With well over 1,000 Multi Academy Trusts in operation, there is no doubt that the approach has provided benefits. The ability to manage some functions on behalf of all of the schools in the trust provides both consistency and hopefully economies of scale. Data protection is frequently an area where trusts have been looking to centralise.
The person who gets assigned the task of managing compliance usually has a range of other roles at the same time. Most often the schools in a trust are at different stages of compliance and there the processes and procedures are anything but consistent.
GDPR Sentry can help Trusts on their journey to compliance, building upon our experience as both system developers and practising data protection officers.
The Sentry System provides a structured, consistent and easy to use tool to manage compliance information and incidents, we use it every day to manage our outsourced DPO clients. But we can provide much more support from audits, delivering expert advice, training and helping with complex tasks like data protection impact assessments.
The Sentry System has been designed to make the task of managing compliance easier. It does this by providing step by step forms to record incidents, log SARs and document your data mapping and even deliver awareness training to staff. Every school can get benefit from these time saving modules.
For trusts the problem is larger and more complex. You need to be able to get a clear picture of how the schools in the trust a are getting on, but also be able to jump in and provide support at the appropriate time. The Sentry System is setup to provide the balance of collaborative working while keeping access to information to only those who need it.
Using Sentry means that each school follows a consistent approach and you can easily navigate between the schools in the Trust. Our new alerting feature means that you’ll get a heads up if any of your schools log a breach or a SAR and a reminder to ensure that the work is completed on time.
Let’s face it, we all need a bit of help sometimes and managing GDPR is no exception. Whether you’re an experienced DPO looking for a second opinion on a specific issue, looking for a regular source of data protection advice or to find someone to lift the full responsibility off your shoulders, we can help.
GDPR Sentry can become part of your data protection compliance team and fit in with how you want to manage your Trust. We can provide support directly to your schools, or be on call to back you up during an incident.
You can find out more on our DPO services pages, or get in touch to arrange a conversation with one of our senior consultants.
You’re dealing with compliance for the trust and all it’s schools and a good deal of work is going into reaching the new standards. The next question is how well are we doing on that journey? Auditing is one method to get answers to this question, but not all audits are the same.
We specialise in being able to evaluate whether processes and procedures are being followed in addition to whether they are in place. Being independent we can ask searching questions without disrupting critical working relationships.
The nature and scope of an audit programme would be agreed with you upfront with results coming back in a report format along with critical actions and recommedations.
Everyone across the trust needs to have had some basic data protection training. Some people need more detail to help them play their part in compliance. Providing training has been a part of our business from day one. We offer courses that are built specifically for organisations in the education sector.
From straightforward 1 hour awareness sessions through courses focused on problem areas like managing data breaches all the way to a full tailored Data Protection Officer Training Programme, we can meet the training needs for the whole trust.
Coming Soon
In and among the day to day tasks of managing GDPR compliance there some that can take a huge amount of resource. If your trust is expanding then you’ll need a programme of work to move the new member onto your compliance programme. Where there is a major system development you need to undertake a data protection impact assessment, or you may be trying to figure out how to reduce the frequency of breaches.
We can provide expert support for these type of projects. People who have experience in education, in data protection and in school systems. We’ll scope a project out and then agree a schedule for delivery.