Some of the language used in privacy notices can be specialised. The Information Commissioner's website provides a useful introduction to key terms and concepts.
We will process your personal information to enable us to consider your suitability for an advertised job vacancy. This may include collecting your personal information, recording it, storing it, using it, amending it and destroying it.
In general, we process your personal information to:
Provision may be made for interviews to take place on the telephone or using suitable video conferencing software such as Microsoft Teams. In this event the meeting will not be recorded although notes may be taken of your responses to questions during the interview.
If you participate in an interview, we will ask you to complete a questionnaire using Microsoft Forms to provide feedback on your interview experience. The purpose of providing feedback is to ensure we are continually improving our service and the candidate experience. Participation in the feedback is voluntary. The questions do not require candidates or interviewers to identify themselves and responses will be anonymised.
The questionnaire includes a number of free text boxes where you can add your own text. When completing the free text boxes, you are reminded not to name individuals or job titles or provide information likely to disclose the identity of third parties in your comments.
Personal data will be reviewed in order to assess suitability for an advertised job vacancy and will be stored securely on a UK based third party cloud-based system (see below).
For assessing your application, we process normal category data such as: your title, name, home address, email address, telephone number, qualifications, previous employment history, employment reference addresses, skills and experiences.
We also ask for *special category data for monitoring of equal opportunity and treatment which may include information such as your gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, disability, religion/belief and trans status. Our questionnaire monitors diversity and also for your date of birth which is normal category data. The provision of this data is voluntary.
*Special category personal data consists of information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.
At this stage in the recruitment process all personal data will be provided by the applicant (the data subject).
Data protection law states that we must have a legal basis for handling your personal data.
The processing of personal data for the purposes of staff recruitment, including pre-employment checks is necessary for the legitimate interests of the SPCB (Article 6(1)(f) UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), to select a suitable employee for an advertised position.
When an appointment has been made, the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) UK GDPR).
The processing of special categories of data is necessary to exercise or perform employment law rights and obligations and to review equality of opportunity or treatment. The processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest (Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR and paragraph 8, part 2, schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA)). The processing is necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatments between groups of people, with a view to enabling such equality to be promoted and maintained. Applicants are not under an obligation to provide the data to us.
The legal basis for processing of personal data for the purposes of completing the feedback questionnaire is that it is carried out with the consent of the data subject in terms of Article 6(1)(a) UK GDPR. If you provide any special category data about yourself in the free text questions, the legal basis is that it is carried out with your explicit consent in terms of Article 9(2)(a) UK GDPR.
Where we offer a place on a reserve list or applicants bank, we will seek your consent separately for holding your personal data for that purpose.
Your application will be anonymised, and your name will only be supplied to the selection panel at interview stage.
There will be some automated processing depending on the answers you give to screening questions. For instance, if you answer “no” to the right to work in the UK, your application may be automatically declined, and an automated email sent.
Similarly, objective selection questions may generate an automated response that declines your application. There will be no automated processing in relation to free text information.
We currently have two third-party recruitment systems in use:
For any recruitment advertised from 3 December 2024.
Your personal details will be processed through a third-party recruitment system iTrent (supplied by MHR). Your details are stored on their computer system and may be accessed by authorised MHR employees for the purposes of systems administration of the recruitment system. MHR use UK data centres to store this information and any personal data stored is protected by multiple tiers of security. You can access the privacy notice for iTrent at the following link:
For any recruitment that has been advertised up to 29 November 2024.
Your personal details will be processed through a third-party recruitment system (Eploy), stored on their computer system and accessed by authorised Eploy employees for the purposes of managing the recruitment system. Eploy use UK data centres to store this information and any personal data stored is protected by multiple tiers of security. Eploy will be decommissioned at the end of February 2025 and all data will thereafter be securely deleted.
Further information about Eploy's security status
For the purposes of assessing your suitability for an advertised job vacancy you may be required to undertake psychometric testing via a third-party supplier, . Limited personal information about you, including your email address, name and gender will be shared with the supplier for the purposes of carrying out psychometric testing.
