Former Employee

Link collects and processes personal data relating to its employees to manage the contract of employment between both parties. This privacy notice covers the data relating to your former employment with Link as an employee. Link is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

What data we need

As an employee, Link collected and processed a range of information about you which may include:

• your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number, date of birth and gender;
• details of your applications for positions which you have held and their associated terms and conditions of employment during your employment;
• details of your qualifications, professional memberships, skills, experience and employment history including start and end dates with previous employers and Link;
• information about your remuneration, including entitlement to benefits such as pensions, life assurance cover and to administer any flexible benefits you may have accessed;
• details of your bank account, national insurance number and personnel reference number;
• information about your marital status, next of kin and emergency contacts;
• information about your nationality and right to work in the UK;
• information about your criminal record;
• details of your work schedule (days of work and working hours) and attendance at work;
• details of periods leave taken by you, including holiday, sickness absence, family leave and career breaks, and the reason for the leave;
• details of any disciplinary, grievance, dignity at work, capability hearings (performance and/or attendance improvement) in which you have been involved, including any warnings issued to you and related correspondence;
• assessments of your performance, including appraisals, performance reviews, training you have participated in, performance improvement plans and related correspondence;
• information about medical or health conditions, including whether or not you have a disability for which the organisation has considered making reasonable adjustments;
• details of union membership;
• based on the requirements of the post you have required a driving license and if necessary have access to a roadworthy vehicle with the required insurance to drive for business purposes. If this is the case then your details will have been provided to a third party to undertake these checks on our behalf;
• based on the legal requirement of the post or post(s), you may have been required to be a member of the Disclosure Scotland PVG Scheme whilst in post;
• based on the legal requirement of the post or post(s), you may have been required to complete a Disclosure Scotland criminal record and disclosure check at the time of appointment and every three years thereafter for the duration of your appointment to the post;
• photograph of you is stored within the HR & Payroll system for identification purposes and to generate an identification badge; and
• with your consent information on equal opportunities monitoring information which is not needed for the purposes of managing the employment relationship so it is optional for you to provide.

Why we need it

Link needed to process data to enter into an employment contract with you and to meet its obligations under your employment contract. For example, it needed to process your data to provide you with an employment contract, to pay you in accordance with your employment contract and to administer benefit, pension and entitlements.

In some cases, Link needed to process data to ensure that it complied with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to check an employee's entitlement to work in the UK, to deduct tax, to comply with health and safety laws and to enable employees to take periods of leave to which they are entitled. For certain positions, it is necessary to carry out criminal records checks to ensure that individuals are permitted to undertake the role in question.

In other cases, the organisation has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the employment relationship. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data. However, if Link can demonstrate that there is a compelling reason to process such personal data then we may refuse to stop processing your personal data.  

Processing employee data allows Link to:

• facilitate recruitment and selection processes;
• maintain accurate and up-to-date employment records and contact details (including details of who to contact in the event of an emergency), and records of employee contractual and statutory rights;
• operate and keep a record of disciplinary, grievance and dignity at work processes, to ensure acceptable conduct within the workplace;
• operate and keep a record of employee performance and related processes, to plan for career development, and for succession planning and workforce management purposes;
• operate and keep a record of absence and absence management procedures, to allow effective workforce management and ensure that employees are receiving the pay or other benefits to which they are entitled;
• obtain occupational health advice, to ensure that it complies with duties in relation to individuals with disabilities, meet its obligations under health and safety law, and ensure that employees are receiving the pay or other benefits to which they are entitled;
• operate and keep a record of other types of leave (including maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave), to allow effective workforce management, to ensure that the organisation complies with duties in relation to leave entitlement, and to ensure that employees are receiving the pay or other benefits to which they are entitled;
• ensure effective general HR and business administration;
• provide references on request for current or former employees;
• respond to and defend against legal claims; and
• maintain and promote equality in the workplace.

Where Link relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it has considered whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of employees and has concluded that they are not. You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data. However, if Link can demonstrate that there is a compelling reason to process such personal data then we may refuse to stop processing your personal data. 

Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, was processed to carry out employment law obligations (such as those in relation to employees with disabilities and for health and safety purposes. Information about union membership was processed to allow the organisation to review union recognition agreements from time to time and facilitate the payment of union memberships via payroll.

Where Link processed other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. Data that the organisation uses for these purposes is anonymised in reporting and is collected with the express consent of employees, which can be withdrawn at any time. Employees and former employees are entirely free to decide whether or not to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be treated as confidential and will have been shared internally including with members of the HR team, your line manager, managers in the business area in which you work and if appropriate Directors or members of the Boards of Management, IT staff and suppliers if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles and services.

