Privacy notice for Customer Relations Team

What do we use the information for?

We use this information to:

• help investigate any worries or complaints you have about your care
  
• help us to process your Subject Access Requests
  
• help us to process your Freedom of Information Requests
  
• help us to measure our performance and indentify service development
  
• help us to learn from your worries and complaints to improve our services

What information do we hold and use?

If you are making a complaint about a service you have received from either adult social care or childrens services the information we will ask you for will be:

• your personal details such as your name, contact details and the nature of your complaint and what are your desired outcomes from the complaint
  
• if you are the parent of a child who is receiving a service from us that you want to complain about we will also ask you for your child's personal details including their name, date of birth and home address
  
• if you are making a complaint on behalf of someone else we will need to contact them separately to gain consent if this has not already been provided and we will request their personal details.
  
• any additional personal information that is necessary to help inform the complaint investigation process. 

Once the customer relations team have initially administered your complaint, the complaint and your personal details will then be sent to a member of staff working within the relevant service area to investigate your complaint who may contact you for further information to inform the investigation process. If the investigating officer identifies the need to share your personal information with others to inform the investigation process they will seek your consent to do this. It is important that we hold accurate and up to date information about you in order to investigate and administer your complaint. If any of your details have changed, or change in the future, please ensure you inform us as soon as possible after the change in order that we can update our records.

If you are making a Subject Access Request

• your personal details such as your name, contact details and details of your Subject Access Request will be be held by the customer relations team (see retention schedules)
  
• if you are making a Subject Access Request in respect of your child/children, personal details of your child such as their name, date of birth and home address will be held by the customer relations team and a copy of all information shared with you will be held on your child/childrens record
  
• the customer relations team will hold a copy of all information that has been shared with you as part of a Subject Access Request (see retention schedules).

If you are making a Freedom of Information Request 

• the customer relations team will collate the information requested from the appropriate service and keep a record of this information under a specific FOI number for a period of 6 months. 

On what grounds do we use the information 

We process complaints on the following grounds:

• Children Act 1989 Representations Procedure (England) Regulations 2006
  
• Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000
  
• Adoption and Children Act 2002
  
• Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003
  
• National Minimum Standards (Care standards Act 2000)
  
• Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009.

We process Subject Access Requests on the following grounds:

• Data Protection Act 2018

We process Freedom of Information requests on the following grounds:

• Freedom of Information Act 2000

How do we collect this information?

Processing complaints – the customer relations team collect your information by:

• telephone contact with a complainant or someone acting on their behalf
  
• by email direct from the complainant or someone acting on their behalf
  
• by Post either by letter or complaints leaflet
  
• by Contact 360 electronic platform
  
• by accessing electronic data bases when the complainant is already known to East Riding Of Yorkshire Council.
  

Who we share your information with?

We will only share your information with internal departments and organisations that we are contracted with. We will not normally share your information with any other external organisation without your consent. However there may be certain circumstanced where we would need to share your information for example: where we are required to do so by law , for safeguarding purposes or in risk of harm or emergency situations and for purposes relating to criminal justice.

How long do we store it and is it secure?

The council has retention schedules in place to ensure that information is only held for as long as it is needed. For information on how long your information will be held visit the retention page. 

Details of how we keep your information secure are available on the general privacy information page

What rights do you have?

The rights that you have depend upon the grounds upon which we collected your information. All of the rights you could have outlined upon the data protection rights page. In most cases, people who have been involved with the customer relations team will have the following rights:

• the right of access – you are entitled to see the information we hold about you and can request a copy by emailing: data.protection@eastriding.gov.uk  
  
• the right to rectification – if you believe any information we hold about you to be incorrect please email: customer.relations@eastriding.gov.uk 
  
• the right to erase – customer relations has determined that all requests to erase service user records will be dealt with on an indivdual basis. All requests for erasure to be sent to: customer.relations@eastrding.gov.uk 
  
• the right to restrict processing – should you wish the customer relations team to limit how we use your data please email: customer.relations@eastriding.gov.uk 
  
• the right to object – should you wish to object about how we use your data for certain actions please email: customer.relations@eastriding.gov.uk 
  

Where can I find out more?

If you want to know more about how the council uses information, your rights or have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, we request that you raise your concern with us in the first instance.

Contact details are available on the general privacy information page. 

Alternatively, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.

People who make a complaint to us

When we receive a complaint from a person we 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 does not 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. This means that information relating to a complaint will be retained for five years from closure. It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.

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.

People who make a Subject Access Request

When we receive a request from you in writing we must normally give you access to copies of all your records that we hold either on paper or electronically. However, we will not let you see any parts of your records that contain: 

• confidential information about another person/3rd party. 
  
• information that a care professional thinks may cause you or someone else serious physical or emotional harm.
  
• if the withholding of the information is otherwise permitted by law.
  
• information that is legally privileged.