Privacy notice: job applicants

This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information when you apply for a job vacancy at the University or UCLan Professional Services Limited (UPSL). Personal information (or personal data) is any information which relates to and identifies you. Data protection legislation (the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA)) set out how we should handle your personal information.

If you apply for a vacancy to the University, the University will use your information for the purposes set out in this notice.

If you apply for a vacancy to USPL, UPSL and the University will jointly consider and manage your application. Both parties will have access to your information and will use it for the purposes set out in this notice. This is because UPSL and the University are joint controllers for the purposes of data protection legislation. This means that the University and UPSL are equally responsible for complying with data protection legislation and for ensuring your information is handled correctly. The University and UPSL collect and use your information for a common purpose to achieve the same outcomes. Any references in this notice to how personal information is used apply to how UPSL and the University will jointly use that information. 

If you apply for a vacancy with the University, the University of Lancashire (formerly the University of Central Lancashire) (the University) is the controller of the personal information we process, unless otherwise stated. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office and our registration number is Z5512420.

If you apply for a vacancy with UPSL, UPSL and the University are joint controllers of the personal information that is processed for the purposes of your application. UPSL is exempt from registering with the Information Commissioner. You can contact the University or UPSL if you have any questions about the way your information is used; however the University is the main contact if you want to exercise any of your data protection rights or for any queries about how your information is handled.

There are many ways you can contact us, including by phone, email, social media and post. You can view our main contact details on our website.

You can contact the People Team with queries about the recruitment process by telephone: 01772 892324 or email: PeopleTeam@uclan.ac.uk

The Information Governance Manager & Data Protection Officer can be contacted on DPFOIA@uclan.ac.uk. Further information and contact details can be found on the data protection pages of our website.

Most of the information we use is provided by you directly or generated by you as a result of your application for employment. For management appointments and some specialist roles, we may receive information from third party recruiters. The information we use includes information contained within your application form or CV; identity documents including biometric cards used to establish your right to work in the UK; information about your physical or mental health you provide or which is disclosed through occupational health providers; information you provide in correspondence; or through interviews and meetings, as well as any disclosures you make in relation to criminal convictions. We may also collect information about you from third parties such as your referees, employment background check providers or providers of criminal record checks, such as the Disclosure and Barring Service in the UK.

We use all the information you provide during the recruitment process to progress your application and assess your suitability for the role with a view to offering you an employment contract with either the University or UPSL, as applicable. We also use the information you provide to fulfil legal or regulatory requirements, where necessary, and for internal reporting and monitoring. We may also use the contact details you provide to request your feedback about our recruitment process and if you provide any feedback, we will use it to develop and improve our processes in the future. 

We will not share any of the information you provide with any third parties for marketing purposes.

Application and shortlisting

All the information you provide on your application form and/or CV will be used by our People team to process your job application. Via our application form, we request that you provide equal opportunities and diversity information. This is not mandatory and your application will not be affected if you don’t provide it. We will not make the information available to any staff outside our People team, including recruiting managers, in a way that can identify you. Any information you provide will be used to produce statistics to monitor protected characteristics in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty which forms part of the Equality Act 2010.

Once the closing date for applications has passed, completed applications are forwarded to recruiting managers to enable them to shortlist for interview. Recruiting managers are not provided with your home address or your equal opportunities monitoring information, if you have provided it.

Assessment and interview

We will ask you to participate in assessment days; complete tests or occupational personality profile questionnaires; attend an interview; or a combination of these. Information will be generated by you and by us as a result of this selection process e.g. your test answers and scores or our interview notes and will be used to determine whether or not we want to make a conditional offer of employment. If you choose to declare any criminal convictions at interview stage, this information will be used to consider your suitability for the role once we have decided that you are the candidate to whom we will make a conditional offer.

In order to comply with legislation, we are required to undertake appropriate checks on candidates’ eligibility to work in the UK. All candidates, except internal applicants with a current contract of employment with the University, are asked to attend the People Team office on the day of the selection event to provide proof of eligibility to work in the UK. We will take copies of the relevant documents to demonstrate our compliance with this requirement and your right to work in the UK.

