ESCR Restrictions Policy

This document outlines the policy and procedure for requesting and reviewing restrictions to electronic records stored within the Liquid Logic and CASTLE data systems, this policy describes requests made by the Children's Social Care department, but is also applicable in most respects to requests made by the Communities (Adult Social Care) department.

Click here to view ESCR Restrictions Process Flowchart.

1. The four qualifying categories that would trigger a record to be locked down through Care Secure are:
   • High Profile Case (i.e. Witness protection);
   • Staff Interest Conflict;
   • Adoption;
   • High Risk.
2. New requests for restrictions are made via the IT Self Service Portal in line with the IT Access Approvers List.
3. Fostering records - there are no specific restrictions placed against Fostering records
4. Adoption records - once authorised by the relevant Service Manager only the following roles should be given access to these records:
   • Emergency Duty Team;
   • Placements Team;
   • Insight and Improvement;
   • Safeguarding Heads of Service;
   • Safeguarding Service Managers;
   • SCIMT;
   • IROs;
   • Team Managers and allocated caseworker(s).
5. These records should not under any circumstances be made available to partner organisations. If information related to that individual is required and deemed safe to divulge, it must be authorised by a Service Manager;
6. Restrictions are reviewed on a 90 day rolling process, or unless an earlier date is specified on the request form. This is monitored by the Liquid Logic Team who will produce a report which is then disseminated to Team Managers on a monthly basis (this could be an automated Email). Team Managers then make a decision on whether the restriction is to be revoked, amended or continued;
   1. If a restriction is to be amended approval is sought from a Service Manager and a Support Works Self Service fault is logged;
   2. If a restriction is to be rescinded, approval is sought from a Service Manager for management signoff;
   3. If no changes are needed, nothing happens and the restriction is reviewed at the maximum limit of 90 days.
   Any reporting of this data should only include the unique Liquid Logic ID to reference the individual (i.e. - J123456), under no circumstances should any further information related to that child or young person that may lead to identification be moved to the public domain.