Accountancy and Finance - Privacy notice

Who we are and what we do

We are ‘Publica’ Group (Support) Limited and are a council owned employment company which delivers shared services between Cotswold, West Oxfordshire, and Forest of Dean District Councils and Cheltenham Borough Council (hereon known as “Clients”. ‘Publica’ additionally provides services to the Cheltenham Trust, Cheltenham Borough Homes and UBICO (an environmental services local authority company) (heron known as “Clients)

‘Publica’s’ Accountancy and Finance section provides a range of financial services to the partner councils and external clients including financial planning, statements of accounts, budgeting, financial systems and controls, payments and strategic payroll.

‘Publica’ is a data controller and data processor under the Data Protection Legislation; we collect and process personal information about you in order to provide these services, and to meet our statutory and regulatory obligations.

This notice explains why we ask for your personal information, how that information will be used and how you can access your records.

Any questions regarding our privacy practices should be sent to:

Data Protection Officer (DPO)
Publica Group(Support) Limited
Trinity Road, Cirencester¸ GL7 1PX
Email: data.protection@publicagroup.uk
Tel: 01993 861194

Why we need your information and how we use it

Publica’s Accountancy and Finance section holds information about individuals so that it can carry out effective financial management including the list is not exhaustive:

processing payments external individuals
processing payments to employees and elected councillors
recording transactions on the ledger
properly accounting for expenditure and income
budget setting and budget monitoring
providing financial management information
costing staffing budgets
providing financial analysis and advice to internal and external customers
management of corporate and accounts
submission of government grant funding claims
administration of employee car loans and leases

We also have a statutory and regulatory obligation to provide these services in accordance with the following legislations, the list is not exhaustive:

On behalf of each partner councils: the Section 151 of the Local Government Act 1972 requires local authorities to make arrangements for the proper administration of their financial affairs
On behalf of each partner council: The CIPFA Statement on the role of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in local government describes the role and responsibilities of the CFO including responsibility for the finance function
On behalf of each partner council; the CFO and the Accountancy & Finance service require to access individuals’ information as required in order to carry out the role
The Local Government Finance Act 1988 (rates)
The Local Government Finance Act 1992 ( Council tax)
Localism Act 2011
Contract – Traded services
Consent – consultations

What type of information is collected from you

‘Publica’s Accountancy and Finance section collects and processes the following types of personal data in order to provide the services:

personal, for example: name, address, telephone, date of birth
employee information, for example, payroll number, salary, taxation, national insurance, pension details, sickness details
bank account details
email addresses
private vehicle details
personal details relating to insurance claims
Insurance related legal records.

We will only ask for personal information that is appropriate to enable us to deliver our services. In some cases, you can refuse to provide your details if you deem a request to be inappropriate. However, you should note that this may impact on our ability to provide some services to you.

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

The section procures systems from various suppliers to support its financial management role. The following providers may have access to your information purely for the purposes of supporting our systems; they will not use your information for any other purpose:

Unit 4 (Agresso Business World)
Civica Payments

The section may share or disclose your information to any of the following recipients as may be necessary for the financial administration of the authority in line with statutory obligations and/or to comply with contractual obligations relating to it:

service providers, professional advisers and auditors who in certain circumstances will also be “data controllers”
regulators, the government, local and foreign law enforcement authorities
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs
local and foreign courts, tribunals and arbitrators, other judicial committees of enactments of laws
past and present insurance providers, brokers and claims handlers.

How long we keep your information (retention period)

Data is only held as long as is necessary, unless superseded by statutory regulation, and disposed of securely when it is no longer needed.

How we protect your Information

We will not transfer your personal data outside the EU without your consent.

We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personal data from loss, misuse, or unauthorised alteration or destruction.

Please note however that where you are transmitting information to us over the internet this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

For any payments which we take from you online we will use a recognised online secure payment system.

We will notify you promptly in the event of any breach of your personal data which might expose you to serious risk.

Your rights

You have rights under the Data Protection Legislations:

to access your personal data
to be provided with information about how your personal data is processed
to have your personal data corrected
to have your personal data erased in certain circumstances
to object to or restrict how your personal data is processed
to have your personal data transferred to yourself or to another business in certain circumstances
you have the right to be told if we have made a mistake whilst processing your data and we will self report breaches to the Commissioner.

How you can access, update or correct your information

The Data Protection Legislation allows you to find out what information is held about you, on paper and computer records. This is known as ‘right of subject access’ and applies to your Procurement Services data along with all other personal records. For more information see our data protection page.

If you wish to see a copy of your records you should contact the Data Protection Officer. You are entitled to receive a copy of our records free of charge, within a month.

In certain circumstances access to your records may be limited, for example, if the records you have asked for contain information relating to another person.

The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. We are working to make our record keeping more efficient. In the meantime, if you change your address or email address, or if any of your circumstances change or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date please email us or write to us at:

Accountancy & Finance Services
Publica Group (Support) Ltd
Trinity Road, Cirencester, GL7 1PX
Email: enquiries@publicagroup.uk
Phone: 0300 303 3677

If you would like to know more about how we use your information or if for any reason you do not wish to have your information used, email data.protection@westoxon.gov.uk.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner.

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice from time to time by publishing a new version here on our website.