Human resources privacy notice

Job applicants

Application and recruitment

The College is the data controller for the information you provide during the application and recruitment process unless otherwise stated.

If you have any queries about the process or how we handle your information, please contact us at HR@rcpsych.ac.uk.

What will we do with the information you provide to us?

All of the information you provide during the process will only be used for the purpose of carrying out recruitment, or to fulfil business, disciplinary, legal or regulatory requirements if necessary.

We will not share any of the information you provide during recruitment or which we use for the process of meeting our business, disciplinary, legal or regulatory requirements with any third parties for marketing purposes or store any of your information outside of the United Kingdom.

The information you provide will be held securely by us and/or our data processors whether the information is in electronic or physical format.

We will use the contact details you provide to us to contact you to progress your application. We will use the other information you provide to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for.

What information do we ask for, and why?

We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary.

The information we ask for is used to assess your suitability for employment. You don’t have to provide what we ask for but it might affect your application if you don’t.

We collect:

• title
• first name
• surname
• address
• postcode
• phone number
• home phone
• email address
• whether there are any reasonable adjustments that we need to put into place if invited for an interview
• past employment
• education history
• previous criminal offences
• date of birth (only for diversity monitoring)
• gender (only for diversity monitoring)
• ethnicity (only for diversity monitoring)
• eligibility to work in the UK status.

Each candidate has to provide proof of right to work in the UK prior to an offer being made.

Documents include – passports, visas etc. If you provide this information prior to the interview and you are not appointed, we destroy all copies of these documents immediately.

Assessments

We might ask you to complete tests and/or to attend an interview (Either Competency, Values-based or both) – or a combination of these. Information will be generated by you and by us.

For example, you might complete a written test, or we might take interview notes. This information is held by the College.

If you are unsuccessful following assessment for the position you have applied for, we may ask if you would like your details to be retained by the College for a period of longer than six months.

If you say yes, we would keep your details for the purposes of proactively contacting you should any further suitable vacancies arise.

Offers of employment – conditional and final

If we make an offer of employment we will ask you for information so that we can carry out certain checks.

We are required to confirm the identity of our staff and their right to work in the United Kingdom.

The College also seeks to assure on the trustworthiness, integrity and reliability of employees.

You will therefore be required to provide:

• Proof of your identity – you will be asked to provide our staff with sight of original documents, we will take copies of these documents
• Proof of your qualifications – you will be asked to provide our staff with original documents, which we will need copies of
  
• You will be asked to complete a criminal records declaration to declare any unspent convictions
• We will contact your referees, using the details you provide in your application, directly to obtain references
• Bank details – to process salary payments
• Emergency contact details – so we know who to contact in case you have an emergency at work.

The College will also take your photograph on your first day so that we can upload your photograph, along with your name and job title, onto the staff intranet site as part of the ‘Welcome to the College’ feature.

The same photograph will be used on your identity/access badge to be used in the office at Prescot Street (if you are to be based at that office).

How long is the information retained for?

If you are successful, the information you provide during the application process will be retained by us as part of your employee file for the duration of your employment plus seven years following the end of your employment (with the exception of pension-related data which is a lifetime record).

This includes your criminal records declaration, fitness to work, references.

If you are unsuccessful at any stage of the process, the information you have provided until that point will be retained for six months from the closure of the recruitment process (unless you specify otherwise).

Information generated throughout the assessment process, for example interview notes, is retained by us for six months following the closure of the campaign.

Equal opportunities information is retained for 6 months following the closure of the recruitment process whether you are successful or not.

Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, and Incoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you.

Access to personal information

Staff can find out which personal information we hold by making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection Act 1998 (soon to be GDPR). If we do hold information about you we will:

• give you a description of it
• tell you why we are holding it
• tell you who it could be disclosed to
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a request for any personal information we may hold you need to put the request in writing addressing it to our Data Protection Officer, at the address provided below.

If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone.

Other rights

If we do hold personal data about you, you can:

• Ask for incorrect data to be amended
• Ask for data to be erased where there is no longer an ongoing business need for processing
• Ask for access to your data to be restricted
• Ask for a copy of your personal data in a format that allows you to easily transfer it into another organisation
• Object to the processing of your personal data and your objection will be considered.

Legal basis for processing

The College processes your personal data under the European General Data Protection Regulations (2016/679):

• Article 6(c) – the processing is necessary for a contract we have with you or prior to us entering into a contract with you
• Article 6(c) – the processing is necessary for the compliance with the law
• Article 6(f) – the processing is necessary for us to pursue our legitimate interests and an employer.

Complaints or queries

The College takes any complaints we receive about the way in which we use personal data very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.

If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information you can contact us using the details at the bottom of this notice.

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This Privacy Notice was last updated in January 2024.

