Privacy
Your data matters

Looking after the personal information you share with us is important. We would like to tell you when we collect your information, what we use it for, who we share it with and how we look after it.

Highbourne Group Limited is part of the Highbourne Group of companies.

This is our privacy notice, telling you what data we collect, what we do with it, who helps us process it and how you can exercise your rights with regards to your personal information.

Our Privacy Promise:

Do remember that our websites are accessible via the internet. Please remember that if you post any comments or links on any of our sites that they can be read and accessed by anyone and everyone.

Who we are:

Highbourne Group Limited is a company registered in England with the number 02489546 and is part of the Highbourne Group of companies.
Our address is Highbourne House, Eldon Way, Crick, Northants, NN6 7SL.
We are registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner’s office – our registration number is 02489546 

The Highbourne Group which comprises Highbourne Group Limited and the Group companies listed below, through our brands City Plumbing, The Bathroom Showroom, PTS, The Underfloor Heating Store, Plumbnation, NSS, DHS and Faultfinder is one of the largest merchants operating in the UK’s plumbing and heating sector.

Other relevant Group Companies are:

* all with registered office at Highbourne House Eldon Way, Crick Industrial Estate, Crick, Northampton, United Kingdom, NN6 7SL

Where do we collect your Personal Information from?

We collect nearly all the Personal Information for recruitment directly from you, based on information provided in your application to work with us. Some information is created in the course of your application, for example test or interview results and hiring decisions. If you have applied for a role through an Agency, we may collect some information from them. In some cases, such as when we need to carry out a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check or to confirm information related to a professional qualification, we engage with the external body to provide the information they hold. We may also contact the references you have provided to get their feedback on you or to confirm the circumstances of previous periods of employment.

For a limited number of roles, we utilise publicly available information to search for candidates that may be a good fit for Highbourne Group Ltd (for example – via LinkedIn). Our Resourcing Teams may obtain information about you from networking or industry events. Wherever your information is processed for candidate search activities we will take steps to inform you of this, and you can always request that we no longer process your information in this way.

We do record and/or monitor some telephone calls

For example calls to our customer services teams.  We do this for the following purposes:

What information we collect about you, how do we use it and What legal basis do we use to process this information?

This could be for the purpose of (but not limited to) to register for a recruitment event, sign up to job alerts, apply for a vacancy, register for Talent banking.

You have the right to remove your personal information at any time. To do this, you can anonymise your account by logging into your personal profile.

Processing purpose
Categories of data
Legal Basis for Processing

To create an account on Highbourne Group Ltd for you, and enable you to apply for a role

  • Your contact details*
  • Device & Online identifiers
  • Online Activity Information
  • You are giving consent for your data to be processed in the context of an application for a role.
  • Legitimate Interest is used to gather device and online information to ensure that our business is interacting with individuals rather than automated systems or tools.

To help us make any necessary adjustments to support you if you’re invited for interview/assessment

Information relevant to a disability +

In some instances we have an obligation to understand your needs in order to make reasonable adjustments to your interview or application process. In this instance we will only process this information with your explicit consent.

For some roles, we might need to ask you about previous criminal convictions or carry out criminal records checks (such as a DBS check) to confirm your suitability for a role

Criminal conviction information +Personal & Government Identifiers–for example your identification documents. *

  • For some roles we have a legal obligation to confirm your suitability for a role. We can ask for your government identification documents, but we need your explicit consent to do so. 
  • Highbourne Group Ltd sometimes ask applicants to disclose whether they hold an unspent criminal conviction for a roles. You may choose to disclose such information in the course of your employment and in doing so we may process this information on the basis of your explicit consent.

To monitor the effectiveness of our Equal Opportunities Policy. In most cases, we use aggregate information to tell us about trends rather than information relating to a specific individual.

  • Equal opportunities information such as Gender, race or ethnic origin religion or belief, age bracket,
  • sexual orientation and details of any disability +
  • We ask for your explicit consent to provide us with this information
  • In some cases we have a legal responsibility to monitor Equal Opportunities within recruitment – for example in Northern Ireland.

If your application is successful, and we invite you for an interview/ assessment we’ll need additional information to check you have the right to work in the UK, including a copy of your passport, your National Insurance number and any other relevant proof of your right to work, for example visa or working permits.

Right to work information * +

We need your explicit consent to process this type of information, but if you do not provide it we will not be able to progress your application since it is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations including the Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, the Immigration Act 1971, and the Immigration Act 2016

To onboard you as a new colleague

  • If successful in your application, we will also require additional information to prepare for your employment such as:
  • Financial Information such as bank details *
  • Individual preferences & characteristics such as uniform size
  • Next of Kin
  • Necessary for performance of the contract between you and us
  • Next of kin data is collected using the basis of vital interest as this information is typically only used in the case of an emergency.

