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The Learning & Skills Act 2000 The full text can be seen at http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000021.htm The relevant provisions for the supply and sharing of information between agencies are set out in sections 114 to 121 Learning and Skills Act 2000. The Secretary of State may make provision for services "which he thinks will encourage enable or assist (directly or indirectly) effective participation in education or training" after consultation with certain bodies, which includes not only the local authority but the health authority, police, probation service and youth offending team. Each of these bodies is charged with assisting the Secretary of State when he makes provision for the services referred to above (see s115). Local authorities can be compelled to provide "services" (s116(1)(b)). If an educational institution as defined in s117(3) is asked about a pupil or student by anybody "involved" in the provision of services, it has to supply what is requested, which could be any information the institution has about the pupil or student. The parents of the pupil, or the pupil or student if over 16, can prevent such disclosure but there is no provision that they be told it has been requested. The fact that s119(4) may make unlawful disclosure a criminal offence may be scant protection to the individual concerned. There is no provision in the Act for the pupil or student to ensure that only information agreed as correct is disclosed. The Secretary of State can supply the name, address and date of birth of a young person and the name and address of their parents to "any civil servant or other person" (s119). It is to be hoped that the rules of statutory construction will limit the class of 'other people' but frankly it cannot be relied upon to do so, and would only be defined if challenged in the courts. How that is likely to be done, when the exchange of information is carried out clandestinely, is hard to imagine. This provision will allow the extraction of information collected for social security and, for example, child benefit purposes to be disclosed to those involved in the provision of "services". If the Secretary of State requests any information from the bodies or people listed in s120(1), which is largely the list set out above, they may but do not have to supply it. There is no provision for the subjects of the information to be told that it has been requested or supplied, nor can they stop its provision or use. Again, even more worrying is the fact that the information can also be supplied "to any other person or body involved in the provision" of the services, an all-enveloping provision in itself. |