The Winch

The Winch (The Winchester Project) is a small charity organisation with around 50 employees who work with children and young people across Camden, North London, and the surrounding boroughs. More than 45% of children and young people in Camden live in poverty and The Winch supports the community with a range of activities and services, including afterschool clubs, mentoring, youth clubs and a variety of enterprise programmes. The DPO Centre was approached for a data protection audit to ensure compliance and best practice for handling large volumes of special category personal data. Subsequently, The Winch was successful in securing a grant through The DPO Centre Charity Fund.

Challenge

• High volume of special category data, specifically child/young person data
• Lack of retention periods across the business with information held in paper/digital format

Solution

The appointed Data Protection Officer (DPO) conducted a comprehensive audit, which included a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) to assess the various access controls and risks. Mitigation measures and strategies were recommended, with a clear retention policy for stored personal data documents. The policy was accompanied by a corresponding schedule, which alleviated any previous concerns. To solve the problem of finding data over multiple digital systems, a naming convention was implemented to ensure consistency moving forward. Advice was also given on how best to communicate data privacy topics with children and young people.

Outcome

Soye Briggs, Chief Operating Officer at The Winch, said: “Working with The DPO Centre was rewarding as they stimulated deep dive thinking around our data processes. Their Community Fund enabled us to move forward on one
of our strategic objectives: We learn, adapt and grow. The Data Protection Audit has given us the tools and confidence to adapt, and ensure we remain compliant with UK data protection laws”

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