Privacy policy

Who we are and why we process personal data

We are Teacher Continuing Professional Development (CPD), within the Department for Education (DfE).

The National Professional Qualifications programme (NPQ) and the Early Career Framework (ECF) Induction programmes (Core Induction Program - CIP and Full Induction Program - FIP) are initiatives funded by CPD and delivered by teacher training providers, ECF lead providers and their delivery networks.

The term “teacher training providers” refers to all NPQ lead providers and their delivery networks.

The term “ECF induction providers” refers to all ECF lead providers and their delivery networks.

The term “candidate” refers to teachers, mentors and early career teachers who will participate in teacher training or ECF inductions.

Mentions of “us” and “we” means CPD and “you” means anyone using this service.

How we look after your personal data

Any information we collect when you use our services will be used and looked after by:

  • the Department for Education
  • the teacher training providers and ECF induction providers carrying out the teacher training and ECF inductions
  • the auditors who quality assure the teacher training providers and ECF induction providers
  • the evaluators who quality assure the teacher training and ECF inductions
  • the relevant bodies who make decisions on the outcomes of teacher training and ECF inductions

This means DfE is the data controller. Teacher training providers and ECF induction providers are data processors on behalf of DfE, for your information (defined by data protection law).

The Manage Continuing Professional Development Service is a new DfE service. We’re confident that it has met our security standards, but we’ll continue to run security tests as we improve the service.

Why our use of your personal data is lawful

In order for our use of your personal data to be lawful, we need to meet one, or more, conditions in the data protection legislation.

DfE processes your data under the basis of Public Task (Article 6(1)(e) of GDPR). In this case, it is necessary for the department to carry out this work, and to use the information for these purposes, to exercise its functions.

What personal data we collect

The personal data we collect will depend on whether you are a candidate, school induction tutor, teacher training provider or induction provider.

What personal data we collect

If you’re a candidate using the Manage Continuing Professional Development Service we will collect the following information about you:

  • your name
  • your phone number
  • your email address
  • your teacher reference number (TRN)
  • your date of birth
  • your national insurance number
  • where you work
  • what your role is

What data we collect if you are a school induction tutor

If you are a school induction tutor using the Manage Continuing Professional Development Service we will collect the following information about you:

  • your name
  • your email address
  • where you work
  • what your role is

What data we collect if you work for a teacher training provider or induction provider

If you process teacher training applications or ECF induction registrations we will collect the following information about you:

  • your name
  • your email address
  • your phone number
  • where you work
  • what your role is

How we use your data

Processing applications and registrations

Processing applications and registrations includes the following:

  • sending your application or registration details to teacher training providers and ECF
  • induction providers
  • validating teacher reference numbers (TRN)
  • working out any funding which candidates are entitled to
  • getting in touch if there’s a security issue concerning your data
  • getting in touch with candidates, teacher training providers and ECF induction providers about application and registrations
  • Determining outcomes of teacher training and ECF inductions
  • Match, link and analyse your data along with other datasets

Building better application and registration processes

We’ll use your data to help us build better processes. For example, we’ll look at any feedback you give us about our services so we can improve them.

We may contact you to carry out user research.

Getting insight to make government policy better

We might match, link and analyse your data along with other datasets to help us inform government policy around teacher recruitment and retention.

Keep you informed of additional relevant government policies

We might match, link and analyse your data along with other datasets to contact and inform you about additional government policies relevant to you. You will have the opportunity to opt out of this communication if and when you are contacted.

Quality assuring, evaluating and monitoring the policy

We might match, link and analyse your data along with other datasets to share with auditors, evaluators and relevant bodies in order to carry out appropriate quality assurance, evaluation and monitoring of the teacher training and ECF inductions.

Auditors, evaluators and relevant bodies may contact you in the future to ask you to participate in evaluation activities relating to your teacher training or ECF induction. You will have the opportunity to opt out of this stage of the process if and when you are contacted.

Who we share your data with

We need to share personal data for the purposes mentioned above.

We do so under section 132 of the Education Act 2002, together with regulation 5 of the Education (School Teachers’ Qualifications) (England) Regulations 2003.

Sharing data with teacher training providers and ECF induction providers

We share school induction tutor and candidate data with the teacher training providers and ECF induction providers.

We have a data sharing agreement with teacher training providers and ECF induction providers so they can only use your data to:

  • process agreements, which may include contacting you
  • get statistics for internal use
  • get in touch with you if there’s a security issue concerning your data

External organisations who process data

Customer service systems

We use a customer service management system to process some personal data, such as feedback you send us.

Zendesk is currently our preferred customer service management system because it uses various safeguards to look after your data.

Google

We’ll ask if you agree to cookies so that we can get statistics from Google Analytics. If you consent, Google may be able to get your IP address. We use Google Analytics for statistics and will not identify you personally from these.

We also use Google’s G Suite to process some personal data. Google processes your data according to our instructions.

Hosting services

We host our services on GOV.UK PaaS, which encrypts your data to prevent it being accessed by unauthorised people.

Auditors

We use external auditors to quality assure the teacher training providers and ECF induction providers to ensure that you are receiving the appropriate standard of teacher training and ECF inductions.

Evaluators

We use external evaluators to understand the effectiveness of the teacher training and ECF inductions you are receiving from teacher training providers or ECF induction providers and the impact it is having on the teacher workforce.

Relevant bodies

The relevant bodies will make decisions on the outcome of your teacher training and ECF induction and notify the Teaching Regulation Agency where the teacher training or ECF induction will be documented against your Teaching Regulation Agency records.

Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to find out what data we have about you. This includes the right to:

  • be informed about how your data is being used
  • access personal data
  • have incorrect data updated
  • have data erased
  • stop or restrict the processing of your data
  • get and reuse your data for different services
  • object to how your data is processed in certain circumstances

You can find more information about how we handle personal data in our personal information charter.

Your rights

If you want to ask us to remove your data or get access to the data we have about you, you can email us: continuing-professional-development@digital.education.gov.uk

You can also use our contact form to get in touch with our Data Protection Officer.

Once a candidate has registered with a teacher training provider or ECF induction provider, we will not be able to ask them to remove personal data from their systems. Please contact the provider separately.

For further information or to raise a concern, visit the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Keeping our privacy policy up to date

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We will also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.