Once you have left our employment, Link shares your data with third parties in order to:

• Link will notify the appropriate third parties that provide remuneration and benefits services to you whilst you were an employee to advise of your date of leaving so that as appropriate remuneration and benefits that are conditional on your employment cease or the provider may make other arrangements with you directly;

• With your written consent, Link will provide references to prospective employers. It is Link’s Employment Reference Policy to only provide the following information within a standard reference; dates of employment with Link; job title;  a short description of the employee's key duties and level of responsibility;  whether or not the individual held responsibility for staff, budgets, equipment, computer system, etc;  any jobs that the employee held within the organisation prior to the job held at the date of termination (or the current job), and for how long they performed these jobs;  whether or not any disciplinary warnings have been issued to the employee during the last 12 months or, if the reference is for a former employee, in the 12 months prior to them leaving the organisation;  the reason for termination of employment where the employee has left the organisation, e.g.; resignation, redundancy, or the expiry of a fixed-term contract. Absence information will not be included in an employment reference from Link;

• For certain roles, Link is obligated to provide additional information to prospective employers under legislative requirements when it relates to a person’s suitability to work in social services as determined by professional bodies including the Care Inspectorate, Scottish Social Services Council etc. Link is legally obligated to provide accurate and appropriate references to share information relating to a person’s suitability to work in social services, which may include issues of safety (previous disciplinary issues, dismissals, demotions) and any competencies which may be difficult to address though a selection process (e.g. team working; tenacity; adherence to regulatory codes of practice);

• For certain roles, Link is legally required to make employer disclosures/referrals to the following third party organisations:

• Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC); employers have responsibilities which are set out in the SSSC Code of Practice for Employers of Social Service Workers and the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001. This includes but is not limited to:
  • Referral to the fitness to practice service in relation to your conduct and professional practice where it is believed to be or may be impaired.
  • Dismissing the social service worker on grounds of misconduct, or on the social worker resigning or abandoning the worker’s position in circumstances where, but resignation or abandonment the worker i) would have been dismissed on the grounds of misconduct, or ii) dismissal on such grounds would have been considered by the employer
  • Provide the SSSC with information on the social services worker as the SSSC may require when exercising its functions;

• Disclosure Scotland; As a provider of “regulated work”, as defined by Schedules 2 and 3 of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007, Link are legally obliged in certain circumstances (known as referral grounds) to submit referrals on individuals to Disclosure Scotland. The legal requirement to refer is contained with section 9 of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007;

• Depending on the circumstances in which you left Link’s employment or any other employment related matter, recovery of monies, company property or correspondence, Link may seek legal advice as appropriate or may be required to contact the appropriate authorities to resolve any outstanding obligations as they related to the employment relationship including court proceedings;

• Link may be required in extenuating circumstances to provide the minimum information on staff to regulators, Government bodies and agencies and contracting agents in reports, notifiable events or incident reporting/investigations as required by legislation and/or the contracts for service. In considering these requests the release of the information will be carefully considered;
• Link may disclose certain data to internal or external auditors as it relates to the scope of the audit;

• If necessary, Link will transfer your personnel file to a secure storage facility that is managed by a third party on our behalf;

• Link will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

Receiving data about you

We may receive information request from third parties about you as outlined above.  

Where we store your data

During your employment, Link collected information in a variety of ways. For example, data is collected through application forms, CVs or resumes; obtained from your passport or other identity documents such as your driving licence; from forms completed by you at the start of or during employment (such as benefit nomination forms); from correspondence with you; or through interviews, meetings or other assessments.

In some cases, Link collected 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 permitted by law.

Data will be stored in a range of different places, including on your online careers portal account, application record, in HR management systems and on other IT systems (including email). If necessary, Link will transfer your personnel file to a secure storage facility that is managed by a third party on our behalf.

How long we will keep your information

We review our data retention periods regularly and will only hold your personal data for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as required by law (we may be legally required to hold some types of information), or as set out in any relevant contract we have with you.

We will generally keep your information for the following minimum periods after which this will be destroyed if it is no longer required for the reasons it was obtained.

Data/Document Type	Condition of Processing	Retention Period
Unregulated references provided to third parties	Consent	HR will retain a copy of the reference and written record of any subsequent enquiry securely within the HR department for seven months from the last date of issue, unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Regulated references provided to third parties	Legal Obligation and and Public Interest	HR will retain a copy of the reference and written record of any subsequent enquiry securely within the HR department for seven months from the last date of issue, unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Referrals and disclosures to regulatory bodies	Legal Obligation and and Public Interest	6 years after the end of the financial year in which the employment relationship ended unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Electronic Employment Records with HR & Payroll System	Legal obligation and legitimate interests	6 years after the end of the financial year in which the employment relationship ended unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.  After this period the personal data will be redacted and the corporate record anonymised.
Other Employment Records (unless otherwise outlined in this retention schedule)	Legal obligation and legitimate interests	6 years after the end of the financial year in which the employment relationship ended unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Health & Safety Records – Accidents at Work & Work Related Accidents	Legal obligation and legitimate interests	Link will retain the records for 5 years unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Health & Safety Records - Injuries, Fatalities, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences	Legal obligation and legitimate interests	Link will retain the records for 5 years unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Health & Safety – Risk Assessments	Legal obligation and legitimate interests	Link will retain the records for 5 years unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Health & Safety – Exposure to Asbestos Records	Legal obligation and legitimate interests	Link will retain the records for 40 years unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.
Health & Safety – Exposure to Specified Hazardous Substances	Legal obligation and legitimate interests	Link will retain the records for 40 years unless there is a legal basis for retaining for a longer period.

To view Link's full data retention schedule please click here. 

Updating your information

If your details change, please contact the HR Shared Services Team on lghumanresources@linkgroup.org.uk, 0330 303 0124 or in writing to Link Group Limited, Link House, 2c New Mart Road, Edinburgh, EH14 1RL.

Data Protection Officer

You can contact our data protection officer at datamanagement@linkhaltd.co.uk or by post to Link House, 2c New Mart Road, Edinburgh EH14 14L. 

Changes to our privacy notice

Our privacy notice is regularly kept up to date and this version was updated on 8 November 2021. The latest full version is always available from our website.