If you disclose that you have a disability, then we may require to share some special category data relating to your disability with the supplier for the purposes of making reasonable adjustments that may be required to enable you to complete the testing. We will not disclose more information than is necessary for this purpose.
The supplier will be the data controller of this information once it is provided to them. If you wish to delete your personal information held with our supplier, please get in touch with them directly or contact us so that we will instruct the supplier to delete candidate personal identifiers and test result reports, in line with our retention schedule for recruitment data.
We will not pass your personal details to any other third party without your consent.
Personal details for unsuccessful applications will be retained for one year. Applicants will, at that time, be given the opportunity to consent for their details to be held on the system for a further 12 months.
If consent is withdrawn, or there is no response, then candidate details will be automatically anonymised within the system. Anonymisation completely removes any personal information. Candidates can no longer be identified, and the process cannot be reversed.
Where applicants are unsuccessful but pass the recruitment board, applicants will be placed on a reserve list with their consent for up to 12 months. We will consider any reserve list candidate for available positions within the next 12 months. Personal details held as part of successful recruitment applications will be retained in accordance with the Scottish Parliament records management policy. These will be retained as part of the employee’s career history, until the age of 100.
Responses to feedback questionnaires will be retained for a period of 12 months from the date of the interview.
Cookies are small text files that the Scottish Parliament careers website puts on your computer.
They allow this website to work properly. Cookies store information on the device you’re using. Sometimes this information is essential if you want to use a website's functions.
For example, if you need to log in, a cookie will allow the website to recognise your log-in details.
Cookies can also be used to build a profile of your activity on a website. This includes which pages you visit and how long you spend on each page. A website may use this information to tailor the pages you see on future visits.
We only use essential cookies. They last as long as you’re using the website, do not store any personal information, and are not kept after you leave the website.
We've listed below which cookies this website uses, and for what purpose.
| Name | What it does | When it expires |
|---|---|---|
| TS01 and BIGipServer | These are essential cookies which allow load balancing to function. This ensures web requests are processed by the same server and gives a better user experience. |
It stores your session temporarily until you close your browser down. |
| Shibsession |
These are essential cookies created by Shibboleth-SP. The Shibboleth service is used by iTrent for authentication and allows users to log in to the website. |
It stores your session temporarily until you close your browser down. |
Data protection legislation sets out the rights which individuals have in relation to personal data held about them by data controllers.
Applicable rights are listed below. You can exercise your data subject rights in particular circumstances depending on the purpose for which the data controller is processing the data and the legal basis upon which the processing takes place.
The following rights may apply:
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information about you that we hold.
Further information on how to make a data protection 'subject access request'
You have the right to ask us to correct the personal data we hold about you. We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. You may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
You have the right at any time to require us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes. In addition, where we use your personal information to perform tasks carried out in the public interest then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information. We will stop using the information unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue.
You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:
Please note that the right allowing for deletion or erasure of personal data (right to be forgotten) does not apply in cases where personal data is processed for the purposes of the performance of a task carried out in the public interest
The right of erasure and the right to object to processing of personal data do not apply where personal data is processed for the performance of a legal obligation. This will be considered on a case by case basis and depends on what personal data is involved and the risks further processing of that data could pose to you
In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information about you that we hold or assessing the validity of any objection you have made to our use of your information.
The right might also apply where there is no longer a basis for using your personal information, but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right is validly exercised, we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.
Where we use your personal information with your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time. We will therefore stop using your personal information for the purposes for which consent was given.
Please contact us in any of the ways set out below if you wish to exercise any of these rights
We keep this privacy statement under regular review and will place any updates on this website. Paper copies of the privacy statement may also be obtained using the contact information below.
This privacy statement was last updated on 4 December 2024.
We seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle personal information but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office online at: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
Or by phone at: 0303 123 1113
If you have any further questions about the way in which we process personal data, or
about how to exercise your rights, please contact the Head of Information Governance
at:
The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP
Telephone: 0131 348 5281
(Calls are welcome through the Text Relay service or in British Sign Language through contactSCOTLAND-BSL.)
Email: dataprotection@parliament.scot
Please contact us if you require information in another language or format