Overall statement
This privacy notice is for staff (employees, contractors, agency workers, volunteers), and prospective staff (new recruits and applicants), of Warwickshire County Council (WCC). Service-users should view the customer privacy notice.
Warwickshire County Council collects and processes personal data relating to its staff (employees, contractors, agency workers, volunteers), and prospective staff (new recruits and applicants), to manage our working relationship with you. We are committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses your personal data and to meeting its data protection obligations.
Warwickshire County Council is a Data Controller under data protection legislation. We will comply with the data protection principles when gathering and using personal information.
What personal data do we collect?
We collect and process a range of information about you. This includes:
- your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number
- your date of birth
- gender
- the terms and conditions of your employment/contract/agreement
- details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history, including start and end dates, with previous employers and with Warwickshire County Council
- any Reserve Forces employment or Cadet Force Adult Volunteer commitments
- for employees, information about your remuneration, including entitlement to benefits such as pensions or insurance cover
- where applicable, details of your bank account and national insurance number
- information about your marital status, next of kin, dependants and emergency contacts
- your nationality and entitlement to work in the UK
- where applicable, information about your criminal record, if you have one
- details of your schedule (days of work and working hours) and attendance at work
- details of periods of leave taken by you, for example, holiday, sickness absence, family leave, study leave, paid/unpaid leave for Reserve or Cadet Forces commitments, and the reasons for the leave
- details of any Reserve Forces mobilisation
- details of any disciplinary or grievance procedures in which you have been involved, including any warnings issued to you and related correspondence
- assessments of your performance, including appraisals, performance reviews and ratings, performance improvement plans and related correspondence
- information about medical or health conditions, including whether or not you have a disability for which Warwickshire County Council needs to make reasonable adjustments
- Where applicable or if consent is given, equality and diversity monitoring information, for example information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief
Warwickshire County Council are legally required to collect details of the Covid vaccination status of those members of staff who are required to enter Care Home settings in their professional capacity.
For all other members of staff, Flu and Covid vaccination dates are provided by consent.
Warwickshire County Council may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be collected through application forms or CVs; obtained from your passport or other identity documents such as your driving licence; from forms completed by you at the start of or during employment (such as benefit nomination forms); from correspondence with you; or through interviews, meetings or other assessments.
Warwickshire County Council may also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers, information from employment background check providers, information from Reserve or Cadet Force organisations/Units, information from credit reference agencies and information from criminal records checks permitted by law.
Staff ID badge numbers (nb. NOT staff names), will in very limited circumstances where WCC staff are providing building management services to non-WCC building tenants, be shared securely with managers of those tenants.
Where will your personal data be stored?
Your personal data will be stored in a range of different places, including in electronic and paper personnel files, in the Council's HR and Finance management system, and in ICT systems such as email, network management, document and/or case management systems. Documentation relating to staff who have left the Council may be held in paper format under contract by our secure off-site storage provider.
Why does Warwickshire County Council process your personal data?
For employees, the Council needs to process personal data to enter into an employment contract with you and to meet its obligations under your employment contract. For example, it needs to process your personal data to provide you with an employment contract, to pay you in accordance with your employment contract and to administer benefit, pension and insurance entitlements. It needs to process data to ensure it is complying with its legal obligations.
In some cases, such as volunteers, the Council needs to process personal data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to check your entitlement to work in the UK, to comply with health and safety laws.
In other cases, Warwickshire County Council has a legitimate interest in processing your personal data before, during and after the end of our working relationship with you. Processing your personal data allows us to:
- run recruitment and onboarding processes
- maintain accurate and up-to-date records and contact details (including details of whom to contact in the event of an emergency), and records of your contractual and statutory rights if applicable
- operate and keep a record of disciplinary and grievance processes, to ensure acceptable conduct within the workplace
- operate and keep a record of your performance, including staff recognition (e.g., long service awards, compliments) and related processes, to plan for career development, and for succession planning and workforce management purposes
- operate and keep a record of absence and absence management procedures, to allow effective workforce management and ensure that you are receiving the pay or other benefits to which you are entitled
- obtain occupational health advice, to ensure that we comply with duties in relation to individuals with disabilities, meet our obligations under health and safety law, and ensure that you are receiving the pay or other benefits to which you are entitled
- operate and keep a record of other types of leave (including maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave as well as Reserve or Cadet Forces paid/unpaid leave), to allow effective workforce management, to ensure that we comply with duties in relation to leave entitlement, and to ensure that you are receiving the pay or other benefits to which you are entitled
- to support staff wellbeing
- operate and keep a record of any Reserves Forces mobilisation to ensure we comply with legislation and duties in relation to leave entitlement, pay, pensions and continuous service
- ensure effective general HR and business administration
- do analysis of data in order to plan the development/improvement and provision of services, and to monitor service performance
- provide references on request for current or former staff
- respond to and defend against legal claims
- staff benefit provision (such as staff benefit schemes).
Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, is processed to carry out employment law obligations.
Where the Council processes other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. Data that the Council uses for these purposes is anonymised or is collected with your explicit consent, which can be withdrawn at any time. You are entirely free to decide whether or not to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.
Who has access to your personal data?
Your information may be shared internally, including with members of the HR team and the recruitment manager, your line manager, managers in the business area in which you work and IT staff if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles. Your information may also be shared with Insight for internal performance monitoring where you submit service feedback.
The Council shares your personal data with third parties in order to obtain pre-employment references from other employers, obtain employment background checks from third-party providers and obtain necessary criminal records checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Warwickshire County Council also shares your personal data with third parties who process data on our behalf; this includes the following:
- to manage the HR and payroll functions. We share your personal data in order that you receive correct remuneration and benefits and in order to administer your HR employment records.
- to provide occupational health and employee assistance services.
- to provide childcare vouchers, to those who are eligible.
- to manage your performance.
- to provide training and development opportunities.
- to enable you to apply for other roles within Warwickshire County Council.
- to provide access to our IT systems.
How your data is used for the detection and prevention of fraud or crime
Warwickshire County Council is required by law to protect the public funds it administers. We may use any of the information you provide to us for the prevention and detection of fraud. We may also share this information with other bodies responsible for auditing, administering public funds, or where undertaking a public function, in order to prevent and detect fraud. This includes the Cabinet Office, the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Police.
Section 68 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 enables public authorities to disclose information for the purposes of preventing fraud, as a member of a specified anti-fraud organisation or otherwise in accordance with any arrangements made with such an organisation. National Fraud Initiative - more information.
In limited situations we may monitor and record electronic transactions (website, email and telephone conversations). This will only be used to prevent or detect a crime or investigate or detect the unauthorised use of the telecommunications system and only as permitted by the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000.
How does Warwickshire County Council protect your personal data?
The Council takes the security of your personal data seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by Council staff in the performance of their duties. Some of the ways in which we protect your personal data include:
- implementing appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of personal data and information
- ongoing continuous review of data protection and security
- regular review of the Council’s information governance and security policies and procedures
- ongoing training and awareness for staff on information compliance and security
- alignment with codes of conduct, certification schemes and government guidance, including the HMG Security Policy Framework, government baseline security standards and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
- use of the government Supplier Assurance Framework and Crown Commercial Services frameworks when working with suppliers and third parties
- regular review of security and cyber risks.
Where we engage third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so under contract and on the basis of written instructions. Third parties are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data and comply with data protection legislation.
How long does Warwickshire County Council keep your personal data for?
For unsuccessful applicants:
- applications will be held for 6 months after decision.
- interviewing and shortlisting notes will be retained for 6 months after recruitment is finalised.
- interview expenses claim forms, receipts and correspondence will be retained for 6 years from end of the applicable tax/financial year.
For successful applicants:
We will hold your personal data for the duration of your employment. The periods for which your data is held after the end of employment are set out in Warwickshire County Council’s retention schedules (staff only).
Your information rights
As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:
- access and obtain a copy of your data on request
- require us to change incorrect or incomplete data
- require us to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
- object to the processing of your data (in certain circumstances)
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact HR or your line manager or as informed in the service specific privacy notice.
Please note that if you wish to obtain a copy of your personal data, this should be requested through Information Management and the Council’s access to information procedure. The HR team handle Subject Access Requests made by current and past employees.
If you believe that we have not complied with your data protection rights, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer in the first instance at dataprotectionofficer@warwickshire.gov.uk.
You can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are not satisfied with the response.