LA Wanting Money for Old Rope!

[jrma91]

I have just had This through from our LA....

 

We are again offering secondary schools the chance to obtain UPN and Contextual information for their September 2021 Year 7 intake. With no KS2 assessments taking place this year, the Excel file will contain UPNs and contextual data from the original admissions offers. As this may be slightly out of date we are also offering an updated file to include any pupils who have won appeals etc.

The data fields in the contextual file are:

 

 

UPN

Surname

Forename

Middle Names

DOB

Gender

Preferred Surname

Former Surname

Former UPN

 

 

 

 

**Pupil Premium Deprivation Indicator for 2020-21

**Pupil Premium Service Child Indicator for 2020-21

**Pupil Premium Adopted from Care Indicator for 2020-21

**Pupil Premium Looked After Child Indicator for 2020-21

*FSM Eligibility January 2021

*Pupil First Language January 2021

*Ethnicity January 2021

*SEN Provision January 2021

*Primary SEN Need January 2021

*Secondary SEN Need January 2021

Current Primary School details

 

The fields marked with a * are only available for pupils who attended a ***** primary school (not independent) at the time of the January 2021 School Census.

The fields marked with a ** are only available for pupils who attended a ****** primary school (not independent) at the time of the January 2021 School Census.

 

The are offering all of this information for £100! Almost everything on this would be provided by either the CTF from the primary school or from the parents when they complete the schools entry paperwork (or online version).

 

Am I the only one that thinks that this is ridiculous, or am I just being a tight fisted scrooge?

 

jrma91

[Ditto]

Worse than that, I doubt the legality of it. What they are failing to realise is that this data is the pupil's data, not theirs. I guess they are not passing the money on to the data owners! I would be very interested to hear ICO's view on this and I really would hope DfE are disapproving. So no, you're not wrong thinking it's ridiculous and you not being a tight fisted scrooge. Besides, the data is out of date already. Something like FSM could have changed today. So, for me, I'd go with 'scandalous'. I'm going to call on @GrumbleDook for an opinion on this one.

One last thought - are you sure it's from the LA - it's sufficiently dodgy practice I'd even wonder if it's a scam!

Edited May 14, 2021 by Ditto

[jrma91]

Oh it's most definitely from the LA, it's from the same email address that I have corresponded with before about other things!

And as for being out of date, that was what I said to my HT, when he said "but it's only £100!"

[DavR]

We had a similar scheme from our LA a while back, where they were happy to supply us certain information about FSM / PP entitlement from their records, but there would be an admin charge for their time to do it.

 

I guess that's probably their defence, you probably already have an agreement in place that permits the sharing of the data, so they're not selling it, just charging you their "costs".

 

It's still dodgy AF though.

[DavR]

One last thought - are you sure it's from the LA - it's sufficiently dodgy practice I'd even wonder if it's a scam!

 

Payment in Bitcoin and we'll send you a Dropbox link?

[Ditto]

FOI to the LA's to see how much income they get?

[GrumbleDook]

Firstly, it is not the data subject's data ... there is no ownership of it in that sense. The LA has every right to have it and process it, and to subsequently share it with other data controllers who have a need for it.

 

There is a clear purpose for that sharing and an appropriate lawful basis too.

 

Yes, you would get a significant amount of that data via the CTF and other information sources, but the LA has put the work into structuring it in such a way that it is beneficial to you, the school. The effort would need recompense as a result.

Can you do the work yourselves? Quite probably.

Have you (i.e. your school) considered the need for this? They should have and should have planned a way they are going to sort it.

 

Is £100 a fair price? When LAs provide a service they are not allowed to mark significant profit on it, so they will have planned how many they think will take up the offer, worked out how much it costs to provide the service in the first case and then priced it accordingly.

 

Some LAs will provide their schools with this automatically as it is part of the service they get. Many Academies *won't* get this service unless it is already covered in any service you have agreed with them. LA schools are likely to agree that Academies should not get stuff for free from work the LA schools are effectively paying for.

 

Think of it as something that needs a guess about time and support your school would invest in gathering this, against what the cost is from the LA.