Terms of Service

1. The service

SENCO AI supports authorised education professionals with EHC plan consultation analysis, school-suitability evidence and draft correspondence. It may use retrieval from legislation, statutory guidance and other source material together with third-party language models. References to that material describe grounding and retrieval; they do not mean that customer data is used to train a model.

We may make proportionate changes needed for security, law, provider changes or service improvement. We will give reasonable notice of a material reduction in contracted functionality where practicable.

2. Professional judgement and AI outputs

Outputs are working drafts and decision-support material, not legal advice or an autonomous placement decision. Language models can produce incomplete, inaccurate or outdated content. The customer must ensure that a suitably competent person checks source documents, verifies citations and facts, considers the individual child's circumstances, corrects errors and expressly approves any external response.

Customers must not use the service as the sole basis for a decision that has legal or similarly significant effects on a child. The service must be used consistently with applicable equality, SEND, safeguarding, public-law and data-protection duties.

3. Accounts and authorised users

The customer controls which staff may access its tenant and must keep user and administrator permissions current. Users must use their own account, protect authentication methods, promptly report suspected compromise and not share credentials. We may suspend access where reasonably necessary to contain a security risk, comply with law or investigate material misuse.

4. Customer responsibilities

• Ensure there is a lawful basis, any required special-category condition, appropriate privacy information and an approved DPIA before placing pupil information in the service.
• Upload only information needed for the authorised purpose and apply the customer's own retention, records-management and safeguarding rules.
• Maintain accurate school and user information, review outputs and respond to data-subject requests and complaints for information the customer controls.
• Obtain any internal approvals required by the customer's policies, including information-governance, procurement and AI-governance approvals.

5. Acceptable use

Users must not:

• process information they are not authorised to handle, or use the service unlawfully, unfairly or for discriminatory profiling;
• attempt to bypass tenant isolation, security controls or usage limits, introduce malicious code, or test security without written permission;
• reverse-engineer or scrape the service except to the extent a restriction is prohibited by law;
• resell, sublicense or make the service available outside the customer's authorised organisation; or
• represent an unreviewed output as verified professional or legal advice.

6. Customer data and data protection

As between the parties, the customer retains its rights in customer content. It authorises us and our approved subprocessors to process that content only to provide, secure and support the contracted service and as otherwise documented in the data processing agreement.

For pupil, EHC plan and consultation information, the customer normally acts as controller and TM Advocacy acts as processor. The parties' Article 28 obligations, subprocessors, international-transfer safeguards, assistance and return or deletion arrangements are governed by the data processing agreement. We do not use customer content to train general-purpose AI models.

Our privacy notice, subprocessor register and security overview provide further transparency.

7. Fees and tax

Fees, subscription period, usage limits and payment terms are those in the applicable order. Unless the order says otherwise, fees exclude VAT and are non-refundable once a billing period has begun, except where the agreement or law requires a refund. We will give at least 30 days' notice of pricing changes applying at renewal.

8. Availability and support

We use reasonable skill and care to provide the service. Unless a signed service level says otherwise, continuous or error-free availability is not guaranteed. Maintenance, emergency security work, internet failures and third-party provider incidents may affect access. Customers should retain appropriate business-continuity arrangements for statutory deadlines.

9. Intellectual property and feedback

We and our licensors retain rights in the service, software, design, documentation and non-customer source materials. The customer receives a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right for its authorised users to use the service during the subscription. The customer may use and edit outputs for its internal and statutory work, subject to third-party rights and applicable law. We may use voluntary feedback without identifying the customer or disclosing customer content.

10. Confidentiality

Each party must protect the other's confidential information using reasonable care, use it only for the agreement and disclose it only to people who need it and are bound by confidentiality duties. Exceptions apply to information already lawfully known, public without breach, independently developed or required to be disclosed by law. The DPA sets additional obligations for personal data.

11. Term, suspension and exit

The subscription continues for the period in the order. Either party may terminate for an unremedied material breach after reasonable written notice, or immediately for insolvency where permitted by law. We will limit suspension to what is reasonably necessary and restore access when the cause is resolved.

At exit, export assistance, the retrieval window and return or deletion of customer content follow the order and DPA. Backup copies may remain until their normal protected expiry and will not be restored for ordinary use. Customers should request an export before access ends; these public terms do not promise an unsupported universal deletion period.

12. Liability

Nothing excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Any caps, exclusions and specific indemnities in a signed customer agreement take priority. Otherwise, subject to the previous sentence, neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, and our aggregate liability arising in a contract year is limited to the fees paid or payable for the service in that contract year.

This allocation reflects that the service assists, but does not replace, the customer's professional judgement and statutory responsibility. Customers should obtain legal advice on individual cases where appropriate.

13. General

Neither party is responsible for delay caused by events outside its reasonable control. Neither party may transfer the agreement without the other's consent, not to be unreasonably withheld, except as part of a genuine reorganisation or sale that does not reduce protection. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue. Delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver. No person other than the parties has rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

14. Governing law, changes and contact

English law governs these terms and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, unless a signed agreement says otherwise. We will version these terms and give reasonable advance notice of material changes. Changes do not override a signed agreement without the process specified in that agreement.

Questions may be sent to contact@sencoai.co.uk. Privacy questions should be sent to privacy@sencoai.co.uk.