March 2005 Newsletter
1st March – we had a visit from Keith Clancy who was one of our blind students two years ago who has been working in Sri Lanka and was there to witness the tsunami. He has set up his own small organisation to help people out there and we were glad to make a contribution. In addition Keith is looking for a job so we put him in touch with Employment Opportunities to take their job training course.2nd March – visited Lord Hodgson who is the conservative spokesman for disability in the House of Lords. I explained to him how important it was that an amendment to the Charities Bill, which was being proposed by Lord Phillips, did receive conservative support. The amendment would enable charities to exchange information contained on their databases which is currently illegal under the terms of The Data Protection Act. This is very frustrating because we have lots of information that would be extremely useful to other charities trying to reach disabled people for the services they provide such as holidays, machinery, special apparatus or training.
(NB Unfortunately when the amendment was proposed it was opposed by the government. A full transcript of the debate and our application to the minister is set out below.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury moved Amendment No. 187A: After Clause 67, insert the following new clause—"DATA PROTECTION AND DISABILITY CHARITIES ( ) Lists of the names and addresses of beneficiaries of disability charities (and similar lists held by public authorities for the purposes of providing services to disabled persons) may be accessed by disability charities for the purpose of assisting their beneficiaries and not for commercial gain. ( ) To achieve this purpose the Secretary of State shall issue such an order as is necessary under paragraph 10 of Schedule 3 to the Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29) (conditions relevant for purposes of the first principle: processing of sensitive personal data). ( ) In this section "disability" has the same meaning as in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (c. 50) and subsequent amendments to it."The noble Lord said: This is an amendment that, I hope, will strongly appeal to the Committee. It derives from a submission made to me by Anthony Wigram, who is chairman of a charity called U Can Do I.T. It is a small charity that has been in existence for five years, which gives Internet training to blind, deaf and disabled people in their own homes and uses 51 freelance tutors. A major difficulty for it and other charities like it which deal directly with disabled people is in accessing the target group. This is extremely difficult, if not impossible, due to the Data Protection Act, which makes it impossible for government departments and other organisations, local authorities and charities to share information about their client groups. For example, the charity has given training to more than 600 people during its existence. Those people could benefit enormously from help from other charities and organisations in the same field, such as Action for Blind People, Leonard Cheshire, the Shaw Trust, RNIB, RNID and so on. All those charities have a common interest in trying to help particular groups of disabled people. My remarks, so far, about U Can Do I.T. and disabled people apply just as much to all other charities within particular interest groups. It seems abundantly obvious that anything which prevents one charity being able to bring efficiently and quickly to the attention of the beneficiaries of a related charity the benefits which it has available, simply on grounds of data protection provisions which are more related to privacy and commercial considerations which are not applicable here, is self-defeating. I have heard since from other sources just how frustrating an impediment it is to the most effective use of scarce charitable resources. The amendment may not be perfect, but it carries the purport of what I am urging the Committee to do. I beg to move. Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: I, too, have had a visit from Mr Wigram and, indeed, from other charities in this field and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is important. Perhaps I may take the matter a stage further. There is also a great deal of information that local authorities can provide, including from organisations such as Dial-a-Ride, Transport for All, which provide access to disabled people, and, of course, from the Department for Work and Pensions, which possess such information. It seems peculiarly perverse that if money is available to help people overcome their disabilities that somehow these organisations are unable to get in touch the people who will benefit from it. It would seem to be an Alice-in-Wonderland world if the Data Protection Act were being used to prevent us from helping people who were incapacitated in some way. I hope that we can find a way through this particular thicket. Lord Swinfen: I have one or two doubts about the amendment. Nothing in it allows disabled individuals to ensure that their name is not passed on to other charities if they do not want it passed on. That is a matter of privacy. I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, is trying to do. I am a great believer in charities working together. There is no point in redesigning the wheel. The charity I run works very amicably with others. But there is the privacy side. Charities co-operate on fundraising. The same method can be used with passing information on the services of one disability organisation to another. The fundraising literature is prepared by Charity A but is then sent out by Charity B to its list. The list is not passed over to Charity A—it only gets the names and addresses of those who respond. Exactly the same could be done with services being provided by one disability organisation to the beneficiaries of another. The information can be posted by the charity that has the list of people on behalf of the charity which is willing to perform the service and to help them. So if they are prepared to co-operate and work together, I do not think the amendment is necessary. In fact, I doubt very much whether the Government would agree to it under the data protection legislation. Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The amendment is couched solely and exclusively in terms of benefiting the beneficiaries of a charity. Secondly, the logistical problems of dealing with the matter, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, suggested, are enormous and, for small charities, unsustainable. My sense of this is that the privacy element is minimal. I would be perfectly prepared to bring forward an amendment saying that if somebody actively does not want his or her name to be circulated for the purposes of receiving a potential benefit they should be allowed to do that. But dealing with it the other way round is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and would undo the purpose for which the amendment has been brought forward. I wait to hear what the Minister says. Lord Bassam of Brighton: The purpose of the amendment—to facilitate sharing information between public bodies and disability charities—is laudable, not least because the information gathered will be of benefit to those who use the services of charities which work in this field and do an extremely good job. But there are problems with it. The Joint Committee received a memo from the charity U Can Do I.T., whose concerns I understand. It argued, very ably, about the perception that exists about the Data Protection Act and the way in which it works to prevent a useful transfer of information between government departments and public bodies. There is, however, no general prohibition against data sharing in the Act. It rather sets the standards which such sharing should attain. The first data protection principle states that personal data shall be processed "fairly and lawfully". They must also be processed in accordance with the various conditions set out in the legislation. There are more conditions for sensitive personal data than for data which are not sensitive. If an organisation has trouble complying with the conditions for processing sensitive personal data, it can apply to the Department for Constitutional Affairs for an order. That is the Schedule 3 order mentioned in the amendment. However, in this schedule there is already a basis for organisations to disclose data they hold, if the people affected have given their explicit consent. A Schedule 3 order can be made only if there is an important public interest at stake. There would also need to be specific and suitable safeguards to protect the fundamental rights and privacy of the individual in this case. It is perhaps worth mentioning that if this amendment definitely gave a power to process information, as it looks as if the first paragraph does, then a Schedule 3 order would not be necessary according to provisions in the Data Protection Act. It seems to us that the fundamental problem is that the amendment would put the privacy of disabled individuals at some risk and we do not accept that that can be right. We agree with the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, in his interpretation. There might also be some ECHR implications. A pertinent issue here is the extent to which the potential beneficiary has given their consent to their data being shared. Under the Data Protection Act, bodies which hold lists of disabled people must ensure, among other things and so far as is practicable, that the individuals on that list are provided with a description of the purposes for which the data is to be used and any disclosures of personal data they intend to make. When the disclosure involves sensitive personal data, which includes information relating to an individual"s physical or mental health or condition, then a disclosure should occur only when one of a number of specific conditions is met. Currently, the most relevant condition is when the individual has given his explicit consent to that disclosure. Although it is not clear whether the disclosure would consist of information about an individual"s particular disability, if their name was passed to a charity for the blind, for example, assumptions would arguably be made about condition of their eyesight. Provided that the organisation holding the list of disabled people make it clear that they would like to pass information about the people on their list to a particular charity and provided that they obtain the individual"s consent for this disclosure, the Data Protection Act will not prevent it and the charities such as U Can Do I.T. would receive the referrals that they seek. In addition, when someone is known to be disabled, there is nothing to prevent the body holding the list asking whether they would like some information about relevant charities. That would obviously give them the opportunity to make contact with the relevant charities themselves. However, this amendment extends to arguing that those bodies with lists of disabled people should be allowed to make routine disclosures of information