Privacy notice for job applicants

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  2. Privacy notice for job applicants

What is the purpose of this document?

This privacy notice explains the type of personal data we collect from job applicants and the basis for processing that data. This does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time.

The National Lottery Community Fund is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. This notice is important if you are applying to work with us (whether as an employee, worker, or contractor). It makes you aware of how and why your personal data will be used, namely for the purposes of the recruitment exercise, and how long it will usually be retained for. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under data protection legislation.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law and principles, which means that your data will be:

  • Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
  • Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
  • Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
  • Accurate and kept up to date.
  • Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
  • Kept securely.

The kind of information we hold about you

In connection with your application for work with us, we will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

  • The information you have provided to us in your curriculum vitae and covering letter.
  • The information you have provided on our application form, including name, title, address, telephone number, personal email address, date of birth, gender, National Insurance number, employment history, education and qualifications, skills and experience relevant to the role
  • Interview details including any information you provide to us during an interview, notes of interviewers, dates and times.
  • Information relating to selection tests.
  • Contact details for references.

We may also collect, store and use ‘special category’ personal data as part of the recruitment process.

Information we collect includes:

  • Information about your ethnic origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation and religion or belief.

How we will use information about you

We will use the personal information we collect about you to:

  • Assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the role.
  • Carry out background and reference checks, where applicable.
  • Communicate with you about the recruitment process.
  • Keep records related to our recruitment processes.
  • Comply with legal or regulatory requirements.

It is in our legitimate interests to decide whether to appoint you to a role since it would be beneficial to our business to appoint someone to that role.

As a public sector body responsible for administration and allocation of funding and related activities, we may also need to process your data to pursue our legitimate organisational interests, for example to prevent fraud. The Fund is a member of CIFAS, the UK’s Fraud prevention service, and the Fund will check all prospective employees’ details against fraud prevention databases. Should information be held on those databases then the job offer may be withdrawn.

We also need to process your personal information to decide whether to enter into a contract of employment with you.

Having received your CV and covering letter, your application form and the results from the test, where relevant, we will then process that information to decide whether you meet the basic requirements to be shortlisted for the role. If you do, we will decide whether your application is strong enough to invite you for an interview. If we decide to call you for an interview, we will use the information you provide to us at the interview to decide whether to offer you the role. If we decide to offer you the role, we will then take up references and/or a CIFAS fraud check before confirming your appointment.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

We are committed to recruiting, retaining and developing a workforce that reflects the diverse communities that we serve. It is vital that we monitor and analyse this information so that we can ensure that our HR processes are fair, transparent, promote equality of opportunity, meet our legal requirements under equality legislation, and do not have an adverse impact on any particular group. No information will be published or used in any way which allows any individual to be identified.

We will also ask about any adjustments that may be needed so we can make our recruitment process accessible.

If you apply for a position in Northern Ireland we will collect information on community background as required by the fair Employment NI Act 1989 and Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

Information about criminal convictions

We envisage that we will process information about unspent criminal convictions.

We will ask you to declare any criminal conviction which is not ‘spent’. Information relating to unspent criminal convictions may be relevant in deciding whether to proceed with an application or make/continue with any offer of employment, dependent on the role and circumstances.

How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information about candidates from the following sources:

  • You, the candidate.
  • Our online application tracking system.
  • Via a recruitment agency.
  • Via online fraud prevention databases
  • Your named referees.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide information when requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully. For example, if we require references for this role and you fail to provide us with relevant details, we will not be able to take your application further.

Automated decision-making

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.

Data sharing - Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We may share your personal data with organisations which help us to carry out our recruitment activities. For example, organisations which support our IT software and systems may also have access to personal data. In each case, we will only share personal data needed to carry out their work, and will do so subject to appropriate safety measures that are designed to ensure your personal data remains secure and is only used for the intended purpose.

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need-to-know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention - How long will you use my information for?

If you are made a job offer, we will provide you with a further privacy notice which will explain how long we will retain your candidate personal data for and how we collect and process personal data from the point the offer is accepted.

In the event of a job offer not being made, we will retain your personal data for up to two years following completion of our recruitment process. We retain your personal information for that period so that we can show, in the event of a legal claim, that we have not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that we have conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. After this period, we will securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our data retention policy.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  • Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  • Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct, or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact PeopleTeam@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk

Data protection officer – Contact Details

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions, queries or complaints, and to exercise your personal data rights, please in the first instance contact the DPO at data.protection@tnlcommunityfund.org.uk or by writing to the Data Protection Officer at The National Lottery Community Fund, 2 St James’ Gate, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4BE.

You also have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office – contact details below – which regulates the processing of personal data.

You can contact the information commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113 or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email or at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF