Overview
Hampshire County Council is one of the largest local authorities in the United Kingdom, serving a population of approximately 1.4 million residents. Its Social Services Department provides care and support services in various areas, including:
- Adult Social Care
- Children and Family Services
- Mental Health Services
- Disabilities and Learning Support
The Challenge
Like many local authorities, Hampshire County Council receives a significant amount of subject access requests (SARs) annually. Post-COVID, and with the awareness surrounding individual rights expanding across the UK, an increasing number of requests had been received. This new demand, teamed with the difficulties of hiring and training SAR officers quickly, meant that outsourcing would be the most efficient way for the Council to ensure subjects received their information.
As a result, Hampshire County Council approached DPAS to provide additional redaction support and assistance, to assist them in meeting the legislative requirements.
Outcome
DPAS worked closely with Hampshire County Council to redact a number of SARs. Our experienced subject access request team provided expert redaction services tailored to the requirements of Hampshire County Council’s procedures, and the specifics of each request.
Our extremely comprehensive SAR onboarding procedure meant that the DPAS team were fully briefed on the Council’s redaction style to ensure that processes were aligned, giving the Council confidence in our team’s work. The DPAS internal quality assurance procedure meant that the Council could be certain that the SARs were redacted in line with the law, the data subjects would not be at any harm from the released information, and third parties’ data was protected.
Thankfully for the Council, our company boasts a large team of expert redactors with extensive knowledge and experience from assisting numerous organisations from different sectors in completing complex SARs. This ensured that DPAS could offer an accurate and efficient redaction service, in line with the timelines specified by the Council.
Testimonial
“In our experience, DPAS have shown expertise in redacting Children’s Services records, which can often be highly complex and contain particularly sensitive information. The relationship that has been built between the County Council and DPAS is one we highly value and is based on strong communication between the teams. DPAS are always approachable and respond to any of our queries in a timely fashion with enthusiasm and a willingness to help. We would certainly recommend DPAS’s services to any other local authority who find themselves requiring support with the processing of SARs.”
James McKenzie, Deputy Head of Service IGBS & Complaints Manager at Hampshire County Council
