Data Protection Privacy Policy - Safer Together Hants

Portsmouth City Council is a registered Data Controller (Registration Number Z5578313).

The Council tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information in accordance with data protection law.

This privacy notice tells you about how the Council collects and uses personal information. It applies to information we collect about:

People who use our services, or request a service from us;
People who register for council tax;
People who apply for a grant, planning permission, parking permit or school place;
Business customers
Complainants and other individuals in relation to a complaint or query;
Job applicants and our current and former employees; and
Visitors to our websites

How we use your information

The Council uses personal information to:

Deliver services and support to residents and businesses
Help investigate any concerns or complaints including concerns or complaints raised by councillors or MPs on behalf of constituents
Plan and manage council services, including checking on the quality of services, developing future services and keeping track of spending
Carry out the Council’s regulatory, licensing and enforcement functions, for example. planning permissions, trading standards and food safety
Deal with payments, grants, benefits and other financial transactions
Check an individual’s identity or entitlement to personal information
Carry out research and consult with residents and people who use council services
Fulfil our statutory obligations such as protecting vulnerable children and adults
Understand more about the nature and causes of disease and ill-health in the area and to improve the health of the population we serve (see the separate Public Health privacy notice).

How we use your information for integrated health and care commissioning

Health and Care Portsmouth Commissioning (HCPC) is a joint commissioning team for Portsmouth City Council and the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (Portsmouth Place Based (HIOW ICB). HCPC aims to deliver efficiencies across departments and improve outcomes for vulnerable adults, children and families in Portsmouth through the commissioning of whole life pathways, joining up the delivery of services, and adopting a strategic approach to the wider determinants of health and wellbeing.

The HIOW ICB is the statutory organisation responsible for setting the strategic plan for the NHS in Hampshire and Isle of Wight to deliver its part of the health and care strategy. It allocates NHS resources through four places and the ICB transformation programmes to make sure the right health services are being delivered to people across the area.

In Portsmouth, integrated teams (including local authority, ICB, provider, and voluntary partners) come together to understand the needs of their population, agree plans to meet those needs, develop strong partnerships and implement solutions. The ICB delegates local decision-making for key NHS services to each of the four place-based areas within the ICB.

The Council has entered into an agreement with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB (Portsmouth Place Based) under Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006 (as amended), the Secretary of State can make provision for local authorities and National Health Service (NHS) bodies to enter into partnership arrangements in relation to certain functions, where these arrangements are likely to lead to an improvement in the way in which those functions are exercised.

Council staff who work in the HCPC jointly process and share health and care data with staff from HIOW ICB (Portsmouth Place Based).

People who use City Council services

The Council provides various services to the public and local businesses. We have to hold the details of the people who have requested a service in order to provide a service to them. However, we only use these details to provide the service the person has requested and for other closely related purposes. For example, we might use information about people who receive a service to carry out a survey to find out if they are happy with the service they received.

Similarly, where enquiries are submitted to us we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the enquiry and any subsequent issues and to check on the level of service we provide.

The Council uses information about people who use Council services for research, planning and statistical purposes, to monitor the performance of local services and to evaluate and develop those services. Statistics are used in such a way that individuals cannot be identified.

People who email us

Any email sent to us, including any attachments, may be monitored and used by us for reasons of security and for monitoring compliance with the Council’s information security policies. Email monitoring or blocking software may also be used.

The Council uses a secure email service for sending personal data outside the Council. Other organisations are responsible for ensuring that any email that is sent to the Council is secure and within the bounds of the law.

If you need to send us sensitive information, we recommend using our secure online forms (where provided) or the postal service.

Email addresses and preferences

Portsmouth City Council uses a govDelivery, email marketing platform supplied by Granicus to send communications and to manage the email addresses and preferences of My Portsmouth Updates subscribers. govDelivery is a secure platform that adheres to the council’s information security standards and data processing policies and complies with the European Union-US Privacy Shield framework.

Granicus and govDelivery does not use your email addresses or preferences for anything other than providing the service to the Council and will not pass on your email address for promotional purposes to any other person or organisation (third parties).

Read the Granicus Privacy Shield statement online

Information collected for use with govDelivery services will be only be used for the purpose of keeping you informed about topics that you have told us you are interested in. Subscribers to ‘My Portsmouth Updates’ can indicate their chosen email topics when they sign up for the service online. You will not be added to any mailing list or receive any mail unless you have chosen to do so. You can unsubscribe from this service at any time.

People who make a complaint about us

When we receive a complaint from a person we generally make up a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and any other individuals involved in the complaint.

We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide. We do compile and publish statistics showing information like the number of complaints we receive, but not in a form which identifies anyone.

We usually have to disclose the complainant’s identity to whoever the complaint is about. This is inevitable where, for example, the accuracy of a person’s record is in dispute. If a complainant doesn’t want information identifying him or her to be disclosed, we will try to respect that. However, it may not be possible to handle a complaint on an anonymous basis.

We will keep personal information contained in complaint files in line with our retention policy, which is available on request. Information relating to a complaint will normally be retained for up to 7 years from when the complaint is resolved.

It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.

People who use this website

When you visit the Council’s website SaferTogether.co.uk to view a page or download a form, we will collect the following information if you accept analytical cookies:

the domain name (if available) and IP address from which you accessed our site
the date and time you visited
the pages you viewed
the type of browser and operating system you used

We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site which helps us to improve our website service. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone.

We use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect this information. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.

We will make it clear to you whenever we collect any personal information through our website and will explain what we intend to do with it.

You can find out more about how we use cookies on our websites and how we protect the privacy of people who use our websites by reading the Council’s Cookies and Privacy Policy.

Links to other websites

This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.