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Data protection and Privacy Statement

The following privacy notices specifically relate to the service they represent:

General Privacy Notice

Central Bedfordshire Council is registered (Z169787X) with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a Data Controller. The Council is committed to processing personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) principles and the Data Protection Act 2018 which ensure the safe processing of personal data. We are a public authority and have a nominated Data Protection Officer, whose details you can find below in our contact information section.

Everything we do with information about people, such as how we collect it and who we share it with, must comply with Data Protection legislation. A key part of this is being open, transparent, and accountable about how we use information and your rights in respect of the information we hold about you.

This Privacy Notice sets out broad information for the Central Bedfordshire Council as a whole. Some services have their own notices that provide more detail, and these can all be found along with the Covid Health Emergency privacy notice, on the main Privacy page on our website.

The information we hold

We collect information about people who live in Central Bedfordshire as well as people outside the county who use services that we provide. The personal information we collect varies according to the services people receive.

Most of the information we hold is obtained as a result of:

  • an individual directly contacting us to use one of our services
  • another organisation, such as an NHS body, or partner organisation making a referral to us, generally on the individual’s behalf and with their knowledge

We also hold some information about individuals that other organisations are required to provide to us, Central Bedfordshire Council. Primarily this involves early years settings and schools providing us with core information about the children attending their establishments. Schools and early years settings should provide you with their own privacy notices that will explain what information they collect and who they share it with.

Why do we have it and what do we use it for

We provide a wide range of services set out in legislation. We are under legal obligations to provide many of these services and to deliver them we need to collect and use personal information of those using or affected by these services.

Much of what we do is a result of legislation set nationally or statutory functions that require us to provide various public services in Central Bedfordshire. In such cases, our lawful basis for processing your personal data will be necessary for compliance with a legal obligation, or because it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority, as we can’t provide you with the service without it.

Only in a small number of cases will we process personal data solely based on consent. This will be clearly explained to you at the time.

The main public services we provide are as follows:

Adults and older people

  • prevention, early intervention, and support for vulnerable adults
  • assessment of the needs of older people and providing services that meet assessed eligible needs, support choice and control, and maximize independence
  • safeguarding and protecting vulnerable adults from abuse
  • blue badge applications

Children and young people

  • providing a good quality place in learning for all children and young people, working with all schools and early year settings to ensure that children and young people get the best quality education
  • identifying and supporting children and families who are vulnerable and need support at the earliest opportunity. Safeguarding all children and young people at risk of significant harm
  • provision of high-quality fostering and adoption services to meet the placement demands of central Bedfordshire children
  • provision of a range of family support services to those families in greatest need

Public health

  • improving the health of the local population and reducing health inequalities with a focus on prevention
  • oversight of plans to protect the health of the local population from public health hazards, such as infectious disease
  • providing specialist public health advice to the Council, other local authorities, and local NHS Commissioners

Health improvement services commissioned by the Public Health Directorate include:

  • health visiting and school nursing services
  • sexual health services, including testing for and treatment of infections, contraception
  • interventions to promote physical activity and healthy diet and help people manage their weight
  • smoking cessation and tobacco control
  • NHS health checks
  • public mental health

Place and communities

  • highway maintenance and improvement
  • the delivery of all major transport infrastructure schemes
  • management of major contracts regarding highways, waste, and street lighting
  • tackling rogue and other illegal trading and providing business advice
  • delivery of non-commercial superfast broadband services
  • waste disposal
  • libraries and cultural services
  • registration and coroner services
  • planning and Section 106 negotiation with developers
  • economic development
  • floods and water management
  • adult learning and skills
  • development of transport policy
  • commissioning of community transport, and management of home to school, special needs, and adult’s transport

We also collect and use information to support the local democratic process (administration of council meetings etc.) and as part of research to support the delivery and development of our statutory functions as set out above. Additionally, we collect and use information in line with our requirements as an employer (recruitment, personnel information, payroll, and pensions, etc.).

Whenever we use information, we always limit this to only the details that are needed and we ensure that it is used safely and securely. We require anyone we share information with, or who uses it on our behalf, to do so too. All staff and councillors receive training on data protection and information security.

Environmental services

The privacy of your personal information is important to us. We will use the information you provide to process and manage your Household Waste Recycling Centre booking. Please note that some of your information may be shared with our ANPR provider.

Who we share information with and why

We share information with a range of different types of people and organizations depending on the service being provided or the statutory requirement that we have to comply with. The types of recipients include:

  • service users (and families where relevant)
  • local government organizations (our partner agencies and public sector authorities)
  • central government departments
  • our contractors: organizations that we commission to provide goods and services
  • law enforcement agencies, such as Bedfordshire Police
  • Beds Fire and Rescue Services
  • health and social care organizations and professionals (NHS bodies such as GPs, Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, (BLMK) and Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust)
  • education establishments such as schools, colleges, and early years settings
  • examining bodies
  • regulatory bodies, investigators, and ombudsman (for example Ofsted, CQC, Local Government Ombudsman)
  • courts, tribunals, and prisons
  • legal representatives
  • fraud prevention agencies
  • debt collection agencies
  • current, past, and prospective employers
  • trade unions
  • press and the media
  • councillors and political parties
  • housing associations and landlords
  • survey and research organizations

All information sharing is done with reference to the principles set out in the Bedfordshire Information Sharing Framework.

How long we keep information for

We only keep information for as long as it is needed. This will be based on either a legal requirement (where a law says we have to keep information for a specific period of time) or accepted business practice. This is set out in our retention schedule.

Direct marketing

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on 4 August 2021, published changes to direct marketing rules (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)).

If a public authority's message (via email, text (SMS), or phone call) is necessary for the authority's underlying tasks or functions, these messages are not considered direct marketing.

This means that the Council is not required to obtain your consent to send these types of communications or to provide you the opt-out facility, as listed within the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations (PECR), as these rules along with the absolute opt-out right from direct marketing contained in the UK GDPR do not apply to these communications.

The Council will continue to comply with direct marketing rules (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)) for direct marketing messages where we cannot identify a relevant task or function underlying the communication we want to send you; or cannot demonstrate that sending promotional messages is necessary for our identified task or function.

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information as shown below, however, this is not absolute and we will consider whether we have compelling legitimate grounds to do so.

Your rights

You have various rights around the data we hold about you.

  • right of access (to receive a copy of your personal data); find out how to submit a request
  • right to rectification (to request data is corrected if inaccurate)
  • right to erasure (to request that data is erased)
  • right to restrict processing (to request we don’t use your data in a certain way)
  • right to data portability (in some cases, you can ask to receive a copy of your data in a commonly used electronic format so that it can be given to someone else)
  • right to object (generally to make a complaint about any aspect of our use of your data)
  • right to have explained if there will be any automated decision-making, including profiling, based on your data and for the logic behind this to be explained to you

Any such request can be submitted to information.governance@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk. Whether we can agree to your request will depend on the specific circumstances and if we cannot, we will explain the reasons why.

If we are processing your information based on you giving us consent to do so, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Doing so may mean we are unable to provide the service you are hoping to receive and the implications of you giving or withdrawing your consent will be explained at the time.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of how your information has been collected and/or used, you can make a complaint to the Data Protection Officer.

You can also report your concerns to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Data Protection Officer contact details

If anything in this notice is not clear, or if you have further queries, please get in contact with the Data Protection Officer.

Email: information.governance@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk
Telephone: 0300 300 5765

Post

Information Governance
Central Bedfordshire Council Priory House
Monks Walk
Chicksands
Shefford
Bedfordshire
SG17 5TQ