This privacy notice explains how Warwick District Council collects, uses and shares personal information in relation to its employed staff, casual workers and agency staff.

In general, this Privacy Notice will relate to employed staff however aspects will apply to agency staff and other workers.

Data Controller

Warwick District Council (“Council”) is a Data Controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018.  Full contact details are as follows: Warwick District Council, Town Hall, The Parade, Royal Leamington Spa, CV32 4AT.

Data Protection Officer

The Council has designated its Information Governance Manager as its Data Protection Officer and they may be contacted at the address above or by e-mail at information@warwickdc.gov.uk

What personal data do we process?

The type of personal data we hold about you will include both personal data and sensitive data known as special category data obtained during the recruitment process, the interview, within various forms completed or information obtained during the course of your employment.

Personal data will be stored in a range of places, including on your employee file, in HR management systems and on other IT systems including email.

Examples of information and documents containing your personal data are:

• Job application form
• References
• Contract of employment
• Evidence to show your entitlement to work in the UK
• Information relating to Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) checks
• Details of criminal convictions
• Information relating to trade union membership
• Correspondence with or about you relating to your employment
• Absence records eg annual leave, sickness, Jury service etc
• HR and Payroll Information system
• Information needed for equalities monitoring
• Next of kin and health details
• Financial information relating to your salary
• Bank details for enabling payments to be made to you
• Staff parking scheme containing details about your vehicle
• Register of Interests 
• Access to building records
• Access to IT records

This list is not exhaustive and we will collect and process all types of personal data for the purposes of your contract of employment with the Council.

What do we do with this personal data?

We need to process your personal data in order to provide services as your employer in order to fulfil the contract of employment between us.  This includes administering payroll, pensions, training and appraisals, monitor equal opportunities, and manage your access into the building, car parks and IT systems and similar services. 

In addition, we have a legal duty to collect, retain and disclose certain information about you, for example to HMRC in relation to your taxation.

Under the Local Government Act 1972 Section 117, a legal duty is imposed on all officers to make a disclosure of interests that are disclosable.

We use special category data such as ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation data to monitor, promote equality and diversity throughout our organisation.  We will also use special category data in relation to disability to enable us to make reasonable adjustments at work.

How do we share this personal data?

In some cases, we need to share information that you give us.  We are legally required to disclose information about you to HMRC in relation to your taxation (to ensure that you are paying the correct amount) and to Warwickshire County Council regarding the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).  We also share your personal information with your managers.  In addition, we share information with the following:

National Fraud Initiative

The Council has a legal duty to submit information to the government as part of the National Fraud Initiative.  The National Fraud Initiative matches electronic data within and between public and private sector bodies to prevent and detect fraud.  These bodies include police authorities, local probation boards, fire and rescue authorities, local councils and a number of private sector bodies.    Further details of the data matching exercise can be found at National Fraud Initiative - GOV.UK and Code of Data Matching Practice for the National Fraud Initiative - GOV.UK.

Occupational Health

The Council operates an Occupational Health Scheme.  Where employees agree to be referred to Occupational Health, we will share personal information with the Occupational Health service provider that may include information relating to your health.

Health & Safety

The Council has statutory duties towards staff and workers under the Health & Safety at Work Act and related legislation.  Where necessary to comply with these duties, including the duty to carry out risk assessments, we will share personal information with the Council’s Health & Safety Manager that may include information relating to health.

Payroll Provider

The mechanism for Payroll is outsourced to Warwickshire County Council (WCC).  We share your personal information with WCC to deliver these services.  For this purpose, WCC is a data processor. 

Electric Vehicle Scheme

The council operates an Electric Vehicle Scheme through NHS Fleet. Personal data is supplied by employees through an external portal. The lawful basis for data processing is consent.

Trust ID

All potential new employees have the option to have a digital Right to Work check undertaken with Trust ID on behalf of the Council.  We will share your personal information in order for this check to be carried out.  Trust ID will then provide the Council with a report confirming the outcome of the right to work check. Alternatively, you can opt to attend our offices in person to provide your Right to Work documentation.

