As part of any recruitment process, Oxford City Council (‘the Council’, ‘we’) collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. We are committed to being transparent about how we collect and use that data and to meeting our data protection obligations. This statement is in compliance with current requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2018.
What information we collect
We collect a range of information about you.This includes:
- your name, address, NI Number and contact details, including email address and telephone number
- details of your qualifications, skills, driving licence, experience and employment history
- information about your current salary
- whether or not you have a disability or health condition for which we need to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process
- information about your entitlement to work in the UK
- information about criminal records which for some roles includes unspent convictions
- equal opportunities monitoring information about your gender, age, marital status, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, religion or belief
We collect this information in a variety of ways. For example information may be contained in application forms, CVs, your passport or other identity documents, or may be collected from interviews or other forms of assessment. We will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as psychometric assessments, references and criminal record checks.
Data will be stored in a variety of places including your application record, in HR management systems and on other corporate IT systems (including email).
Why we process personal data
We need to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. We may also need to process your data to enter into a contract with you.
Processing data from job applicants allow us to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. We may also need to process data to respond to and defend against legal claims.
We also collect information about whether or not applicants are disabled to comply with our commitment to provide interviews to disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential job criteria as a ‘Disability Confident’ employer and to ensure reasonable adjustments can be made within the recruitment process. The Council processes such information to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.
In some cases we need to process data to ensure compliance with our legal obligations. For example we are required to check a successful applicant’s eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.
For some roles, the Council is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where the Council seeks this information, it does so because it is necessary for it to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.
We may process other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion or belief, for anonymised equal opportunities monitoring purposes. This includes meeting our obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty.
Who has access to data
Your information may be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of HR and the recruitment team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, managers in the business area with a vacancy and IT staff if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles. For some we may share information with external partners or specialists involved in the recruitment exercise.
We will inform you when we share your data with third parties as part of the selection process, such as psychometric assessments. We will seek information from third parties, such as references and criminal record checks, once a job offer has been made and will inform you that we are doing so. Our recruitment software is part of a corporate HR and Payroll platform hosted by the platform provider MHR International.
How long we keep your information
If your application for employment is unsuccessful, we will hold your data on file for 9 months after the end of the recruitment process.
If your application is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personal file and retained during and after employment, which is normally seven years after employment.
Providing personal data, data protection and your rights
You are under no statutory obligation to provide data to the Council during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information we may not be able to process your application properly or at all.
More information
Contact the Data Protection Officer
Address: Corporate Governance ManagerOxford City Council
Town Hall
St Aldate's
Oxford, OX1 1BX
United Kingdom
