Environmental Champions and Community Reference Group Programme

The London Borough of Hounslow is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Through this Privacy Notice we have sought to be as transparent as possible and fully explain how your personal data is held and processed.

This privacy notice applies to the Environmental Champions and Community Reference Group Programmes provided by the Environment and Climate team and tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or any concerns about how we process your data, please contact environmental.champion@hounslow.gov.uk. The privacy notice will continue to be monitored and updated. You are advised to check this page from time to time.

What type of information we have

We currently collect and process the following information:

Personal and special category data	Reasoning for collection and processing
Name	For communication purposes.
Email Address	For communication and marketing purposes. You can opt out of the E-newsletter at any point by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link on the email or emailing us on Environmental.Champion@Hounslow.gov.uk.
Application Responses	To assess suitability for the role.
Postcode	For equality and diversity monitoring and to identify what area of the borough you’re located to provide details on relevant activities and events.
Telephone Number*	For communication.
Age Bracket	For equality and diversity monitoring.
Gender	For equality and diversity monitoring.
Ethnicity	For equality and diversity monitoring.
Religion or belief	For equality and diversity monitoring.
Language	To identify if residents speak any other languages to support the council to spread awareness and information to residents whose first language is not English.
Medical/health conditions or whether you have a disability*	To make reasonable adjustments at meetings and activities.

*Providing this information is optional.

How do we get your information?

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

To sign up to a Community Reference Group or Environmental Champion Programme
To enquire about council provided service, request information, complete a survey, give us feedback or make a compliant.
To receive the Community Reference Group or Environmental Champion E-newsletter.
To take part in our meetings, trainings, workshops or events.

If it is not disproportionate or prejudicial, we’ll contact you to let you know we are processing your personal information.

Our Lawful basis for processing your information

The lawful basis we rely on for processing this information is Legitimate Interest.

This means we can process your personal information if we have a genuine and legitimate reason and we are not harming any of your rights and interests.

When you provide your personal details to us when signing up to a Community Reference Group or Environmental Champion Programme, we use your information for our legitimate interest within the Environment and Climate service with the purpose to carry out activities to improve the borough environmentally and for our residents.

Our Interests:

Programme communication – we will invite you to attend meetings and send you relevant information and documentation as part of the programme.

Direct marketing – we will keep you updated via our E-newsletter with relevant information on how you can get involved council led and external environmental activities (including volunteering, events, campaigns, funding opportunities, equipment and training).

Consultation/Engagement – we will send you relevant surveys within the council or invite you to give feedback on relevant council projects to improve our services and to ensure residents have a say in what we do.

Recruitment/Sign up – when signing up to the programmes we will collect information on your current skills, experience, reasoning for signing up to the programmes and involvement in any other organisations to assess your suitability to the programmes.

Reasonable adjustments – we will make reasonable adjustments to our meetings and activities as part of the programme.

Equal opportunities – we will collect special category data to review how we can make the programme more representative of our diverse borough when recruiting.

Your Interests:

Connected and part of the community – residents will be part of an environmental volunteering network and will be offered opportunities to get involved in activities across the borough to stay active. Residents will be kept digitally connected via a platform to enable residents to share information on environmental events and activities to take part in.

Training and upskilling - residents will learn new skills and be offered specific training on areas such as horticultural skills and carbon literacy training as part of the programmes.

Improve wellbeing - residents have the opportunity to take part in practical action outdoors and in green spaces which can bring benefits to mental and physical wellbeing. The programme will also offer the opportunity to meet other residents for those who maybe socially isolated.

Support – we will offer information and support to residents who want to organise and run their own environmental actions. We will support residents with bids when applying for funding.

Environmental & social action – residents will be able to address some of issues affecting the climate on a local scale to bring benefits not only to the environment but also to many social issues.

The information you provide us with when you register to be part of the programme contains special category data, including age, sex, ethnicity, religion, disabilities, health and languages. The legal bases we rely on to process special category data are:

Substantial Public Interest
Explicit Consent

The processing of age, sex, ethnicity, religion and languages data is necessary for the following reasons of substantial public interest:

To ensure equality of opportunity or treatment within our programme

The processing of disabilities and health data is necessary for the following reasons, and will rely on explicit consent:

To provide support/ reasonable adjustments for individuals (where necessary) to ensure that meetings and activities are as inclusive and accessible as possible.

