Privacy & Cookies Policy

To offer you the best information and guidance we need to collect and store information about you.

This website is owned by Oxfordshire County Council and operated by the Education, Employment and Training Team, with oversight from the Digital Safeguarding Lead. By accessing this website you are agreeing to our terms and conditions.

You can use this website without sharing your personal data. We will ask you to share data sometimes, for example on our registration form, or during chat. This is so we can help you better. Oxfordshire County Council is very careful with the personal information you give us in this way. When you give us information, you consent to collection, processing and storage of the information you provide.

Before collecting personal details, we will tell you why we need the information and what it will be used for. You can refuse to give us personal information or data.

The information we collect helps us provide you with with better support and services. We use it to help you find the right route into education, employment or training, solve problems in your life and access the activities and opportunities that interest you.

Help us keep your information up-to-date online.

Under some circumstances we are required by law to share information shared with us, for example: if we are told about a risk to a child. If we are required by law to share information given to us we will always do our best to keep the person who shared the information with us fully informed.

Who are we?

This website is from the Children's Services Education, Employment and Training team. This is is part of Oxfordshire County Council Childrens Services. Its purpose is to provide accessible, flexible services and support to children, young people and families across Oxfordshire. 

We contact young people regularly to find out if you are in education, employment or training. If you are not, we offer support.

Service Access

You can ask for two services via this website, the Targeted Youth Support Service and the Education, Employment and Training Team. For these services the young person must consent.

How often we contact you

Most people are only contacted a few times. This is because we know from records kept by schools, colleges or other services that you are in education, employment or training. We contact young people most in the summer when they are 16 or 17. This is to ensure that you have received a suitable offer of learning for September - this is called the September Guarantee. But sometimes we would need to contact you at other times, for example if records are lost.

If you are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) we will usually contact you every three months or more often. If you are not in regular contact and believe you should be, please fill in the registration form with your best contact details, and write NEET in the "Name of your employer, school, college or learning provider" field.

Your information helps us help you

The Data Protection Act 1998 says information about you held by Oxfordshire County Council must be relevant to the purpose of our service. The purpose of our service is to help you move towards adult life. We hold paper and electronic records to help us provide our services to you. The data we hold includes:

  • Your name, date of birth, addresses and telephone number this helps us make sure we are speaking to the right person, and can contact you with useful information
  • Records of information we have sent you which could be general or specific to your enquiries
  • Details of people providing you with support so that we can work together
  • Any health issues or any special needs you may have so we can give you the best information and don't need to keep asking the same questions
  • Education and qualifications so we are up-to-date with all your achievements
  • Issues that may affect your choices or limit opportunities so that we can help you overcome these and provide the best information
  • If you have been in employment and training, as well as future career interests so we can give you the information you need
  • Whether you are male or female, your ethnicity and religious beliefs because we need to make sure we treat everyone fairly

Information sharing

The information held on you by Oxfordshire County Council can only be shared with other agencies with your permission, or where required by law. It will not be shared unless there is a good reason, for example, if it will help you stay in learning or employment. You are able to ‘opt out’ of having your data shared by contacting us on the number below.

Other organisations, like schools, share information with Oxfordshire County Council. These organisations will provide you with a privacy notice which explains how information they hold about you will be shared, and give details about how you can ask for information not to be shared, also known as ‘opting-out’.

Sometimes information can be shared without your consent, for example if required by law, or if there are concerns about your safety (Children's Act 1989), or if a court orders information to be shared. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 also allows information to be shared without consent if this will prevent or detect a crime.

Who can see my information?

Workers only look at your information or data when they have a good reason, for example to provide better help or keep you safe. Your information will be treated with respect. Oxfordshire County Council Early will never sell personal information.  We will only share personal information or data where are required to do so by law or if you have told us you consent to our doing this.

Can I stay anonymous?

You can use all of our services, including the this website, without telling us who you are. 

Oxfordshire County Council has no way of knowing if any person providing information through this site is who they say they are. Oxfordshire County Council will assume all information shared is genuine. If you have any reason to think someone has provided false information to Oxfordshire County Council (for example: using your identity) please let us know and we will correct or delete the information.

You have the right to request us to remove personal data from our Web site at any time (for example, to request that a comment is deleted). To do so, please contact us or email oxme@oxfordshire.gov.uk 

Can I see my information?

Under the Freedom of Information Act you have the right to a copy of information or records that we hold on you. There are some exceptions.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that a website transfers to the browser on your computer's hard disk so that the site can remember who you are. We cannot identify you personally by using a cookie. Cookies store no personal data and are not used to gather personal information.   We use cookies to collect statistics about your use of our website, make some of our systems work better and to help us embed some kinds of content. 

  • We recommend that you allow all cookies set by this site as they help us provide you with a better service.
  • If you decide to delete or disable cookies then you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our website.
  • Cookies used by Oxfordshire County Council do not infringe on your privacy or threaten your computer's security.

We cannot identify you personally by using a cookie, as our cookies store no personal data. Cookies are not used to gather personal information.

Cookies we use on the oxme.info website

  • _gat_gtag_UA is used by google analytics. This makes it possible to analyse site data. We use this to improve our website. You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies.
  • cookie-agreed stores user choices about whether or not to use cookies.  

You can opt out of cookies. 

Videos and multimedia content

We use Youtube and other services to enable multimedia content on our site. These services use cookies. For example: to monitor numbers of visitors or views of media or pages.