Who are we?
Dundee City Council is a local authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Its head office is at City Square, Dundee, DD1 3BY. You can contact our Data Protection Officer by post at this address, by email at: infogov@dundeecity.gov.uk and by telephone on 01382 434206.
Why do we need your personal information?
As part of our recruitment and selection procedures, we collect personal information about job applicants to help assess their suitability for the job for which they have applied.
What personal information does the Council collect and what does it do with it?
We collect your name, address and contact details in order to communicate with you.
We collect your qualifications, knowledge skills, experience and employment history and any ‘live’ criminal convictions. We use this to assess your suitability for the job.
We ask whether you have a disability in order to manage our guaranteed interview scheme and to allow us to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process; where required.
We collect information to check whether you are entitled to work in the UK because we are required by law to do this.
We invite you to disclose personal or ‘protected’ characteristic information as defined in the Equality Act 2010 e.g. about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief. You are not obliged to disclose this. Any such information that you give will be used in anonymous, statistical form for monitoring the effectiveness of our Equal Opportunities Policy.
If you are selected as the ‘preferred candidate’, we will collect references and ask you to complete a medical questionnaire to check your fitness for the job.
Where does the Council get this information?
We collect most of this information from you through your application form and, where appropriate will confirm its accuracy by checking identity documents e.g. a passport and educational and vocational certificates etc.
If you become a ‘preferred candidate’ we will collect information from the referees identified by you and, from our occupational health adviser, a report on your response to our medical questionnaire; For some jobs we will collect from Disclosure Scotland conviction and non-conviction information.
What is the legal basis for the Council using your personal information?
We process your personal information to take steps to enter into an employment contract with you and to enable us to meet certain legal obligations.
What happens if you do not provide personal information?
If you do not provide us with the information we ask for, we will not be able to assess your suitability for the job for which you have applied and your application will be unsuccessful.
However, you are under no obligation to provide information for equal opportunities monitoring purposes and there are no consequences for your application if you choose not to provide such information.
Who has access to the information?
Your information will be used by any Council employee who is involved in the recruitment process. This will mainly include the HR and Corporate Business Support Service and the service in which the vacancy is located
The Council will share with third parties the information necessary about preferred candidates which is necessary to carry out the pre-employment checks described above.
For how long does the organisation keep data?
If you are the successful candidate, the information you have given will form part of your personal file and you will receive a separate privacy statement about how we will retain and use it.
If you are shortlisted but unsuccessful, the information you have given will be retained for 12 months after the end of the recruitment process and then destroyed.
If you are not shortlisted, the information you have given will be retained for six months after the end of the recruitment process and then destroyed.
Automated decision-making
Our selection processes include arrangements which automatically exclude applicants where they declare that they do not
- have the right to work in the UK, or
- possess a driving licence where this is an essential requirement for the job for which they are applying, or
- possess a requirement which has been identified as essential in the person specification for the job for which they are applying.
Where an applicant is excluded in these circumstances they will receive a message advising them what has happened and why.
International Transfers
Your personal information will not be subject to international transfer.
Your rights in relation to personal data
Access to your information – you have the right to access the information we hold on you. There are two ways to access your data:
Subject Access Request: you have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you.
Data Portability: you can ask us for a copy of your information so that you can re-use it and we will provide it in a machine-readable format. This is a qualified right, which means it only applies in certain circumstances and only relates to information you have given directly to us.
Correcting your information – we want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Therefore you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
Deleting of your information – you have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where
- you think that we no longer need to hold the information for the purposes for which it was originally obtained
- you have a genuine objection to our use of your personal information – see Objecting to how we may use your information below
- our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.
Restricting how we may use your information – in some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold about you or we are assessing the objection you have made to our use of your information. This right might also apply if we no longer have a basis for using your personal information but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right is realistically applied will mean that we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.
Please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer by post at this address, by email at: infogov@dundeecity.gov.uk and by telephone on 01382 434206. if you wish to exercise any of these rights.
Complaints:
We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office, who can be contacted by post at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. By phone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745. Visit their website for more information at https://ico.org.uk/concerns