THIS NEW FEATURE IS COMING SOON
The Church of England is simplifying safeguarding admin by enabling the main safeguarding systems to communicate with each other.
Which safeguarding systems are involved?
The Church of England uses three main systems to manage safeguarding records:
- Safeguarding Training Portal - used by parishes in every diocese for safeguarding training
- Safeguarding Hubs - available in most dioceses to help parishes with safeguarding admin
- Contact Management System (CMS) - used by most dioceses to manage information about people they have contact with (e.g. clergy, churchwardens and safeguarding officers)
Streams is a background system that is invisible to parishes and dioceses. However, behind the scenes, it plays a key role in enabling the above three systems to communicate with each other.
Some of these systems can also communicate directly with DBS Providers (e.g. ThirtyOne:Eight).
What does Streams do?
Streams has two important functions:
- It matches the same person in different systems
For example, it does this if someone has the same name and email address in both systems.
- It forwards safeguarding records from one system to another
This only happens once a match has been identified.
Who are the data controllers?
The data controller is the organisation that determines how personal data is used in each system:
- The Archbishop's Council is the controller of the Safeguarding Training Portal
- The Parochial Church Council PCC) is the controller of a Safeguarding Hub
- The Diocesan Board of Finance is the controller of their Contact Management System and also Streams
What is the lawful basis for data sharing?
It is in the legitimate interests of the three data controllers to share safeguarding records with each other. This is because each controller has a legal obligation to keep accurate safeguarding records, and the automatic sharing of these records makes this record keeping more accurate and efficient.
For this to happen automatically, Streams needs to keep a record of names and email addresses. However, a Safeguarding Hub will only send this information to Streams with the consent of the individual.