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Education and Skills Bill

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.