§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has issued advice to school governors concerning their legal responsibility to comply with the Data Protection Act when they are in possession348W or control of a computerised school admissions register; if school governors may volunteer information from registers for community charge purposes; if school governors may provide information from a register to a local education authority and specify that the information cannot be used for community charge purposes; if he has taken legal advice to ascertain whether each board of governors or school is an independent data user from the local education authority; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mrs. RumboldMy right hon. Friend has issued no guidance to school governors on their legal responsibilities to comply with the Data Protection Act, but this complex subject is currently being discussed with the office of the Data Protection Registrar. School governors hold and control school admissions registers for the effective exercise of their functions and all authorised circumstances of inspection or disclosure of content of registers are limited to the purposes of the Education Acts. School governors however have no powers to limit the legal requirement whereby community charge registration officers may require local education authorities to provide them with specified information extracted from school registers which is already in the possession of community charge registration officers.