Why do we collect data?
The Monitoring Officer, who is also the Council's Deputy Chief Executive has three main functions:
- to report on matters they believe are, or are likely to be, illegal or amount to maladministration;
- to be responsible for matters relating to the conduct of Councillors and officers; and
- to be responsible for the operation of the Council's Constitution.
What legally allows us to collect your data?
Depending upon the circumstances and the type of data we collect, we rely on the following as the legal basis to collect your data:
Article 6 processing
- necessary to comply with legal obligations to which we are subject
- necessary for our legitimate interests.
Article 9 processing
- explicit consent is given by you
- processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or where courts are acting in their judicial capacity.
Data Protection Act (2018)
- Paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 2 – processing is exempt if required to be disclosed by law or in connection with legal proceedings.
What data do we collect?
The data we collect depends on which of the three main functions the Monitoring Officer is carrying out. We may frequently collect:
- your personal contact details
- information to enable us to check and verify your identity to comply with our legal obligations (e.g. your date of birth, passport details)
- We may sometimes collect the following:
- details of your spouse / partner / dependents and / or other family members
- criminal records data (where permitted by law and appropriate to do so) such as the existence of prior criminal offences when we are dealing with criminal proceedings
- information relating to your (or those of your family members) education / health / medical records / religious or similar beliefs / housing information / significant events or dates / family background, cultural or identity information where these directly relate to our instructions
- The list above is not exhaustive. However the data we collect will always be proportionate.
Why do we use your data?
We use your personal data for the following purposes:
- to communicate with you
- to provide legal advice to other teams within the Council, elected members and the Council as a whole
- to undertake civil or criminal litigation (including any statutory appeals) on behalf of the Council and to prepare litigation documents
- to maintain our own financial accounts and records
- to help us manage our practice and statutory returns to meet legal and regulatory requirements imposed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and / or Law Society
- to enable us to instruct other professional advisers and expert witnesses in connection with the case
- to respond to a complaint.
Sharing your data
During the course of our work we may need to disclose some information to parties outside the Council. We are likely to provide information to:
- a court or tribunal including any organisation which deals with statutory appeals
- legal counsel (i.e. barristers), Solicitors or non-legal experts where they are acting either on your behalf or on behalf of the Council
- other public authorities or agencies
- government departments, such as HMRC
- translation agencies (if required)
- any disclosure required by law, in particular in relation to the prevention of financial crime of terrorism.
In addition, the Monitoring Officer may use case management software to track and monitor progress on our cases. The data contained in our case management software is held on the Council's servers.
We only allow our service providers to handle your data where we are satisfied that they take appropriate measures to protect your data.
We will never sell your personal data.
How long do we keep your personal data?
We will retain the information in accordance with statutory retention periods and the Council's Data Retention Policy and Data Retention Schedule.
Your rights and your personal data
Please see our main privacy notice for more details of your rights:
- to be informed
- to access your personal data
- to rectify your personal data if it is incorrect
- to restrict our processing of your personal data.