How we use your information

This privacy notice explains what to expect when PA Ark Projects Ltd collects personal information. It is relevant to information we collect about:

• Visitors to our websites
• People who contact us by telephone
• People who email us
• People who use our ‘Enquiries’ or ‘Careers’ Enquiry Forms
• People who use our services
• Job applicants, current and former employees
• Your rights
• Complaints or queries
• Access to personal information
• Disclosure of personal information
• Legal basis for processing personal information
• Links to other websites
• Changes to this privacy notice
• How to contact us

Visitors to our websites

When someone visits www.ark-project.org.uk we may use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard Internet log data and information regarding visitor behaviour patterns. We do this in order to gather information such as the number of visitors to each part of the site. This information will only be processed in a way that does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not permit Google to make, any attempt to identify those visiting our website. In any event, if we do intend to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be absolutely transparent about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain precisely what we intend to do with it.

Use of cookies by PA Ark Projects Ltd

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns and it does not identify any individual. We may obtain information about a user’s general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. They help us to improve our Site and to deliver a better and more personalised service. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser, which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you do select this setting, some functionality may become restricted and you may be unable to access certain parts of our Site.

Security and performance

PA Ark Projects Ltd uses a third-party service to help maintain the security and performance of it’s website. To deliver this service it may processes the IP addresses of visitors to the website.

Website

We use a third-party service to publish and maintain our website. We use a standard service to collect anonymous information about users’ activity on the site. An example of this would be the number of users viewing pages on the site. This allows us to monitor and report on the effectiveness of our website and support us in improving it.

People who contact us by telephone

Inbound and outbound calls may be recorded for training and fraud prevention purposes – these are processed in PA Ark Projects Ltd’s legitimate interest.

People who email us

PA Ark Projects Ltd uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) to encrypt and protect email traffic in line with government. If your email service does not support TLS, you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit.

We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send is within the bounds of the law.

People who use our ‘Enquiries’ or ‘Careers’ Enquiry Forms

If you contact us, either through or ‘Enquiries’ or ‘Careers’ pages we will receive an email that contains your name, email address, phone number, subject of the enquiry and details of your message. This information will not be shared with any other organisations, and will only be used for the purposes of your enquiry. Any information gathered will be destroyed after 6 months, unless there is a legitimate reason for keeping it, such as for the purposes of a contract.

People who use our services

PA Ark Projects Ltd offers various services and resources relating to the delivery of social-care services. In order to fulfil contracts, we have to hold the details of the people who have requested our services in order to provide them. However, we only use these details to provide the service to the person or organisation that has requested it and for other closely related purposes.

Where the personal information is not processed on behalf of a client, the data controller of your personal information shall be:

PA Ark Projects Ltd, which is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office with registration number Z3360374.

Job applicants, current and former employees

PA Ark Projects Ltd is the data controller for the information you provide during the process unless otherwise stated. If you have any queries about the process or how we handle your information, please contact us on the details at the bottom of the page.

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

All information you provide during the application process will only be used for the purpose of progressing your application, or to fulfil legal or regulatory requirements if necessary.

We will not share any of the information you provide during PA Ark Projects Ltd’s internal recruitment process with any third parties for marketing purposes. Data sent electronically or processed beyond the initial application will be stored within the European Economic Area by our third-party processors – all processors have appropriate levels of security and organisational controls to meet data protection requirements. 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.

Application Stage

Applications may be received by email, physically by post or through a third-party recruitment agency. We may ask you for your personal details including name and contact details. We will also ask you about your previous experience, education, referees and for answers to questions relevant to the role you have applied for. Our recruitment team will have access to this information.

You may also be asked to provide equal opportunities information. This is not mandatory information – if you don’t provide it, it will not affect your application. This information will not be made available to any staff outside of our recruitment team, including hiring managers, in a way which can identify you. Any information you do provide, will be used only to produce and monitor equal opportunities statistics.

Shortlisting

Our hiring managers will shortlist applications for interview. They will not be provided with your name or contact details or with your equal opportunities information if you have provided it.

