Skip to content Skip to nav
Accessibility statement

Privacy notice for code of conduct complaint and complaint against a councillor

Close all Open all

What do we use the information for?

For the purposes of this notice, a Code of Conduct complaint is a complaint that is submitted to the Standards Committee Assessment Sub-Committee for consideration, which may subsequently be considered by the Standards Committee or at a Standards Committee Hearing.

For the purposes of this notice, a Complaint against a Councillor is a complaint that is not submitted for consideration to the Standards Committee Assessment Sub-Committee because it either does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Standards Committee or because the Monitoring Officer has used their delegation to filter out the complaint – please see the Standards Committee’s adopted process and procedures for further information.

The committee management team collects, processes and holds your personal information in order to provide our services effectively.

  • To record your Code of Conduct Complaint against a Councillor

  • To contact you with acknowledgement of your complaint and if the matter is referred for investigation, or for other action

  • To record a councillor’s response to a complaint made against them and to contact the relevant Councillor(s) during the course of an investigation or ‘other action’

We also use information to improve our services so that they are more appropriate to people’s requirements. We recognise that your personal information is important to you, and we take our responsibilities for ensuring that we collect and manage it proportionately, correctly and safely very seriously.

What information do we hold and use?

We collect and process the following information for a Code of Conduct complaint:

  • Personal information (such as full name, full residential address)
  • Contacts details (such as email address, telephone numbers)
  • Details of the complaint and any further information provided to us, or an investigating officer appointed on our behalf, during the course of the investigation or ‘other action’.

On what grounds do we use the information?

The committee management team collects and lawfully processes your personal information under the following:

  • Section 28(6) of the Localism Act 2011

We process personal data for the following reasons:

  • GDPR Article 6(1)(a) - the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes
  • GDPR Article 6(1)(c) - processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject
  • GDPR Article 6(1)(e) - processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest in the exercise of official authority vested in the East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

How do we collect this information?

We may collect information in the following ways:

  • Paper, electronic or online forms
  • Email
  • Letter
  • Telephone
  • Face-to-face, with one of our employees, or one of our partners.

Who we share your information with?

We may disclose your information with others, but only where this is necessary to either comply with our legal obligations or as permitted by Data Protection legislation. We may share it with:

  • The appropriate councillor
  • Town/parish council (where the complaint relates to a town or parish councillor)
  • Relevant officers investigating the complaint to make a report
  • Relevant officers undertaking ‘other action’
  • An independent person, who receives a copy of the full complaint prior to consideration by the Standards Committee Assessment Sub-Committee and who reviews all information received during the course of an investigation and provides their comments.

Please note: a copy of the decision notice produced following a meeting of the Standards Committee Assessment Sub-Committee, is available for public inspection on the council’s website. The decision notice contains the name of the complainant (unless the Assessment Sub-Committee has resolved to withhold their name), the name of the councillor and a summary of the complaint.

If an investigation into a Code of Conduct complaint is required, the investigating officer will produce a final report detailing their findings. Please note that once the final copy of the report is produced, it will usually be made public and will be available to view by all members of the public on the council’s website. The report contains the name of the complainant (unless the Assessment Sub-Committee has resolved to withhold their name), the name of the councillor and a summary of the complaint.

Anonymised details of all complaints are also circulated as part of reports submitted to the Standards Committee on an annual basis.

For a complaint against a councillor, the committee management team may disclose your information to others, but only where this is necessary either to comply with our legal obligations or as permitted by Data Protection legislation. We may share it with:

  • the appropriate councillor or leader of a relevant political group, other public service bodies including the Standards Committee Assessment Sub-Committee
  • town/parish council (where the complaint relates to a town or parish councillor)
  • relevant officers if related to a more generic or service specific issue (eg in relation to planning or licensing).

The reasons why we may share your data with other public bodies and third parties are as follows:

  • To investigate complaints
  • To monitor and improve our performance and delivery of services
  • To proactively work to resolve any issues raised
  • For the prevention and/or detection of crime
  • Where necessary to protect individuals from the risk of harm or injury
  • Where otherwise permitted under the General Data Protection legislation.

Please note: we will only disclose your information to a third party if we are legally required to do so, or where we have good reason to believe that failing to share the information would put you or someone else at risk of harm.

We will not pass your personal information to external organisations for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior expressed consent.

How long do we store it and is it secure?

The committee management team have a retention schedule in place to ensure that information is only held for as long as it is needed. We will not keep your information for longer than is required to by law. Your information will be disposed of in a controlled and secure manner in accordance with the council’s Records Management and Data Quality Policy. The council’s IT security and confidentiality policies ensure that your information is protected, and accessed only by staff directly involved in your case.

For information on how long your information will be held, please visit the retention page.

What rights do you have?

The rights that you have depend on the grounds in which we collected your information. All of the rights you could have are outlined on the data protection rights page.

In most cases, people who have made either a Code of Conduct complaint and/ or a complaint against a Councillor will have the following rights:

  • The right of access - you are entitled to see the information that we hold about you.
  • The right to rectification - we will amend information accordingly, if any information the service holds about you is incorrect.
  • The right to restrict processing - you may wish to limit how we use your data.
  • The right to object - in addition to the right to limit the use of your data, you also have a right to object to the use of you data for certain actions.
  • The right to erasure/right to be forgotten - in certain circumstances, you may be able to ask for some of the information we hold to be deleted. The service has determined that all requests to permanently delete a service user record will be dealt with on an individual basis.

To exercise any of your above rights, please visit the data protection rights page for more information.

Where can I find out more?

If you would like 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 concerns 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 (ICO). The ICO is the UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest and they handle public concerns regarding organisations information rights practices.

Information Commissioner’s Office (external website)

When was this privacy notice last updated?

We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect any changes in our services, feedback from customers, and to comply with any changes in the law. This privacy notice was last updated on 30 March 2023.

Subscribe to East Riding of Yorkshire Council

Stay updated on the latest East Riding news

We use GovDelivery to send you emails, which is secure and you can choose to stop receiving emails at any time.

Find out more in our Privacy notice.

Subscribe to East Riding News

Alerts