Third parties

Sometimes we will pass information about you to third parties where the law allows it.  For example, we may provide personal information to a prospective employer or to your pension provider if you join the LGPS  pension scheme.  Where another party is responsible for part or all of your employment, we will share personal information about you to the other party.

From time to time we may share your data where we consider that it is in our legitimate interest such as to improve and develop the provision of our services, or to provide training.  In such cases, we will balance our legitimate interest against your right to privacy and only act where we consider that our legitimate interest outweighs the right to privacy.  We will endeavour to keep you informed of any initiative regarding sharing of data or data gathering.

Internal

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and The Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 we have the right to monitor the use of computer and telephone facilities for purposes of preventing and detecting criminal acts, investigating unauthorised use, making sure that policies are being followed and for training and quality control.  In such cases, we may share personal information with Managers and certain members of the IT department.

Register of Interests

Section 117 of the local Government Act 1972 states that we will share personal information to any relevant officers and councillors to make known details of the interest held by you that may be relevant to Council business.

General

In all cases, we will only share your personal data where it is lawful to do so and where we are satisfied that appropriate security measures are in place to keep your personal data safe and secure and processed only in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.

What is our lawful basis for processing?

We rely on a number of lawful bases for processing personal data.  Primarily, our lawful basis is for the performance of the contract between us but in some cases we will process personal data where we are under a legal obligation to do so.  We also rely on legitimate interests in processing personal data (for example where we need to keep a record of employee performance, keep a record of grievance or disciplinary process, records of training, issuing ID cards and monitoring of systems or respond to or defend legal claims).

Where the Council relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it will consider whether or not the interests of the Council are overridden by the rights and freedoms of employees and has concluded that they are not.  The Council will make every effort to inform individuals of instances where personal data will be processed on this basis. 

In some cases, we rely on your consent to process personal information for example where we process information about your vehicle where members of staff wish to benefit from the staff parking scheme. In this case, you can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting the Parking department at parking@warwickdc.gov.uk.  However, by doing so, you will no longer be able to benefit from the staff parking scheme.

From time to time we may ask you to provide your consent to process your data.  In these instances, you are free to withdraw your consent at any time.

Special Category Data

Our lawful basis for processing special category data is as follows:

Trade Union membership to allow any Trade Union membership fees to be deducted from your salary, as applicable. For these purposes, we rely on the following legal bases for processing your personal data:

• for the purposes of our legitimate interests;
• processing is necessary for carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of us or you in the field of employment; and
• processing necessary for the purposes of performing or exercising obligations or rights which are imposed or conferred by law on us or you in connection with employment.

We process other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. For these purposes we rely on the following legal bases for processing your personal data:

• for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest;
• processing necessary for reasons of substantial public interest; and
• processing necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment.

We also process special categories of personal data pertaining to occupational health.  For these purposes, we rely on the following legal bases for processing your personal data:

• for the purposes of our legitimate interests;
• processing is necessary for carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of us or you in the field of employment; and
• processing necessary for health or social care reasons including preventative or occupational medicine.

Information about criminal convictions

• We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so
• Information about criminal convictions and offences will be used to determine if any activities and offences committed create a conflict with your job role, whether the conviction would put you or another individual at risk or potentially expose you or another individual to risk.  We may also consider any criminal conviction or offence when determining your continued employment and your job role.
• We are allowed to use your personal information in this way because it is necessary as part of your contract of employment, and it is necessary for us to carry out the relevant checks in relation to your employment. In some cases, we are under a legal obligation to check for criminal convictions, such as where we are required by relevant safeguarding legislation.

How long do we keep your data?

Records are kept wherever possible in accordance with the Council’s retention policy. 

Your rights

You are entitled to request a copy of any information that we hold about you. We request that you make any such requests in writing. If the information we hold about you is inaccurate you have a right to have this corrected and you have the right to request completion of incomplete data.

You have the right to request that we stop, or restrict the processing of your personal data, in certain circumstances. Where possible we will seek to comply with your request, but we may be required to hold or process information to perform our statutory functions.

You can find further details on our main privacy notice.