+ This type of personal information is considered to be special category (or particularly sensitive) personal information. In addition to a legal basis to processing this information, we must also satisfy an appropriate condition described in law. In this case, your special category personal information may be processed on the condition that it is necessary for the purposes of meeting our legal obligations in connection with your employment. Where we process special category information in this way we ensure we have an appropriate policy document in place, usually these are the Highbourne Group Ltd Policies.

* This type of personal information must be provided to Highbourne Group Ltd as a requirement of your employment contract.

Children’s information:

We do not knowingly collect or store any personal information of children under the age of 16, because the mechanisms whereby we collect personal information are not applicable to this age group.

Who we share data with:
We have controls to limit access to your Personal Information to:

Individual colleagues who need it to do their job, such as assessing your application or managing enquiries or complaints.

Third Party software supplier, who provide our (Applicant Tracking System, Careers Website, Onboarding Systems) for the purpose of technical system support only.

We have controls to limit access to your Personal Information to:

Official bodies, such as government agencies, local authorities, regulators and the police, who are authorised to request Information where it is necessary for their lawful purposes;

Highbourne Group Ltd advisers, including lawyers, insurers, accountants and auditors;

Other organisations such as law firms or insurance companies acting on behalf of individuals, who may request evidence containing Personal Information, to support a claim.

Links to other websites

Links may be provided on our website to other websites that are not operated by us. If you use these links, you will leave our website. You should note that we are not responsible for the contents of any third party website. External sites will have their own privacy policies which you should read carefully.

Cookies

Cookies are little packets of data that sit on our website, in some cases to make it work, and in some cases to add additional services. For more information about cookies, how to look after them, even how to turn them off, please visit our cookie policy.

Sending data outside of the UK

Sometimes we need to use services that may be located outside the United Kingdom. This means your personal information may be transferred outside the UK. If we transfer your personal data out of the United Kingdom, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

How we keep your information safe

We take great care to use appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect against accidental, unlawful or unauthorised destruction, loss, alteration, access, disclosure or use. 

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of information you submit via our website and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will take appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data against loss, theft and unauthorised use, access or modification.

If you have created an account or registered to use any online services, your account details may be password protected. It is your responsibility to keep your password confidential and to sign out once you have finished browsing.

Access to personal data is restricted to those within our business who have a legitimate business need and data processed by third parties is only done so under strict instruction from us, as per the terms of their contract. We contractually require service providers and processors to safeguard the privacy and security of personal information they process on our behalf in line with data protection obligations and authorise them to use or disclose the information only as necessary to perform services on our behalf and under our instruction or to comply with legal obligations and requirements.

How long do we keep your information?

For successful applications we keep your Personal Information in line with Highbourne Group employee policies. For unsuccessful applications we retain your Personal Information for 12 months to support any appeals we receive. Any Personal Information you include in the applicant profile you create through our online portal will be retained for as long as your account is active. If you do not log into your account for 12 months it will become inactive and your personal information will be deleted.

Making changes or getting access to the information we hold about you

You can make a request to rectify, erase or object to or restrict the way your information is handled without undue delay. You can also ask to access the data we hold on you, ask for some of it to be transferred to another organisation or ask a human to intervene in an automated decision making process.

You have the right to remove your personal information at any time. To do this, you can anonymise your account by logging into your personal profile.

Where you withdraw your consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing of your personal data prior to the withdrawal of your consent.

Should your request be one that we cannot process you will be informed of this, along with the reasons as to why your request cannot be carried out. 

You can exercise your rights either verbally or in writing to:

Privacy Office 
Highbourne Group Ltd 
Highbourne House,
Eldon Way,
Crick,
Northants, NN6 7SL

If you’re based in the EU/EEA and wish to contact us via our GDPR Representative, DataRep, you may do so at:

Should you make a request verbally we recommend that you follow this up in writing to provide a clear correspondence trail.  Requests in relation to accessing your personal data can be made via:
Our Privacy Portal

If you are making a request on behalf of someone else please complete this form.

We have an obligation to respond within one month of receiving your request. If your request is a complex one, the response time can be extended by up to two months. We will let you know about the extended response date, alongside an explanation, within the original one-month time frame. 

If required, identification will be requested within the one-month time frame and only limited to what is necessary for confirmation.  We might require a copy of your driving license, passport or a utility bill. We will only request these details via Our Privacy Portal. 

If we are not able to comply with a request we will inform you of this within the one-month time frame and provide an explanation outlining our justification. 

Your right to complain

If you do not agree with our reasoning you can contact our Data Protection Officer at privacyoffice@highbournegroup.co.uk or you can lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority:
Information Commissioner’s Office
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
Telephone: +44 303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545745 (national rate)

Changes to this Privacy Notice

If we make changes to our privacy notice we will show you what they are here. If these changes are significant, we may also choose to email relevant individuals with new details. If we are required by law, we will obtain your consent to make these changes.