This notice explains what personal data (information) we will hold about you, how we collect it, and how we will use and may share information about you during the application process. We are required to notify you of this information, under data protection legislation. Please ensure that you read this notice (sometimes referred to as a ‘privacy notice’) and any other similar notice we may provide to you from time to time when we collect or process personal information about you.
Who collects the information
Pickering & Butters LLP (“Pickering & Butters”) is a ‘data controller’ and gathers and uses certain information about you. We are a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under Registration Number OC342063. The registered address is 19 Greengate Street, Stafford, ST16 2LU. We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority – Rugeley ID number 510208 – Stafford ID number 508758.
Data protection principles
We will comply with the data protection principles when gathering and using personal information, which means that your data will be:
- Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
- Collected only for valid purposes (as detailed below) and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
- Relevant to the purposes detailed below and limited only to those purposes;
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes is was collected for;
- Kept securely.
About the information we collect and hold
What information
We may collect the following information up to and including the shortlisting stage of the recruitment process:
- Your name and contact details (ie address, home and mobile phone numbers, email address);
- Details of your qualifications, experience, employment history (including job titles, salary and working hours) and interests;
- Your racial or ethnic origin, sex and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs;
- Details of your referees.
We may collect the following information after the shortlisting stage, and before making a final decision to recruit:
- Information about your previous academic and/or employment history, including details of any conduct, grievance or performance issues, appraisals, time and attendance, from references obtained about you from previous employers and/or education providers; ☐
- Information regarding your academic and professional qualifications; ☐
- Information regarding your criminal record, in criminal records certificates (CRCs) and enhanced criminal records certificates (ECRCs); ☐
- Your nationality and immigration status and information from related documents, such as your passport or other identification and immigration information; ☐
- A copy of your driving licence. ☐
You are required (by law or in order to enter into your contract of employment) to provide the categories of information marked ☐ above to us to enable us to verify your right to work and suitability for the position.
How we collect the information
We may collect this information from you, your referees (details of whom you will have provided), your education provider, the Solicitor Regulation Authority, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), the Home Office and any recruitment agency who may have introduced you to us.
Why we collect the information and how we use it
We will typically collect and use this information for the following purposes:
- to assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the role;
- for compliance with a legal obligation (eg our obligation to check that you are eligible to work in the United Kingdom);
- to communicate with you about the recruitment process;
- for the purposes of our legitimate interests including keeping records related to our hiring processes, but only if these are not overridden by your interests, rights or freedoms.
We seek to ensure that our information collection and processing is always proportionate. We will notify you of any changes to information we collect or to the purposes for which we collect and process it.
If you fail to provide information when requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully.
How we may share the information
We may also need to share some of the above categories of personal information with other parties, such as recruitment consultants and professional advisers. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations. We may also be required to share some personal information with our regulators or as required to comply with the law.
Sensitive personal information and criminal records information
We will use your sensitive personal information in the following ways:
- We will use information about your disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment process;
- We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting
We envisage that we will process information about your criminal convictions.
We will use information about your criminal convictions history if we would like to offer you the role conditional on checks and any other conditions, such as references, being satisfactory. We are required to carry out a criminal records check in order to satisfy ourselves that there is nothing in your criminal convictions history which makes you unsuitable for the role. In particular, we are legally required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to carry out criminal record checks for those carrying out certain types of work. Particular roles require a high degree of trust and integrity and so we may ask you to authorises us to seek a basic disclosure from the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Where information may be held
Information may be held at our offices and third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above.
How long we keep your information
We keep the personal information that we obtain about you during the recruitment process for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. How long we keep your information will depend on whether your application is successful and you become employed by us, the nature of the information concerned and the purposes for which it is processed.
We will keep recruitment information (including interview notes) for no longer than is reasonable, taking into account the limitation periods for potential claims such as race or sex discrimination (as extended to take account of early conciliation), after which they will be destroyed. If there is a clear business reason for keeping recruitment records for longer than the recruitment period, we may do so but will first consider whether the records can be pseudonymised, and the longer period for which they will be kept.
If your application is successful, we will keep only the recruitment information that is necessary in relation to your employment.
Your rights to correct and access your information and to ask for it to be erased
Please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) – Jan Boulter if (in accordance with applicable law) you would like to correct or request access to information that we hold relating to you or if you have any questions about this notice. You also have the right to ask our Data Protection Officer for some but not all of the information we hold and process to be erased (the ‘right to be forgotten’) in certain circumstances. Our Data Protection Officer will provide you with further information about the right to be forgotten, if you ask for it. See below: "How to contact us".
Keeping your personal information secure
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
How to contact us
Our contact details are shown below:
- Pickering & Butters LLP
- 19 Greengate Street, Stafford, ST16 2LU
- info@pb4law.com
- 01785 603060
Our Data Protection Officer's contact details are shown below:
- Jan Boulter
- Pickering & Butters LLP
- 19 Greengate Street, Stafford, ST16 2LU
- jan.boulter@pb4law.com
- 01785 603060
How to complain
We hope that our Data Protection Officer can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information. If not, contact the Information Commissioner at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone: 0303 123 1113 for further information about your rights and how to make a formal complaint.
