Guidance

Civil Service Workforce Team privacy notice

Updated 27 July 2023

This notice sets out how we will use your personal data, and your rights. It is made under Articles 13 and/or 14 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Your data

Data and Purpose

The teams collect, store and use the following personal information to develop Civil Service workforce policy and strategy:

• Exit Interviews require the collection and processing of the following data: name; address, email, telephone number, pay, grade, role in Civil Service, reason for leaving Civil Service, destination after Civil Service and attitudes to working in the Civil Service. This data is collected to produce anonymised and aggregated analytical reports used to determine the potential and varied factors that lead to SCS exits from the Civil Service, as well as the type of destinations and frequency of departures.
• The Civil Service Returners Programme collects and processes the following personal data: CVs and expressions of interest documents. This data is collected for prospective candidates and those on reserve lists. This is to provide audit confirmation of eligibility for the programme and to support the process by which prospective candidates are matched with suitable roles.
• Senior pay cases are applications for remuneration for senior officials at and above £150k that require agreement by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. To process this the following data is collected: name; grade; role title; remuneration details; and CVs. The same categories of data are also collected to enable Pivotal Role Allowance applications to be processed.
• The following data on Special Advisors and Ministers is collected: name; remuneration; length of service; gender; employer; and pension details. This is to inform: calculation and adjudication of severance; uplifts; control assurance; verification of eligibility and personal details; rates of pay; awards and allowances. The information is also used to advise on Ministerial and great offices of state pension schemes issues, correspondence, complaints and FOIs, transparency policies.
• To support the exercise of Cabinet Office controls over exits under the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, and for other severance issues including special severance payments and confidentiality clauses, the following data is collected: name; address; age; employment status; pay; personal circumstances including illness, disability, working pattern, reasonable adjustments; performance; and circumstances of exit.. This is used to advise Ministers where decisions are needed for individual cases or policy issues in the above areas.
• Data is processed for ad hoc queries on policy and HR queries in relation to individual cases - this may include name, role title and remuneration details. Information is also processed to support responses to correspondence and complaints.

The legal basis for processing

The legal basis for processing your personal data is that it is:

• Necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller, such as the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department; the exercise of a function conferred on a person by an enactment; the exercise of a function of either House of Parliament; or the administration of justice.
• Necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject. This includes compliance with the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and the Equality Act 2010.
• Necessary for the appropriate and accurate calculations on the aforementioned pay issues such as severance pay to take place.
• Necessary to comply with a legal obligation placed on us as the data controller such as a FOI request.

Recipients

As your personal data will be stored on our IT infrastructure it will also be shared with our data processors who provide email, and document management and storage services.

We will use or share personal information in the following circumstances:

• Whilst providing advice to Ministers or senior officials on individual cases (such as exit cases or senior salary controls)
• With a small number of analysts in Cabinet Office Analysis & Insight team or Civil Service Employee Policy to produce analysis to inform the development of workforce policy or strategy
• In the form of anonymised and aggregated data included in reports at the request of Ministers or senior officials to inform policy development
• To respond to ad hoc queries on policy and HR queries in relation to individual cases, correspondence and complaints.

Retention

We will only retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means and the applicable legal requirements. In some circumstances, we will anonymise personal information so that it can no longer be associated with individuals, in which case we will use such information without further notice.

Your rights

You have the right to request information about how your personal data are processed, and to request a copy of that personal data.

You have the right to request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay.

You have the right to request that any incomplete personal data are completed, including by means of a supplementary statement.

You have the right to request that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed.

You have the right in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested) to request that the processing of your personal data is restricted.

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes.

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data.

You have the right to withdraw consent to the processing of your personal data at any time.

You have the right to request a copy of any personal data you have provided, and for this to be provided in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

Complaints

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

0303 123 1113

casework@ico.org.uk

Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.

Contact details

The data controller for your personal data is the Cabinet Office. The contact details for the data controller are:

Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS

0207 276 1234

publiccorrespondence@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

The contact details for the data controller’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) are:

Stephen Jones
DPO
Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS

dpo@cabinetoffice.gov.uk