Candidate Privacy Notice

As part of any recruitment process, Lovat Parks Limited collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. Lovat Parks Limited is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

What information do we collect?

During recruitment, Lovat Parks Limited collects a range of information about you. This includes:

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 Lovat Parks Limited needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process
• information about your entitlement to work in the UK

Lovat Parks Limited may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in online application forms, CVs, letters, emails, online messaging, or obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment or testing.

We may partner with recruitment or other consultants and collect data from and share data with them.

We may also collect personal data about you from other third parties, such as references supplied by former employers or information from employment background check providers. We will seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made and will inform you that we are doing so.

Data will be stored in a range of different places, including on your application record, in HR/payroll management systems and on other IT systems (including email). Lovat Parks Limited uses People First (provided by MHR) as its HR Management System, which includes a full applicant tracking module. We request certain details from you to be able to make an offer of employment, in addition to the above; namely National Insurance Number and date of birth.

Why do we process personal data?

Lovat Parks Limited needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. We may also need to process your data to enter into a contract with you should we reach that stage of the process.

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

Lovat Parks Limited has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment and selection process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from job applicants allows us to manage the recruitment and selection process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. We may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

We may process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, to monitor recruitment statistics. We may also collect information about whether or not applicants have a disability to make reasonable adjustments for candidates where needed. Lovat Parks Limited processes such information to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

Criminal Convictions

Lovat Parks Limited seeks information about criminal convictions and offences for all team members via the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

We process this data for the protection and safeguarding of our team and our guests. For certain roles, we have a legal obligation to process this data and this is set out in more detail in our DBS Policy.  Any such processing of criminal conviction data is conducted lawfully, fairly and with strict confidentiality, ensuring that this information is only used for the purpose for which it is gathered.

We will not undertake DBS checks until an offer of employment has been made and your consent to do so has been given.

For further information please refer to our DBS Policy, which is available on request.

Who has access to data?

Your information may be shared internally or with our appointed consultants working on behalf of Lovat Parks Limited for the purposes of the recruitment and selection exercise. This includes interviewers involved in the process.

Access to DBS data is strictly controlled by the Human Resources Department.

Other than as specified above, we will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you and employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks, where relevant for the role.

How do we protect data?

We take the security of your data seriously. Lovat Parks Limited has internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties, by applying a defence-in-depth strategy to cyber security that encompasses, in line with best practices, the secure configuration of identities, devices, data and apps, email filtering, web filtering, endpoint threat detection, monitoring, backup, as well as mandatory regular cyber security awareness training for all users that access our systems.

Access to data in People First is restricted to only authorised individuals. Those who do have access have single user access with full password protection and specific user levels are assigned. Control of this system is the responsibility of the Human Resources Department.

Electronic personal files in which information is stored for the purpose of processing successful applicants are only accessible to the Human Resources Department using Microsoft SharePoint with full password protection.

For how long does Lovat Parks Limited keep data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, we will retain your data for 12 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process and may contact you regarding any potentially suitable roles within this timeframe. You have the right to request that we don’t contact you, which should be made to Jane Aspinall careers@lovatparks.com.

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your electronic personal file and retained during your employment. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in our Team Member, Contractor and Agency Worker Privacy Notice.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights, namely:

• right to be informed – individuals have the right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data, as set out in this privacy notice
• right of access – individuals have the right to access and receive a copy of their personal data, and other supplementary information such as the purpose of the processing, types of data being processed or retention periods
• right to rectification – individuals have the right to have inaccurate personal data rectified, or completed if it is incomplete
• right to erasure – you have the right to request erasure of data. We may not be able to erase some data depending on the reason for processing
• right to restrict processing – individuals have the right to request the restriction or suppress of their personal data
• right to object – individuals have the right to object to the processing of their personal data in certain circumstances. If you let us know you object we will consider your objection and reply within one calendar month. If we decide we need to continue to process your data we will provide our reasons for doing so in writing

More information on the above rights can be found at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact careers@lovatparks.com.  Please put ‘Privacy and GDPR’ as the subject heading.

If you believe that we have not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

Automated decision-making and profiling

At Lovat Parks, we are committed to ensuring a fair and transparent recruitment process. We confirm that we do not use automated decision-making, including profiling, in any part of our recruitment or selection procedures.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to Lovat Parks Limited during the recruitment process, however, if you do not provide the information, we may not be able to process your application for employment properly or at all.

Amendments

We reserve the right to update or modify this privacy notice at any time in response to changing legal, regulatory, or operational requirements. Any material changes to how we handle your personal data will be promptly communicated to you.