Privacy statement

Department for Education: Stronger Practice Hubs information sheet on data collection and processing

Last updated: 01/05/2025 

This information sheet includes an overview of the Stronger Practice Hubs programme and how the Department for Education (DfE) uses personal information specific to this programme.

For further information on the standards you can expect when we collect, hold or use your information, please refer to the DfE’s personal information charter. Here you will also find information on DfE as a data controller and how to contact us or make a complaint regarding your data.

Please refer to the DfE’s privacy notices for details of what personal data DfE processes, how this is used, and how long this is retained for.

The DfE privacy notices relevant to this programme can be found here:

• Privacy information: education providers’ workforce, including teachers
• Privacy information: local authority employees
• Privacy information: stakeholders

Stronger Practice Hubs background

The Stronger Practice Hubs programme is being delivered as part of the Government’s Plan for Change to provide high-quality early education and childcare. For the purposes of data protection legislation, the DfE is the data controller for the personal data that is processed.

The Stronger Practice Hubs programme launched in November 2022 and has established a national network of 18 Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs across England (2 Hubs per government office region). The Hubs are made up of existing, well-established early years settings that support early years settings and educators in their region to adopt evidence informed practice improvements and ultimately improve the quality of early years education. 

What we will collect

We will collect the following types of personal information, some of which may be special category data, directly from you: 

• Name, email address, telephone number, organisation name and address, and job role for Local Authority officers (e.g., those who are on mailing lists for engagement sessions, or who have contacted directly asking a question about the programme)
• Name, email address, telephone number, organisation name and address, and job role for other interested parties, including other early years settings and educators that engage with their local Hub, voluntary organisations (VCSEs) and community leaders

We will collect the following types of personal data about Hubs from our delivery partner: 

• salary information as evidence of claims relating to time spent on Hub activities
• Financial information (bank details)

Why we need it and what we do with it

We collect and process your personal information to: 

• Manage the promotion of an evidence-based framework
• Manage the oversight and quality assurance of the Stronger Practice Hubs programme, including assurance and monitoring of all grant claims from the Hubs, entailing handling financial information
• Manage the facilitation of best practice and intelligence sharing between Hubs and with the DfE
• Manage the governance of the Stronger Practice Hubs programme
• Manage engagement with and enquiries from Local Authorities (LAs), early years providers, voluntary organisations (VCSEs) and community leaders, which may include processing professionals’ contact details
• Inform and manage programme data – including statistics around engagement and reach of the Stronger Practice Hubs
• Make grant payments to relevant parties

How long we keep it 

The DfE will only keep your personal information for as long as we need it. We decide how long to keep your personal information based on the needs of the department and the law. For this project, we will keep your personal data for up to 12 months following its end date to allow for evaluation. The end of this programme is estimated to be March 2026.

We will take necessary steps to keep your information safe. It will then be securely destroyed when it is no longer needed. 

Do we use any external data processors? 

A data processor is an organisation that processes your information on DfE’s behalf. For this project, the data processors are: 

• Delivery partner – the National Children’s Bureau (NCB)
• Evidence partner – the Evidence Endowment Foundation (EEF)
• Stronger Practice Hubs

We only use data processors for these activities: 

• Collating and agreeing claims under the Stronger Practice Hubs programme grant
• Collecting management information from early years settings and educators to evidence the effectiveness, impact and reach of the Stronger Practice Hubs programme
• Collecting information from Hubs, the delivery partner, the evidence partner, and early years settings to inform progress of programme objectives
• Collecting information from Hubs and settings to inform the evaluation of evidence informed early years programmes 

Do we share your personal information? 

If the law allows it, we might share your personal information with other parts of DfE including the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), and with other government departments. 

We may also share your personal information with: 

• organisations that request information to help prevent and detect crime or fraud

DfE may share your personal information to:

• safeguard children or young people -  sharing is under the statutory guidance ‘Keeping children safe in education’ and ‘Working together to safeguard children’.
• investigate complaints
• ensure schools/academies follow their funding contract; and
• provide a quality education under the regulations (Education (Independent School Standards Regulations 2014)) 

The DfE Personal Information Charter gives you more information on how we use your personal information.

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