Recruitment and employment data privacy notice

As part of its recruitment process, Lancaster City Council collects, processes and stores personal information about you in order to assess your application, perform pre-employment screening and comply with employment law and other legal obligations.

We are committed to protecting your privacy, and this statement is made in the light of the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 and the Data Protection Act 2018 in order to advise you how we use your personal information.

When do we collect information?

We collect information from you when you complete your application form and provide other supporting documents, and may also collect information from you when you contact us by letter, email or telephone, or sign up to our apprenticeship mailing list. You do not have to provide any of the information we ask for, but it may adversely affect your application if you don’t.

If your application progresses to the next stage, we will collect further information as part of the recruitment process (e.g. during the interview or aptitude testing).

If you are then offered a role we will collect the information you provide us within the pre-placement checks (e.g. the personal details form).

Occasionally we use recruitment agencies to find candidates for specific roles. In these cases we will also have access to any information they have passed us which is relevant to your application.

We also collect information from certain third parties as part of the pre-employment screening process, including:

• Contacting your referees to obtain a reference
• Conducting criminal record checks, where appropriate
• Checking your driving licence information with the DVLA, where driving is essential to your role
• Obtaining medical clearance via our occupational health provider, People Asset Management

By completing the referees section of our application form, you are consenting for us to contact your referees to obtain a reference prior to your employment with us. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time, but this will potentially affect any offer of employment we have made to you.

What information do we collect?

We collect the following information about you:

• Basic personal information including name, address and contact details
• Work history, including previous employers, positions, dates, etc
• Education history, including professional qualifications and skills
• Nationality/right to work information (e.g. passport, National Insurance Number)
• Results of any tests you complete as part of the recruitment process
• Any other information you provide during the recruitment process
• Certain information considered “sensitive”, including information about your health, criminal record, sexuality, religious beliefs and ethnic origin

How do we use this information?

We use the information we collect about you in order to administer your application, assess your suitability for the role, to fulfil certain legal obligations relating to employment and to contact both yourself and your emergency contact.

By signing up for our apprenticeship mailing list, you are consenting for us to contact you with relevant apprenticeship opportunities. You can opt-out at any time by contacting us.

The sensitive information we request is used for the following purposes:

• Health and disability information – to allow us to make reasonable adjustments to enable you to complete the application process or start working for us, and to monitor our equal opportunities policies
• Criminal record information – to ensure you are suitable for the role, and to fulfil certain legal obligations
• Information about your sexuality, religious beliefs and ethnic origin – to monitor our equal opportunities policies

Where possible, data collected for equal opportunities monitoring purposes is anonymised after it has been collected.

If you are offered a position with us, we will retain your application form, references and any other information relevant to your continuing employment with us on your permanent employee record, which is kept for the purpose of administering your continuing employment with us.

Your permanent employee record will then be held for six years from your leaving date.

If your application is not successful, we may retain your application form for up to six months in order to ensure fairness in our recruitment processes.

We will not use any information about you for any purpose other than those listed above.

Do we share your information with anybody else?

Information you provide to us may be hosted on servers owned by our third party suppliers, including JobsGoPublic and NGA Human Resources. These suppliers only use your data on our instructions. They won’t use it for any other reason, will look after it in the same way we would, and will destroy any personal data they hold as soon as it is no longer required.

We sometimes need to pass basic personal information (e.g. your name and address) to your referees, or to criminal records’ disclosure services (including the Disclosure and Barring Service and Disclosure Scotland), in order to carry out pre-employment screening checks. It may also be passed onto your direct line manager, for operational purposes. 

We will never contact your referees until you have been offered and verbally accepted a role with us.

We will not share your information with anyone else unless we are required to do so by law.

Your rights and how to find out more

You have a number of rights under data protection law, including the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, and the right to object to our use of your information in certain circumstances. For further information about your rights, how the council uses your information, and how to get in touch if you have a query or complaint, please see the council’s main privacy notice.

We reserve the right to amend this privacy notice at any time. However, we take your privacy very seriously and will never change our policies or practices to make them less protective of your personal information. 

If we make any changes to this policy that significantly affect you, we will aim to notify you directly if we hold contact details for you. You will always find the most up-to-date version of this policy on this page.

Last updated: 22 February 2024