Policies

The Trust collects a range of information about you. This can include:

• your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number;
• details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
• information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
• whether or not you have a disability for which the Trust needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process;
• information about your entitlement to work in the UK; and
• equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health, and religion or belief.

The Trust collects this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms, CVs or resumes, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment.

The Trust may also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers, information from employment background check providers and information from criminal records checks.

Data will be stored in a range of different places, including on your application record, in HR management systems and on other IT systems (including email).

The Trust needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. It also needs to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

In some cases, we need to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

The Trust has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from applicants allows us to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability and decide to whom to offer a role. We may also need to process data from applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

The Trust processes health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment and volunteering.

Where the Trust processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

For some roles, the Trust is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where we seek this information, it does so because it is necessary for us to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment and volunteering.

If your application is unsuccessful, the Trust will keep your personal data on file for 6 (six) months in case there are future employment opportunities for which you may be suited. The Trust will ask for your consent before it keeps your data for this purpose and you are free to withdraw your consent at any time.

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR and 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.

The Trust will not share your data with third parties, unless your application is successful and it makes you an offer of employment or volunteering. We may then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks.

The Trust will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

The Trust takes the security of your data seriously. It has internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees in the proper performance of their duties.

If your application is unsuccessful, the Trust will hold your data on file for 12 (twelve) months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period your data is deleted or destroyed.

If your application is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file and retained in accordance with our retention policy. If you are employed by the Trust the periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice. 

We respect your right to control your data. Your rights include:

1. The right to be informed

This privacy notice outlines how we capture, store and use your data. If you have any questions about any elements of this policy, please contact us.

2. The right of access

If you wish to obtain a record of the personal data we hold about you, through a Subject Access Request, we will respond within one month.

3. The right to rectification

If we have captured information about you that is inaccurate or incomplete, we will update it.

4. The right to erase

You can ask us to remove or randomise your personal details from our records.

5. The right to restrict processing

You can ask us to stop using your personal data.

6. The right to data portability

You can ask to obtain your personal data from us for your own purposes.

For more information on your individual rights, please see the Information Commissioner’s Office.  If you believe that the Trust has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

The Trust’s full Privacy Policy can be found our website.

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to the Trust 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.

You are under no obligation to provide information for equal opportunities monitoring purposes and there are no consequences for your application if you choose not to provide such information.

We will:

• Not tolerate any form of abuse or neglect within The Wildlife Trusts
• Take all reasonable steps to protect children, young people and adults at risk who visit our sites, take part in our activities or engage with us online
• Give equal priority to keeping all children, young people and adults at risk safe from harm, regardless of their age, disability, gender, race, beliefs, sex, or sexual orientation
• Provide our staff, volunteers and trustees with the knowledge and tools to guide them in protecting children, young people and adults at risk from abuse and neglect

We will achieve this by:

• Supporting staff and volunteers by establishing a clear policy and procedural framework, transparent reporting, and by promoting a culture of learning throughout the movement
• Encouraging staff and volunteers to discuss any concerns immediately or as soon as practically possible with the line manager/supervisor or designated safeguarding lead
• Listening to and hearing the voice of children, young people and adults at risk and respecting their views
• Recruiting our staff and volunteers safely including references, disclosure and barring checks as appropriate
• Recording and storing information safely and in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation
• Recognising the position of trust in which staff, trustees and volunteers are regularly placed and use our procedures and work with our local authorities to manage any allegations against them appropriately
• Adhering to Online Safety guidelines to keep children, young people, adults at risk and staff safe when using any digital communications
• Ensuring that we provide a safe physical environment for children, young people, adults at risk, staff and volunteers by adhering to health and safety measures in accordance with the law and regulatory guidance
• Working in partnership with the statutory agencies responsible for the Safeguarding of children, young people and adults at risk
• Ensuring that any third-party individual or organisation involved in delivering activities on behalf of The Wildlife Trusts has appropriate experience, qualifications and/or accreditation and insurance. If they are operating with any degree of autonomy, Trust staff will assure themselves that safeguarding procedures are equivalent and arrangements are adequate for the activity.

We have policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People, and for Safeguarding Adults at Risk, and a Safeguarding Procedure. We review the policies annually, and we have a nominated Trustee for safeguarding matters who works with the Chief Executive and the staff team.

Our policy is:

• To provide a fair complaints procedure that is clear and easy to use for anyone wishing to make a complaint.
• To publicise the existence of our complaints procedure so that people know how to contact us to make a complaint.
• To make sure everyone in our organisation knows what to do if a complaint is received.
• To make sure all complaints are investigated fairly and in a timely way.
• To make sure that complaints are, wherever possible, resolved and that relationships are repaired.
• To learn from complaints and feedback to help us to improve what we do.
• All complaint information will be handled sensitively, in line with relevant data protection requirements.
• Complaints must be made within a reasonable time.

If you have a complaint:

Please contact us either by:

• Calling 01727 858901
• Writing to HMWT, Grebe House, St Michael’s Street, St Albans AL3 4SN
• Emailing info@hmwt.org

Our procedure is:

• All complaints will be entered into a central register.
• All complaints will be investigated thoroughly and fairly.
• The complaint will be acknowledged within 3 working days, setting out who is dealing with the complaint and when a reply can be expected. 
• The complainant will be notified of the outcome of any investigation within 30 working days. If it is anticipated that the investigation will take more than 30 working days to complete, the complainant will be notified of this.
• Where the Trust is at fault we will endeavour to put things right as quickly as possible. In any case a full explanation will be given to the complainant.
• If the complainant is not satisfied with the outcome of the investigation then they may refer their complaint to the HMWT Chief Executive or Chair of Trustees.
• If the complainant remains unsatisfied by our final response then they will be signposted to the Charity Commission, and/or the Fundraising Regulator if the complaint is related to our fundraising practice.