Fair processing notices - Human resources: learning and development

Learning and Development collects and processes personal data relating to anyone accessing our service, this would include but is not exclusive to council employees, external customers and students to manage the service we provide.

Learning and Development is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses your personal data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council may operate either as a Data Processor or Data Controller (or both) under data protection legislation. We comply with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) principles when gathering and using personal information as set out in the Councils policies and procedures.

Contact information:

Please contact our Learning and Development Manager Katie Russell at learning@stoke.gov.uk for further information should you wish to, about how your personal data is processed.   

What personal data does Learning and Development collect?

Learning and Development may collect and process a range of information about you dependent upon the service provided. This includes:

• Your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number
• Your date of birth and gender
• Your national insurance number
• Details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history, including start and end dates, with previous employers and with Stoke-on-Trent city council
• Information about your criminal record, if you have one.  We require this information to ensure that you are eligible for work.
• Details of and reasons for absence and/or leave taken by you for example, annual leave, flexi time, sickness, bereavement, paternity, maternity, shared parental, emergency, family, study, career break etc.
• Information about medical or health conditions, including whether or not you have a disability for which Learning and Development needs to make reasonable adjustments.
• Alternatlivey, your medical data may be included in a  Staff Award nomination or a management thank you, consent would be sought before using this if it were in this context.
• Details of when you are or have been managed in line with a policy or procedure for example disciplinary, grievance, sickness absence, performance and ill health capacity. The information held may include details of meetings, discussions, correspondence, warnings, remedies, management action and/or other recommendations. Details in relation to assessment of your performance, appraisals, performance reviews and ratings, improvement plans and other related correspondence may also be held.
• Equality and diversity monitoring information.  For example, information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, nationality, marital status and religion or beliefs.  This information is anonymised upon receipt and used for the council’s equality impact report which is publish annually and is a legal requirement for all organisations

How will Learning and Development collect your data?

Learning and Development may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be collected through application forms; from forms completed by you at the start of or during employment; from correspondence with you; from forms completed by you to book onto training; via Higher Education Institutes, schools, colleges or through interviews, from personal documents such as your passport or driving licence, from a Staff Award nomination form, meetings or other assessments.

Learning and Development may also collect personal data about you from third parties, information from employment background check providers and information from criminal records checks permitted by law.

Where will your personal data be stored?

Your personal data will be stored in a range of different places including SharePoint, our Learning Management System (LMS), P-drive, Learning and Development’s email system and possibly in document format.

Why does Learning and Development process your personal data?

Learning and Development needs to process your data in order to maintain the service that we provide which includes but is not exclusive to; providing training, workforce planning support, rewarding and thanking our staff and supporting students with work placements. 

In some cases, Learning and Development needs to process personal data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, Learning and Development produce an equality and diversity workforce report and a gender pay gap report to allow us to fulfil our legal obligation under the equality act 2010 (specific duties and public authroities) regulation 2017.

In other cases, Learning and Development has a legitimate interest in processing your personal data before, during and after the end of your employment relationship with Stoke-on-Trent city council. Processing your personal data allows Learning and Development to:

• Contact delegates booked onto training for a variety of reasons such as to inform them of the cancellation of training
• Maintain accurate training records
• Produce skills matrixes
• Support recruitment processes
• Provide adequate and appropriate placements to students
• Ensure staff  thank you messages are received and to deliver the annual Staff Awards event
• Complete mandatory reports for Department of Education, Department of Health and Skills for Care

• Obtain information relating to any type of disability you may have, to ensure that we comply with making reasonable adjustments where possible for those in attendance to training

• Provide monthly reports for senior managers regarding attendance to training.   
• Ensure effective general Learning and Development and business administration
• Manage disciplinary and grievance cases in line with our procedures and ensure acceptable conduct within the workplace
• Manage performance in line with our procedures, develop improvement plans, identify training needs, plan for career development and succession plan  
• Manage absence and other leave in line with our procedures so you are appropriately supported and receive pay
• Make referrals and obtain occupational health advice, ensure that we comply with our duties as an employer, operate in line with Equality legislation and meet our obligations under Health and Safety Legislation.
• Provide training records on request for current or former employees and external businesses who may have purchased training through us and wish to access their records
• Respond to and defend against issues relating to employee disciplinary proceedings
• To produce service strategies
• Meet a statutory and/or legal requirement.

Where Learning and Development 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 Learning and Development 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
• Your line manager
• Managers from the business area in which you work
• IT staff if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles

Learning and Development also shares your personal data with third parties who process data on our behalf; this includes for the following purposes:

• To manage our LMS system
• Provide adequate and appropriate placements to students
• To manage your performance
• To provide training and development opportunities
• To enable you to apply for other roles within Stoke-on-Trent city council  
• To provide access to our IT systems

• Fulfil the requirements of a contract
• To enable our staff award trophies to be designed
• To allow managers to write thank you cards
• Meet a statutory requirement
• Manage the HR and payroll functions. We share personal information with HMRC and the Pensions Fund in line with our statutory obligations and in order to administer your employment records
• Manage the recruitment process including obtaining pre-employment references from other employers, obtaining where necessary, and employment background checks from third-party providers and in some circumstances obtain a criminal records check from the Disclosure and Barring Service.
• Provide occupational health support and make referrals  
• Provide childcare vouchers, to those who are eligible
• Provide access to external IT systems
• Provide apprenticeships and access to training providers

How does Learning and Development protect your personal data?

Stoke-on-Trent city council takes the security of your personal data seriously. Learning and Development as a team within Stoke-on-Trent city council follow internal policies and controls which are in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by Stoke-on-Trent city council staff in the performance of their duties unless as stated above under ‘third parties’. Some of the ways in which Stoke-on-Trent city council protects your personal data include:

• Implementing appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of personal data and information
• On-going continuous review of security
• Regular review of Stoke-on-Trent city council information assurance and security policies and procedures
• On-going training and awareness for staff on information assurance 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 Stoke-on-Trent city council engages 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 Learning and Development keep your personal data for?

The period for which your data is held after the end of employment are set out in Stoke-on-Trent city council’s retention schedules available online. 

Learning and Development will hold your personal data for the duration of your employment.  The data will be kept for a further 6 years as a minimum term following the termination of your employment. Should the personal data held be related to training of a health and safety nature, this will be kept for 50 years following the termination of your employment.

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 Stoke-on-Trent City Council to change incorrect or incomplete data
• Require Stoke-on-Trent City 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 (in certain circumstances)

Right to be informed – You have the right to know the following:

• What information we intend to collect
• Why we need your information
• The lawful basis under which we can process your information
• How we will process your information
• Whether we share your information
• Who we might share your information with
• Your rights until the law
• How long we will retain your information and how you can contact us

 

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, contact the learning and development manager Katie Russell on 01782 236014 or at Katie.russell@stoke.gov.uk

If you wish to have access to your personal data, this should be requested through the information rights team. The information rights team handles subject access requests made by current and past employees.

If you believe Stoke-on-Trent City council has not complied with your data protection rights, contact our data protection officer in the first instance. You can also complain directly to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Information Commissioner's Office website
 

What if you do not provide your personal data?

You have some obligations under your employment contract to provide Stoke-on-Trent City Council and more specifically Learning and Development with data. Failing to provide the data may mean failure to exercise your statutory rights, you may also be in breach of your responsibilities in relation to the employee code of conduct.