clause 2, acquiring a criminal record.
The amendment was probing, to try to clarify the situation. We have had some clarification, although perhaps some of us are a little fuzzier about the extent of this provision. The Minister said that the Government were transposing it from the Learning and Skills Act into the Bill, and I understand that. We will read very carefully what has been said and decide what elements we will want to raise again on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 77 to 83 not moved.]
Clause 15 [Supply of social security information]:
[Amendments Nos. 84 to 90 not moved.]
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Clause 16 [Supply of information by public bodies]:
[Amendments Nos. 91 to 94 not moved.]
Baroness Morris of Bolton moved Amendment No. 95:
“( ) The provisions of section 15(4), (5), (6) and (7) shall apply to any person to whom subsection (1) applies.”
The noble Baroness said: These simple amendments are designed to create consistency in respect of those penalties that would apply to people disclosing information inappropriately. Clause 15 sets out the six conditions under which information can be disclosed or transmitted. We simply seek for those same conditions to apply to Clause 16 and for the penalties which relate to inappropriate disclosure to apply as well.
It is a criminal offence to disclose the information to which Clause 15 relates, which amounts to personal details—someone’s name, address and date of birth, or the name and address of their parents—but it is not a criminal offence to disclose wrongly people’s health records, police records, criminal records or education records. It seems illogical that the disclosure of some sensitive details can attract a penalty while the disclosure of other sensitive and possibly more damaging details does not. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis: The provisions under Clause 16 are not new. Public bodies already pass on information on young people to Connexions under Section 120 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, and this is already adequately protected by the Data Protection Act. It would be inappropriate and disproportionate to apply the offence under Clause 15 to Clause 16. There is already adequate cover under the Data Protection Act and the offence in Clause 15 relates specifically to social security information. It was included in the Learning and Skills Act 2000 so that it is commensurate with offences in other social security legislation—namely, Section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. It is designed as a deterrent and the penalties reflect this.
Under Clause 16 as it stands, unauthorised disclosure of personal information would lead to a breach of the Data Protection Act. Prosecutions for this offence must be commenced by the Information Commissioner or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. A person can be tried for this offence and the maximum penalty is a fine limited only by the jurisdiction of the court. For these reasons, I hope the noble Baroness will be satisfied.
Baroness Morris of Bolton: Indeed I am. I thank the Minister for his reply. It was a probing amendment to discover why there was a difference between the two clauses. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 96 to 99 not moved.]
Clause 16 [Supply of information by public bodies]:
[Amendments Nos. 100 to 104 not moved.]
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Clause 17 [Sharing and use of information held for purposes of support services or functions under this Part]:
[Amendments Nos. 105 to 109 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 110 not moved.]
Baroness Verma moved Amendment No. 111:
The Secretary of State shall commission an independent review into the effectiveness of the provision of careers advice in England and the appropriateness of a single all-age advice and guidance service as established in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.”
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