Schools receiving ICO fines

[GrumbleDook]

Something I've been meaning to raise for a while is whether folk have noticed that schools have had fines from ICO for non-payment of the Data Protection Fee?

 

The volunteers at the DfE Data Protection Working Group have been discussing it recently and we would have loved to have seen DfE do another push, but as they are pretty much quiet at the moment due to the election, we thought we would raise it on here.

 

A short poll to see what your school has been doing with registration.

 

We've also been looking at the work ICO have been doing with MATs. Are you aware that over 10 MATs have had ICO audits, covering 364 schools? https://www.educationdatamatters.org.uk/?page_id=1709 covers the report produced and a lot of other helpful information.

 

The group is eager to receive feedback so please drop us a line.

[Ditto]

Is it one fee for a MAT or a fee for each school/academy?

[Edu-IT]

MAT I believe but stand to be corrected.

[GrumbleDook]

Is it one fee for a MAT or a fee for each school/academy?

 

It is one for the MAT. We have an article about it that I’ll link to in the morning.

[FishCustard]

I am assuming therefore if it is MAT-based not school-based that for Local Authority schools the fee would be payable by the LA?

[IrritableTech]

Our MAT pays, but sadly the ICO still sent out some payment reminders to our schools (before joining the MAT obviously they had to pay individually) so some double payments were made. I wasn't involved in the conversations afterwards, so I'm not sure if any refunds were made.

[GrumbleDook]

I am assuming therefore if it is MAT-based not school-based that for Local Authority schools the fee would be payable by the LA?

 

No, the Data Controller and legal entity is the school. They are the public authority and have to pay the relevant fee.

The LA has no legal responsibility for how the school as Data Controller does things. It has always been that way.

[FishCustard]

No, the Data Controller and legal entity is the school. They are the public authority and have to pay the relevant fee.

The LA has no legal responsibility for how the school as Data Controller does things. It has always been that way.

 

Fair enough. We paid up anyway - better safe than sorry - so we're covered.

[Scrumpy]

Thanks for raising this GrumbleDook, this was news to me.

For anyone concerned about their place of work, you can check here if you’re registered - https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Search