We rely on explicit consent to collect disabilities and health data. Explicit consent is requested within the joining E-Form. If you do not consent to providing this special category data, you will still be able to participate in the programme. If you require us to provide additional support or reasonable adjustments to enable you to participate in the programme, you will need to inform us separately.

You have the right to withdraw your consent at any point by contacting us on Environmental.Champion@Hounslow.gov.uk and your data will then be securely deleted from our systems.

Why we need your information (purposes of processing)

The personal data we collect will be used for the following purposes:

Programme communication – we will invite you to attend meetings and send you relevant information and documentation as part of the programme.
Direct marketing – we will keep you updated via our E-newsletter.
Consultation/Engagement – London Borough of Hounslow and/or contracted third parties will send you relevant surveys within the council or invite you to give feedback on relevant council projects to improve our services and to ensure residents have a say in what we do.
Recruitment/Sign up – when signing up to the programmes we will collect information on your current skills, experience, reasoning for signing up to the programmes and involvement in any other organisations to assess your suitability to the programmes.
Reasonable adjustments – we will make reasonable adjustments to our meetings and activities as part of the programme.
Equal opportunities – we will collect special category data to review how we can make the programme more representational of our diverse borough when recruiting.

Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)

For the Environmental Champions programme, we share your information with:

Groundwork London who are contracted to carry out certain activities such as the management of activities or monitoring and evaluation of the programme. Groundwork will use this information to facilitate frequent and accessible activities/ events and training for Environmental Champions. Groundwork will also enable Champions to receive an inclusive service and the opportunity to engage and socialise with fellow Champions.

We will notify Environmental Champions in advance before sharing the information with external organisations in a secure manner and they are able to opt out if they do not want to provide their details to Groundwork. If Environmental Champions do not wish for their data to be shared with or to be contacted by Groundwork, they will receive communications around the Environmental Champions programme from London Borough of Hounslow and invited to attend Groundwork’s events.

For both CRGs and Environmental champions, special category data including age, sex, ethnicity, religion or beliefs, language and medical/health conditions will be aggregated and will not identify individuals.

How long we keep your information

Environmental Champions:

We keep personal and special category data for 1 year, where we will then request information to be updated (where necessary) via email. It is important that your data is updated where necessary to allow us to continue inviting you to participate in Environmental Champions activities and events. If individuals do not update their information/ confirm that their information remains valid by the date stated provided in the email, we will dispose of your information in the most secure manner possible.

Community Reference Groups:

We keep personal and special category data for 2 years, which is the duration of the programme. Every 6 months, we will request information to be updated (where necessary) via email. If individuals do not update their information/ confirm that their information remains valid by the date stated provided in the email, we will dispose of your information in the most secure manner possible.

Transfers to third countries

All the information you provide us is held within the UK & European Economic Area.

Your data protection rights

The rights available to you depend on our reason for processing your information. For further information about your data protection rights and how to make a request, please see ‘Your rights’.

You can email environmental.champion@hounslow.gov.uk at any time to update or remove your information.

You can opt out of our E-newsletter at any point. You can do this by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link on the email or email environmental.champion@hounslow.gov.uk at any time.

Your right to make a complaint

The Council tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.

If you want to make a complaint you can contact us on:

Complaints Team

London Borough of Hounslow

Hounslow House,

7 Bath Road,

TW3 3EB

Data Protection Officer

The Council’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted on:

InformationGovernance@hounslow.gov.uk

Information Governance Team

London Borough of Hounslow

Hounslow House,

7 Bath Road,

TW3 3EB

Information Commissioner’s Office

The Information Commissioner is the UK's independent body set up to uphold information rights.

If you would like to know more about your rights under the Data Protection law, and what you should expect, visit the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org.uk/

If you have any concerns regarding any privacy practices or about exercising your Data Protection rights, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745

Email: casework@ico.org.uk

A full list of what information we control and process and for what purposes is set out in our notification with the Information Commissioner's Register of Data Controllers. Our registration number is Z5761176. You can view our registration on the Information Commissioner's website.