about disabled individuals, regardless of whether that individual has been asked if he would like this disclosure to occur and regardless of any wish he might have to keep information about his disability private and restricted only to those who need to know it. Although we appreciate the good intention of the proposal, we do not believe that it is the case that all charities have a legitimate need to know about the disabilities of everyone who comes into contact with a particular government department, particularly in the case of those individuals who have no interest in the work of that charity, whether they might benefit from it or not. Given that the legislation does not prohibit the sharing of data, in our view it is difficult to justify such an exemption from the fair processing requirements. The fact that somebody is disabled surely cannot mean they should have the choice to determine who processes data relating to their disability withdrawn. The amendment does not work as the noble Lord would seek for it to work. In fact, it probably goes much further than that and could lead to some unintended and harmful consequences. If we accepted the amendment, it would certainly put at risk some people who have a particular disability and who want their privacy and individual circumstances protected and disguised. For those reasons, we could not possibly accept the amendment. Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful for that careful and considerate reply, which I shall study carefully, as will others outside this House. Sometimes I get somewhat depressed to hear the European Convention on Human Rights drawn into every situation, particularly when one is trying desperately to get help to those who need it, as is the case here. Be that as it may, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
U Can Do I.T is extremely grateful to Lord Phillips and Lord Hodgson for the support they gave to the amendment. Because of the election the Charities Bill has now been abandoned. We will be preparing ideas to try and get something along these lines into law when the bill next appears after the election.
3rd March – we had a very successful tutor seminar in the Abbey Community Centre. Full minutes of this meeting are contained elsewhere on this site.
9th March – Trustees Meeting was held on this date. The meeting was well attended. We were also very pleased to have a presentation by Marc Jeffery who does a lot of charitable work in Lambeth and Southwark. Marc was particularly keen that U Can Do I.T should make a special attempt to provide services for disabled people who are in receipt of the direct grant payment scheme. This seems like a very useful proposal and is being followed up by Chris Garbett.
11th March – we had a meeting with Leonard Cheshire in their offices in Millbank. The meeting was chaired by Andy Anderson and covered the progress of the partnership scheme in Kensington and Chelsea. This scheme is progressing very satisfactory and we would like to be in partnership with Leonard Cheshire. Full details of this meeting will appear under a report given by Chris Garbett.
15th March – Chris Garbett and I drove up to Luton to visit the Recycle IT headquarters and discussed their operations with George Ruddock. This was a very satisfactory meeting. We were very impressed with the Re-Cycle I.T factory. They have a large factory area of several thousand feet and have nine employees. Computers come in and out in a very orderly fashion and they have all the latest equipment for debugging machines, taking them out and putting them together again. Recycle IT is a non-profit organisation and have received substantial funding from the Princes Trust. We are in partnership with them and look forward to a long period of cooperation.
In the afternoon of the same day we visited David Blunkett in the House of Commons. We are delighted that David had agreed to present a certificate to Stephen Steppens who took the 10,000th tutorial on 28th November 2004. This was a very successful meeting. David gave us a lot of time. We were able to explain how the charity worked and what we are trying to do.
As a result we have invited David Blunkett to consider becoming The Patron of U Can Do I.T and he has indicated that subject to commitments after the general election he would be delighted to consider this proposal in a favourable light.
16th March – Meeting in the U Can Do I.T offices to discuss the “Connection U” project. This was attended by Alan Buchell, Zoe Jennings and Carl Evans. Chris Garbett presided at the meeting which considered how the project was going. We are progressing well. So far 27 computers have been installed and it was agreed that U Can Do I.T would provide the funding to bring these numbers up to 50 computers. This would be fair evidence of the viability if the pilot project and we would then be able to consider future progress.
17th March – I received a visit in the office from Trevor Yeoman who is the development director of the Shaw Trust. As previously reported we have a pilot project about to get underway with the Shaw Trust in Neath in Wales under which they will recommend local tutors and refer students and we will handle the organisation of the project. Trevor was very impressed by the U Can Do I.T set up and it was agreed that once the pilot project had been evaluated, ways would be found to enable further such schemes to be undertaken between the two charities.
This concludes my report for the month. Unfortunately I was obliged to have a minor operation which kept me out of action until after easter.
