Caroline Lucas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2016-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 26 July 2016 to Question 42842 and with reference to freedom of information requests ref: 2016-0032573 and ref: 2016-0042333, on pupil data sharing with the police and Home Office, on how many people has data been (a) requested and (b) provided in response to requests for information to the National Pupil Database made by the (i) Home Office and (ii) police; and if she will make a statement.

Nick Gibb

The National Pupil Database (NPD) is information the Department for Education (DfE) holds on pupils attending schools in England, which includes information collected in the School Census and attainment data from awarding organisations.

The Home Office and police can request data from the NPD where they have clear evidence that a child may be at risk or if there is evidence of criminal activity. The data that can be requested does not include information on nationality, country of birth or English language proficiency.

Between April 2012 and October 2016, the Police have made 31 access requests of the NPD data and the School Census. 21 of these have resulted in information being passed to the police. All were requests for individual level data about individual pupils. Therefore, information about 21 pupils has been shared.

“Between July 2015 and September 2016, the Home Office has made requests of DfE data on 25 occasions. Two of these requests were subsequently withdrawn. During this 15 month period, requests relating to a total of 2,462 individuals have been made by the Home Office to DfE and 520 records have been identified within DfE data and returned to the Home Office.”

To address any uncertainties, I have placed an information note in the House Libraries.