If you are unsuccessful after the assessment stage of the process, we will use the personal data we have collected about you to inform you and provide feedback, as appropriate.

Conditional offer

If we make a conditional offer of employment, we will collect additional information from you to enable us to carry out pre-employment checks. If you do not successfully complete our pre-employment checks your conditional offer may be withdrawn. We carry out these checks to confirm the identity of our staff and their right to work in the UK and to seek assurance as to their trustworthiness, integrity, reliability and suitability for the role.

You will be required to provide the following information:

• proof of your right to work in the UK, if you did not provide your original documents to the People Team in person on the day of your selection event
• references that are satisfactory to us. We will contact your referees directly to obtain these references
• a criminal records declaration to declare any unspent convictions
• a completed medical questionnaire. This will be assessed by our occupational health provider to establish your fitness to work
• proof of your qualifications. We require you to provide original documents and we will take copies.

Depending on the role you have applied for or your nationality, you may also be required to provide the following information:

• satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service clearance (role-dependant)
• evidence of your continual eligibility to work in the UK, if you have limited leave to remain in the UK
• confirmation of achievement of points criteria under the Skilled Worker Visa System to enable us to issue a Certificate of Sponsorship.

We’ll also ask you about any reasonable adjustments you may require under the Equality Act 2010. This information will be shared with relevant University and/or UPSL (as applicable) staff so that they can be appropriately considered and any reasonable adjustments put in place for when you start your employment.

We will also ask you to provide bank details to ensure we can process your salary payments in a timely manner; emergency contact details in case we need to contact a family member or friend if you have an emergency at work; information required to enrol you in a pension scheme and information required to complete your ‘death in service’ nomination form as part of our group life insurance cover.

If all your pre-employment checks are satisfactory, your offer of employment will be confirmed and no longer conditional.

Research, reporting and statistics

We will use your information to compile statistics and for research, surveys and market research to help with corporate planning, reporting and administration, as well as for statutory reporting purposes to external agencies, where required.

Monitoring and compliance

We will use your information to ensure and monitor our compliance with legislation including laws relating to equality, health and safety and immigration. We will also use your information to monitor our compliance with regulatory requirements set by external agencies.

We rely on the following lawful bases from the UK GDPR to process information about you for the purposes set out in this notice:

Article 6(1)(b), which allows us to process personal data when it is necessary for the performance of a contract or for steps taken prior to entering into a contract. You enter into a contract with either the University or UPSL when you become an employee (the employment contract). We use the recruitment process to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for, which includes processing information about any criminal convictions you have, with a view to offering you an employment contract. We require you to provide any information we reasonably request during the recruitment process (unless we state it is optional), otherwise we cannot assess your application with a view to making a conditional job offer and putting in place your employment contract.

Article 6(1)(c), which allows us to process personal data when it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, such as our obligation to provide reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 if you request them.

Article 6(1)(e), which allows us to process personal data where it is necessary to perform a task in the public interest. Internal reporting, monitoring, research and auditing are carried out as part of the performance of our public tasks.

We also process some information during the recruitment process which is special category data. Special category data is information about your race, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data used for ID purposes, health, sex life or sexual orientation. Where we process special category data or data about criminal convictions for the purposes set out in this notice, we rely on the following additional lawful bases from the UK GDPR and DPA:

Article 9(2)(b) UK GDPR and Schedule 1(1) DPA which allow us to process special category data if the processing is necessary to enable us to perform our obligations and rights in law in relation to employment. We rely on these lawful bases to process information about your health and any criminal convictions you may have to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for.

Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR, which allows us to process special category data if the processing is necessary in the substantial public interest and there is a basis to do so in law. The law which allows us to rely on this basis is section 10 DPA by virtue of Schedule 1(8) DPA, which enables us to process information such ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or data concerning health for equality monitoring purposes.

