The Department for Education (DfE) encourages maintained schools and academy trusts to collect and publish diversity data for their boards and local committees. The data should be accessible to the school community, but individual identities must not be discernible, especially when there are fewer board members.

At GovernorHub, we’ve expanded the range of data we collect through user profiles and introduced an anonymous Board Diversity Data download to help boards collect and report diversity information securely.

While GovernorHub already has strong data protection measures, we’ve added extra safeguards for this sensitive Personal Information data, which includes:

🔒 Restricted Access
Only you, the user, can access and edit your personal information. Admins cannot view or update this data.

🔒 No Unauthorised Access
Our team members do not access or modify personal information during normal operations, and any access to this data is strictly controlled.

🔒 Data Separation
Personal data is stored separately from other GovernorHub data, reducing the risk of accidental access.

🔒 Extra Safeguards
Additional measures ensure your personal data is protected from inappropriate access.

Our system is designed to anonymise personal data automatically when it’s processed:

🔒 Separation of Data
Each piece of personal data (e.g. date of birth) is stored anonymously, disconnected from your name, religion, sex, etc. Your data is grouped alongside others, making individual identification impossible.

🔒 Board-Based Grouping
Only the board name is linked to the data. Reports will only show data for boards with three or more members who’ve entered their information.

🔒 Data Grouping for Privacy
For example, instead of showing exact ages, data will be grouped by age ranges (e.g., 20-49, 50+), ensuring privacy is maintained.

🔒 Percentages Instead of Numbers
The report will display percentages (e.g., 66% aged 20-50, 33% 50+) rather than actual numbers, further safeguarding anonymity.

To help meet DfE requirements, we've ensured board diversity reports are available to all users—not just admins. However, we’ve added extra precautions to remind users to handle the data responsibly:

🔒 Filtered Reports
Reports will only include data from board members who are allocated to the board’s constitution and have a live term of office.

🔒 Threshold for Data Inclusion
Reports are only generated if three or more members have entered their personal information. This ensures the data isn’t too specific.

🔒 No Data for Small Groups
If fewer than three members enter data for a specific question (e.g., ethnicity), that data won’t appear in the report.

🔒 Responsible Reporting
When downloading diversity reports, users will be reminded of their responsibility to handle the data with care and respect for confidentiality.

To learn more about why we’re collecting this data and the specific questions we’re asking, you can read our detailed articles:

By adhering to these measures, we ensure the collection and reporting of diversity data is done in a secure and responsible way, protecting users’ privacy while supporting transparency and compliance with DfE guidance.