How to contact us

If you want to request information about our privacy policy you can email us at dataprotection@rcpsych.ac.uk or at the below address

Data Protection Officer
Royal College of Psychiatrists
21 Prescot Street
London E1 8BB

Privacy notice for staff and secondments

Employees

The College is the Data Controller for the personal information you provide or which is obtained while you are an employee. If you have any queries about the process or how we handle your information please contact HR@rcpsych.ac.uk.

What do we use?

• Name - first, middle and surname
• Marriage certificate if changing surname
• Address
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Nationality
• Mobile number
• Home phone number
• Personal email address
• Date of birth
• Emergency contacts/Next of Kin
• Disability
• Medical condition
• Medication
• NI number
• Passport number
• Bank account number
• Bank sort code
• Sickness details (sickness forms)
• Outside interests (part-time jobs, volunteering etc.)
• Expression of wish (if in pension scheme)
• Dependents details (childcare vouchers, dependents leave)
• Photographs: The College will ask you for a photograph so that we can upload your photograph, along with your name and job title, to the staff intranet site as part of the ‘Welcome to the College’ feature. The same photograph will be used on your identity/access badge to be used in the office at Prescot Street.
• Recordings of meetings

What will we do with your personal data?

The information described above will be used by the College as your employer to meet the terms of your contract of employment, and in the process of meeting business, disciplinary legal or regulatory requirements.

Some examples are:

• Pension provision
• Occupational Health
• Managing disciplinaries
• Paying your salary

Recording of meetings

Some meetings organised by the College attended by staff may be recorded. Recording of meetings is carried out as a backup for minuting purposes. The minutes are the official record of the meeting and as such the recording is deleted immediately after the minutes relating to the recording have been approved. If inappropriate behaviour is captured in a meeting recording, that recording may be retained by the College.

Secondments

We also offer opportunities for people to come and work with us on a secondment basis. We accept applications from individuals or from organisations who think they could benefit from their staff working with us.

Applications are sent directly to the College. Once we have considered your application, if we are interested in speaking to you further, we’ll contact you using the details you provided.

We might ask you to provide more information about your skills and experience or invite you to an interview.

If we do not have any suitable work at the time, we’ll let you know but we might ask you if you would like us to retain your application so that we can proactively contact you about possible opportunities in the future. If you say yes, we will keep your application and it will not be destroyed as normal after six months.

If you are seconded to the College, we will ask that you adhere to a confidentiality agreement and code of conduct which will be agreed with your organisation.

We might also ask you to complete our pre-employment checks which are described above. Whether you need to do this will depend on the type of work you will be doing for us.

It will be retained for the duration of your secondment plus seven years following the end of your secondment.

Use of data processors

Data processors are third parties who provide elements of our Human Resources function for us. We have contracts in place with our data processors.

This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it.

They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

Your personal data will only be shared with a data processor for a specific purpose and only when the College receives a signed contract of employment from you.

The data processors we use are:

• Pension Provider – Standard Life
• Health and Well-Being Package – Medicash and RehabWorks
• Group Income Protection – UNUM
• Helping staff plan for retirement - Punter Southall Aspire
• EZ Labour – ADP
• Payroll Provider - iTrent
• Occupational Health Provider - Lincoln Occupational Health
• Employment Solicitors – Bates Wells Braithwaite

Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, and Incoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you.

Access to personal information

Staff can find out which personal information we hold by making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection Act 1998 (soon to be GDPR). If we do hold information about you we will:

• give you a description of it
• tell you why we are holding it
• tell you who it could be disclosed to
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a request for any personal information we may hold you need to put the request in writing addressing it to our Data Protection Officer, at the address provided below.

If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone.

Other rights

If we do hold personal data about you, you can:

• Ask for incorrect data to be amended
• Ask for data to be erased where there is no longer an ongoing business need for processing
• Ask for access to your data to be restricted
• Ask for a copy of your personal data in a format that allows you to easily transfer it into another organisation if you have provided the information on a consent basis
• Object to the processing of your personal data and your objection will be considered
• Apply for information to be ‘forgotten’.

Other information

Monitoring of emails

The College may on occasion need to access the email accounts of its employees in relation to internal or external proceedings where appropriate.

You can find more information relating to this in the College’s Email Acceptable Use Policy on the intranet.

Complaints or queries

The College takes any complaints we receive about the way in which we use personal data very seriously.

We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.

If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information you can contact us using the details at the bottom of this notice.

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This Privacy Notice was last updated in January 2024.

How to contact us

If you want to request information about our privacy policy you can email us at dataprotection@rcpsych.ac.uk or at the below address:

Data Protection Officer

Royal College of Psychiatrists

21 Prescot Street

London

E1 8BB