When processing special category data or data about criminal convictions in reliance on the above conditions from Schedule 1 DPA we must have an appropriate policy document, which can be read here: Data Protection: Processing special category data and criminal convictions data.

Article 9(2)(j) UK GDPR, which allows us to process special category data for archiving, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes, where there is a basis to do so in law. The law which allows us to rely on this basis is section 10 DPA by virtue of Schedule 1(4) DPA.

We may share your personal data with a range of external organisations and bodies, some of which are processing personal data on our behalf (data processors). We only share your personal data with another person or organisation where the law allows us to and we consider it to be appropriate under the circumstances. The external parties we may share information with include the following:

• Government agencies and authorities, including the police and DWP for the prevention and detection of crime, apprehension and prosecution of offenders, the collection of tax or duty and safeguarding national security, among other things.
• Executive agencies or non-departmental public bodies such as UK Visas and Immigration, HM Revenue and Customs and the Health and Safety Executive.
• Your referees so that we can obtain suitable references.
• Professional and regulatory bodies if this is relevant to your potential role.
• Embassies, consulates and other sponsors: for criminal record checks, where required.
• Internal and external auditors to provide assurance that we are following our risk management, governance and internal control processes and to independently inspect our financial statements and records.
• Our occupational health service for the purposes of assessing your fitness to work and suitability for the role you applied for, based on the information you provide in your medical questionnaire. Our contracted occupational health service is currently provided by TP Health Limited.
• Companies or organisations acting on our behalf: We use data processors who are third parties who provide elements of services 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 hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

Occasionally we may need to send your personal information outside the European Economic Area (EEA) e.g. to obtain references or a service from a data processor. In the case of references, these transfers are carried out because they are necessary steps in the recruitment process. All other transfers are carried out with appropriate safeguards in place to protect your information and ensure it remains secure, such as the standard contractual clauses (controller-processor version).

When you submit an application to us, you create an applicant account in our recruitment system. This account contains all the applications you have made. If your application for employment is successful and you go on to become a University or UPSL employee, your applicant account is converted to an employee account and your application form, along with any previous application forms in your account, are retained as part of your personal file. Along with your successful application, your medical screening and records confirming that reference and criminal records checks were undertaken will form part of your personal file and will be retained along with other elements of your personal file for six years following the termination of your employment.

If your application is unsuccessful, your application form will remain in your applicant account for you to access for 12 months. If you do not submit another application within 12 months, your account and its contents will be deleted. If you do submit another application within 12 months, your applicant account and all its contents will remain active. Your applicant account and its contents will be deleted 12 months after your last unsuccessful application.

All other recruitment records such as interview notes, references obtained prior to interview and records documenting the handling of applications will be retained for one year following the end of the recruitment activity.

Under data protection law, you have rights we need to make you aware of. The rights available to you depend on our reason for processing your information. Further information about each of these rights can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website. 

To exercise any of these rights, please contact the Information Governance Manager & Data Protection Officer via email.

Your right of access

You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. This right always applies. There are some exemptions, which means you may not always receive all the information we process. For further information or to make a request, please see the data protection pages of our website.

Your right to rectification

You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete. This right always applies.

Your right to erasure

You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.

Your right to restriction of processing

You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.

Your right to object to processing

You have the right to object to any processing we carry out, if we carry it out on the basis that it forms part of our public task or is in our legitimate interests. You also have the right to object to your personal information being used for direct marketing purposes.

Your right to data portability

This only applies to information you have given us. You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us from one organisation to another, or give it to you. The right only applies if we are processing information because we have your consent or because it is necessary for your employment contract (or other type of contract you have with us), and the processing is automated.

We work to high standards when it comes to processing your personal information. If you have queries or concerns, please contact the People Team or the Information Governance Manager & Data Protection Officer, and we will respond.

If you remain dissatisfied, you can make a complaint about the way we process your personal information to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the UK supervisory authority for data protection. Further information can be found on the data protection pages of our website.