To ask Her Majesty's Government which departments and agencies are authorised to access information held by the Department for Children, Schools and Families under the Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/2601), as amended. [HL5159]

To ask Her Majesty's Government which persons or bodies that are not part of the Government or their agencies are authorised to access information held by the Department for Children, Schools and Families under the Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/2601), as amended. [HL5160]

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any persons or bodies are authorised to access information held by local education authorities under the Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/2601), as amended; and, if so, who. [HL5161]

The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (England) Regulations 2006 define the individual pupil data items to be collected from schools in the school census. The regulations can be viewed at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20062601.htm. The provision by all maintained nursery, primary, secondary, middle deemed primary, middle deemed secondary, special and non-maintained special schools, academies and city technology colleges schools is a statutory requirement by virtue of these regulations, which are made under Section 537A of the Education Act 1996.

DCSF cannot answer on behalf of local authorities, which have their own individual data protection obligations, so have answered HL5160 for DCSF.

Section 537A of the Education Act 1996 provides for the Secretary of State to prescribe persons and categories of person who can exchange individual pupil information. Individual pupil information is defined as “information relating to and identifying individual pupils or former pupils at any school”. The DCSF uses the powers in Section 537A to provide information about individual pupils to information collators, prescribed persons and prescribed categories of person for:

research and statistical purposes which inform, influence and improve education policy and to monitor the performance of the education sector;

matching departmental data sources together to model and monitor pupils' educational achievements and progression;

obtaining samples for statistical surveys, and matching data to data obtained from statistical surveys; and

operational purposes including the provision of pupil data for use in school inspections, the pupil test registration process. Individual pupil level information is also shared with post-16 learning institutions to minimise the administrative burden on application for a course and to aid the preparation of learning plans.

The Education (Individual Pupil Information) (Prescribed Persons) (England) Regulations 1999 (as amended) prescribe which persons may be provided with individual pupil information. The regulations can be viewed at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19990903.htm. These regulations will be consolidated in the Education (Individual Pupil Information) (Prescribed Persons) (England) Regulations 2009 coming into force on 1 September 2009. These are essentially the same as the regulations they replace, with an update to the description of some of the persons and the addition of Becta and Ofsted to the list of prescribed persons. They can be viewed at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/uksi_20091563_en_1.