Guidance

Senior Civil Service Database privacy notice

Updated 7 April 2022

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

We will process the following personal and sensitive personal data:

• your name
• your employer
• the postcode (or location) of your place of work. If you are a contractual homeworker only the local administrative unit code (LAU 1) of where your home address is located is processed.
• your contractual home worker status – determined by the use of an LAU 1 code instead of a postcode for the location of your place of work if you are contractual homeworker (see above)
• your payband
• your salary and non-consolidated allowances
• your performance group and non-consolidated performance related payments
• your date of birth
• your ethnicity
• your gender
• your disability status
• your sexual orientation
• your national identity
• your profession and the profession of your post
• the function that you work in
• previous employment information including if you were previously a fast streamer
• your working pattern and hours worked
• the dates that you entered the Civil Service, senior Civil Service and your current post
• your assignment duration and duration status of your post
• the planned end date of your current post
• your grade on entry to the Civil Service
• your line manager’s name
• current employment status including unpaid sick leave
• reasons for leaving including medical retirements
• the route of appointment to your current post
• professional memberships, qualifications and institution of first degree
• your answers to socio-economic background (SEB) questions, specifically:
  the type of secondary school you attended
  the highest qualification of your parent(s) when you were aged 18
  the type of work and the employment category of your parent(s) when you were aged 14
  the number of employees working for your parent(s) employer (or in the organisation that your parent(s) ran) when you were aged 14
  whether your parent(s) supervised other employees when you were aged 14
  whether you were eligible for free school meals during your school years
  whether you feel you come from a higher or lower SEB in relation to others

Purpose

The purpose(s) for which we are processing your personal data is:

• to design and implement workforce strategies and the general management/employment of the Senior Civil Service (SCS) and the functions and professions
• to analyse patterns of attrition for particular posts or groups of posts within the SCS
• for succession planning and deployment decisions
• to monitor performance data for individuals or groups of individuals
• to identify particular skills and experience to aid in workforce planning and to facilitate the targeting of talent management or other development initiatives
• to monitor the effectiveness and competitiveness of Civil Service reward packages by reference to individual skills, performance history, job size and associated remuneration
• to monitor and report management and statistical information to officials across the Civil Service and for use in the public domain including diversity monitoring information
• to report and publish management and statistical information in a non- identifiable aggregated format including diversity monitoring information
• to monitor and understand the career paths of different groups through the SCS

Legal basis of processing

The legal basis for processing your personal data is:

• public task: processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. In this case that is that the Cabinet Office and functional and professional leads are responsible for the central leadership of the SCS and your data is required to enable Cabinet Office and functional and professional leads to carry out this task.

Sensitive personal data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.

The legal basis for processing your sensitive personal data is:

• it is necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between groups of people with a view to enabling such equality to be promoted or maintained (paragraph 8, schedule 1, DPA 2018).

• it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for 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 Cabinet Office provides central leadership for the SCS and requires your information at the centre to monitor and report on equality and diversity across the entire SCS.

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.

Your personal data will be shared by Cabinet Office with:

• approved analytical staff in the Cabinet Office Analysis & Insight Directorate

• approved staff in Civil Service HR and other relevant Civil Service officials with responsibility for the SCS
• functional leads and heads of professions both inside and outside of the Cabinet Office where there is a proportionate and necessary purpose as set out above

We will also share anonymised, aggregate or summary data with other public bodies, and we may publish this, but it will not allow any individuals to be identified.

Your sensitive personal data is not shared beyond approved analysts within the Cabinet Office Analysis & Insight Directorate.

Where you did not provide your personal data

Where you did not provide your personal data it was provided by the department or public body that employs you.

Retention

Your information will be kept for 7 years and after this period retention will be reviewed annually.

Your information forms part of an SCS database to allow for longitudinal analysis.

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

• request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay

• request that any incomplete personal data are completed, including by means of a supplementary statement

• request that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed

• request that the processing of your personal data is restricted in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested)

You have the right to object to:

• the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes

• the processing of your personal data

International transfers

As your personal data is stored on our IT infrastructure, and shared with our data processors who provide email, and document management and storage services, it may be transferred and stored securely outside the European Economic Area. Where that is the case it will be subject to equivalent legal protection through the use of Model Contract Clauses.

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

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

Email: 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

Public Enquiries: Online Contact Form

The Data Protection Officer provides independent advice and monitoring of Cabinet Office’s use of personal information.

The contact details for the data controller’s Data Protection Officer are: dpo@cabinetoffice.gov.uk