Employee Privacy Notice

Horsham District Council collects and processes personal data relating to its employees to manage the employment relationship. The council is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

This Notice explains how personal information is going to be used, what it is used for, who it might be shared with and why and for how long it is to be kept.

Horsham District Council (HDC) is fully committed to complying with The Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  We ensure that your personal data is processed fairly, lawfully kept safe and secure and retained for no longer than is necessary.

The Data Protection Officer for HDC is the Head of Legal and Democratic Services.

If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information please contact the Data Protection Officer at dpa@horsham.gov.uk

What information does the council collect?

The council collects and processes a range of information about you. This includes:

• your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number, date of birth and gender;
• the terms and conditions of your employment;
• details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history, including start and end dates, with previous employers and with the council;
• information about your remuneration, and pensions, child care vouchers or cycle to work schemes.
• details of your bank account and national insurance number;
• information about your, next of kin, dependants and emergency contacts;
• information about your nationality and entitlement to work in the UK;
• information about your criminal record;
• details of your work pattern (days of work and working hours) and attendance at work;
• details of periods of leave taken by you, including holiday, sickness absence, family leave and sabbaticals, and the reasons for the leave;
• 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, training you have participated in, performance improvement plans and related correspondence;
• details of your driver’s licence and car and car insurance details for car parking purposes and to confirm you are lawfully able to drive for work purposes;
• information relating to health and safety;
• details of training courses you may have attended, and any certificates issued to you;
• information about medical or health conditions, including whether you have a disability for which the council needs to make reasonable adjustments; and
• equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief.

The council collects this information in a variety of ways. For example, data is collected through application forms; 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.

In some cases, the council collects personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers, our occupational health provider and information from criminal records checks permitted by law.

Data is stored in a range of different places, including in your personnel file, in the council's HR management systems and in other IT systems (including the council's email system).

Why does the council process personal data?

Horsham District Council needs to process 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 data to provide you with an employment contract, to pay you in accordance with your employment contract and to administer relevant benefit entitlements.

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 an employee's entitlement to work in the UK, to deduct tax, to comply with health and safety laws and to enable employees to take periods of leave to which they are entitled. For certain positions, it is necessary to carry out criminal records checks to ensure that individuals are permitted to undertake the role in question.

In other cases, the council has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the employment relationship. Processing employee data allows the council to:

• run recruitment and promotion processes;
• maintain accurate and up-to-date employment records and contact details (including details of who to contact in the event of an emergency), and records of employee contractual and statutory rights;
• operate and keep a record of disciplinary and grievance processes, to ensure acceptable conduct within the workplace;
• operate and keep a record of employee performance 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 employees are receiving the pay or other benefits to which they are entitled;
• obtain occupational health advice, to ensure that it complies with duties in relation to individuals with disabilities, meet its obligations under health and safety law, and ensure that employees are receiving the pay or other benefits to which they are entitled;
• operate and keep a record of other types of leave (including maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave), to allow effective workforce management, to ensure that the council complies with duties in relation to leave entitlement, and to ensure that employees are receiving the pay or other benefits to which they are entitled;
• ensure effective general HR and business administration including accounting and auditing;
• provide references on request for current or former employees;
• statutory reporting
• respond to and defend against legal claims; and
• maintain and promote equality in the workplace

Where the council relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it has considered whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of employees or workers and has concluded that they are not.

Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, is processed to carry out employment law obligations (such as those in relation to employees with disabilities and for health and safety purposes).

Where the council processes other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health 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 the express consent of employees, which can be withdrawn at any time. Employees 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 data?

Your information will be shared internally, including with members of the HR team  (including payroll), 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.

The council shares your data with third parties in order to obtain pre-employment references from other employers and to obtain necessary criminal records checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service.

The council also shares your data with third parties that process data on its behalf, in connection with payroll; the provision of benefits; the provision of occupational health services; counselling services and training information including provision of an electronic learning management system.

How does the council protect data?

The council takes the security of your data seriously. The council has 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 its employees in the performance of their duties.

Where the council engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, 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.

For how long does the council keep data?

The council will hold your personal data for the duration of your employment and a full list of retention periods for categories of data are held in the Data Retention Schedule.

Your rights

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

• 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; and
• 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.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, you will find further information on our Privacy Policy via the link. You can make a subject access request by completing the council’s Subject Access Request Form.

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

If you do not provide personal data

You have some obligations under your employment contract to provide the council with data. You are required to report absences from work and may be required to provide information about disciplinary or other matters under the implied duty of good faith. You may also have to provide the council with data to exercise your statutory rights, such as in relation to statutory leave entitlements. Failing to provide the data may mean that you are unable to exercise your statutory rights.

Certain information, such as contact details, your right to work in the UK and payment details, must be provided to enable the council to enter a contract of employment with you. If you do not provide other information, this will hinder the council's ability to administer the rights and obligations arising as a result of the employment relationship efficiently.

Last updated: August 2023