Privacy Notice - Recruitment

This privacy notice outlines for prospective employees and workers the personal data that the Council proposes to hold relating to them, how they can expect their personal data to be processed and for what purposes.

As part of any recruitment process, the Council collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The Council is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.  Data will be:

  • used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
  • collected only for valid purposes and not be used in a way that is incompatible with those purposes;
  • accurate and amended on request;
  • held securely;
  • kept as long as necessary and for the purposes we have told you about.

What information does the Council collect?

The Council collects a range of information about you. This includes:

  • your name, title, address and contact details, including personal email address and telephone number;
  • details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
  • information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
  • whether or not you have a disability for which the Council needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process or to enable you to undertake the role;
  • information about your entitlement to work in the UK;
  • information about your health, including any medical condition and sickness records;
  • information about criminal convictions and offences; and
  • equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your age, gender, race or ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief.

The Council may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms or CVs, from recruitment agencies, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment, including online tests.

The Council may also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers and your named referees, information from employment background check providers, information from Occupational Health and information from criminal records checks.  The Council will seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made and will inform you that it is doing so.

Data will be stored in a range of different places, including on your application record, in HR management systems and on other IT systems including email.

Why does the Council process personal data?

The Council needs to process data about you to:

  • assess your skills, qualifications, experience and suitability for the role;
  • carry out background and reference checks, where applicable;
  • communicate with you about the recruitment process;
  • keep records relating to our recruitment process;
  • comply with legal or regulatory requirements.

The Council has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from job applicants allows the Council to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer the role.

In some cases, the Council needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.  The Council may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

The Council may process information about whether or not applicants are disabled to make reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

Where the Council processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes. This information is separated out from your application form prior to the short-listing stage and the Council is putting in place steps to pseudo anonymise this (data will be matched to an identifier rather than to a name). 

The Council confidentially processes information about live criminal convictions and offences in accordance with the law.  For certain roles the Council undertakes enhanced, standard or basic DBS checks if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so.  It does so because it is necessary for it to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment and for recruitment monitoring purposes.

Automated decision-making

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. The Council does not use automated decision-making within the recruitment process.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be shared for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, and managers in the business area with a vacancy.  On occasion IT or audit staff may have access to data, if it is necessary for the performance of their roles.

The Council will not normally share your data with third parties until the point at which your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment.  Occasionally the Council may engage with a third party to assist with the selection or interviewing processes, if this is the case your data may be shared with them.  The Council will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks, Occupational Health with regards to pre-employment medical checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks.

In certain circumstances we may share your personal data with our employment solicitors, ACAS or an employment tribunal or other court.

The Council will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

How does the Council protect data?

The Council takes the security of your data seriously. It has internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed and is not accessed except by our employees or third parties in the proper performance of their duties.  

Where the Council engages third parties to play a part in the recruitment process or to undertake pre-employment checks, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.

The Council has in place procedures to deal with any suspected or actual data security breach and we will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected or actual breach where we are legally required to do so.

For how long does the Council keep data?

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your employee file and retained during your employment. The periods for which your data will be held during and post-employment is outlined in the Council’s Employee Privacy Statement and the HR documents retention schedule which will be made available to you once to commence employment.

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the Council will hold your data on file for up to 7 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process with the exception of online applications which will be held for 1 year following the recruitment process being closed.  At the end of that period your data is deleted or destroyed.  During that time, if you have given your permission, the Council may contact you about alternative relevant employment.  All Council external vacancies are advertised on the Council’s website and you are encouraged to proactively apply for vacancies of interest to you.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

  • request access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
  • require the Council to change incorrect or incomplete data;
  • require the Council 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 where the Council is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing;
  • ask the Council to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the Council's legitimate grounds for processing data; and
  • request the transfer of your information to another party.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer DPO@testvalley.gov.uk

If you believe that the Council has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to the Council during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, the Council may not be able to process your application properly or at all.

This recruitment privacy statement complies with the principles of Data Protection and the General Data Protection Regulations.