Customer Contact Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice outlines how your personal data is processed by us, East Lindsey District Council (ELDC), and our partner, Public Sector Partnership Services (PSPS), when you contact our customer contact channels.

For all contact made through our customer contact teams, we are the Data Controller responsible for the personal information you may provide. Our Data Protection Officer (DPO) can be contacted via email: Information.Management@e-lindsey.gov.uk, by phone on 01507 601111, or by writing to us at Information Management, East Lindsey District Council, The Hub, Mareham Road, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6PH.

Your data will initially be processed by PSPS, a company which is owned by East Lindsey and South Holland District Councils, before it is passed onto any relevant Council departments for processing. PSPS' Data Protection Officer can be contacted via email: Corporate.Services@pspsl.co.uk, by phone on 01507 613303, or in writing to Data Protection Officer, Public Sector Partnership Services, The hub, Mareham Road, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, LN9 6PH.

What we mean by Customer Contact

Any time you call the Council by phoning the main switchboard (01507 601111), by emailing a central email address (such as customerservices@e-lindsey.gov.uk), by submitting a web form or by speaking with an advisor face-to-face, you are engaging with our customer contact team.

Their role is to answer any queries they can directly, and/or to pass your query on to relevant specialists when appropriate or necessary to do so.

Types of information processed by Customer Contact

Our Customer Contact team can be the main or first point of contact for any service provided by the Council. For example, this may include but not be limited to services relating to: Council Tax, Benefits, Business Rates, Housing Advice and Support, Environmental Protection, Planning, Waste Services and Licensing.

The type of information retained is usually high level information regarding your contact, such as when you contacted us, by what method, what you contacted us about and any other information taken at the time such as contact information.

What is Customer Records Management?

Customer Records Management (CRM) is a solution commonly used in customer contact environments for recording customer contact information. PSPS operates a CRM on behalf of ELDC as part of the customer contact service provided, and this is used with the intention of providing a more efficient and effective service to customers when they contact the Council. Information relating to when you contacted the Council, what you contacted the Council for and any associated contact information provided at the time are recorded and then used to save you from repeating all of this again in any subsequent engagement. We will check contact details for accuracy when you contact us.

PSPS and ELDC receive no benefit from holding this information. The sole purpose is to allow the customer experience to be a more efficient and satisfactory one.

Retaining and Sharing Information

PSPS currently retains information dating back to 2011. This is something we're currently reviewing and our intention is to have a much shorter retention period in the future.

Information you provide to customer contact will always be shared with the relevant service where this is necessary to deal with your query or service request. For example, if you contacted us relating to a Council Tax query we will pass this information directly onto the Council Tax Team, or if you wanted to purchase a green bin service we will pass this onto the waste services team. Other than sharing this information with services directly where necessary to deal with your query, we will not share this information more widely unless there is a legal obligation to do so.

Your rights

You have a number of rights outlined in data protection law, and these include the right to access information we hold about you, the right to insist on rectification where the data we hold is inaccurate, the right to insist we delete your information where you feel that processing is unlawful and/or unnecessary. You can contact our DPO as outlined above if you wish to exercise any of these rights or if you have any other queries relating to the processing of your personal data. If you are dissatisfied with how we have dealt with your queries or complaints, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner. Details of how to this can be found on their website:  https://ico.org.uk/