Assessments

We might ask you to participate in assessment days; complete tests or occupational personality profile questionnaires; and/or to attend an interview – 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 PA Ark Projects Ltd.

Conditional Offer

If we make a conditional offer of employment we will ask you for information so that we can carry out pre-employment checks. You must successfully complete pre-employment checks to progress to a final offer. We are required to confirm the identity of our staff, their right to work in the United Kingdom and seek assurance as to their trustworthiness, integrity and reliability.

You will therefore be required to provide:

• Proof of your identity – you will be asked to attend our office with original documents, we will take copies.
• Proof of your qualifications – you will be asked to attend our office with original documents, we will take copies.
• You will be asked to complete a criminal records declaration to declare any unspent convictions.
• We will contact you to complete an application for an Enhanced Criminal Record check via the Disclosure and Barring Service, which will verify your declaration of unspent convictions.
• We will contact your referees, using the details you provide in your application, directly to obtain references
• We will also ask you to complete a questionnaire about your health. This is to establish your fitness to work. This is done through a data processor (please see below).

If we make a final offer, we will also ask you for the following:

• Bank details – to process salary payments
• Emergency contact details – so we know who to contact in case you have an emergency at work

Use of data processors

Data processors are third parties who provide elements of our recruitment service 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 unless they have our explicit permission or where there is a legal obligation to do so. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

If you are employed by PA Ark Projects Ltd, relevant details about you will be provided to a number of third-party providers, including our payroll and pensions providers. All employees will be given an appropriate privacy notice to explain this in detail.

How long is the information retained for?

If you are successful, we will retain the informbation you provide during the application process as part of your employee file for the duration of your employment plus 7 years following the end of your employment. This includes your criminal records declaration, fitness to work, records of any security checks and references.

If you are unsuccessful at any stage of the process, your CV shall be retained for up to 24 months and any other information you have provided until that point will be retained for 6 months from the closure of the campaign. If you would prefer us to delete your CV, please let us know by contacting us directly or by contacting our Data Protection Officer on the details at the bottom of this notice.

Information generated throughout the assessment process, for example interview notes, is retained by us for 6 months following the closure of the campaign.

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

When we have no on-going legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

Your rights

Under data protection legislation, you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you.

You can read more about these rights here by clicking here

Complaints or queries

PA Ark Projects Ltd aspires to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this 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. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures.

This privacy notice was drafted with brevity and clarity in mind. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of PA Ark Projects Ltd’s collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to the address below.

If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in their capacity as the statutory body which oversees data protection law – http://www.ico.org.uk/concerns.

Access to Personal information

PA Ark Projects Ltd endeavours to be as open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. Individuals can find out if we hold any personal information by making a ‘subject access request’. 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; and
• Let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a request to PA Ark Projects Ltd for any personal information we may hold you will need to put the request in writing to 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.

If we do hold information about you, you can ask us to correct any mistakes by, once again, contacting our Data Protection Officer.

Disclosure of Personal Information

In many circumstances we will not disclose personal data without consent, unless legally obliged to do or as part of contractual obligations with our customers (where you are a party to the agreement or service).

We may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients:

• Third party services providers and partners who provide data processing services to us or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Policy or notified to you when we collect your personal information.
• To any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
• To a potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Policy;
• To enforce or apply our Terms of Service or other agreements or to protect PA Ark Projects Ltd and its customers (including with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction)
• To any other person with your consent to the disclosure.
• Legal basis for processing personal information

If you are a visitor from the European Economic Area, our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific circumstances in which we collect it.

However, we will normally collect personal information from you only where we have your consent to do so, where we need the personal information to perform a contract with/involving you, or where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.  In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you or may otherwise need the personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person.

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contact with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information).

Similarly, if we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.

Links to Other Websites

This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 24thof May 2018

How to contact us

If you want to request further information about our privacy policy, you can contact us in the following ways:

Email:
dataprotection@ark-project.org.uk

By writing to:
Data Protection Officer
PA Ark Projects Ltd
Abelands House
Merston
Chichester
West Sussex
PO20 1DY