Voluntary Severance Scheme

Targeted voluntary severance scheme – privacy notice

This notice outlines the University’s processing activities relating to the targeted voluntary severance scheme and covers the following:

  • Overview
  • The basis for processing your personal data and how we use it
  • Personal data we collect about you
  • Retention of personal data
  • Disclosure of personal data
  • Your rights including access to information and correction

Overview

You can refer to the University’s Data Protection Policy for more information about our commitment to processing personal data in a way that is compliant with data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The Data Protection Officer for the University of Sussex is Alexandra Elliott, Head of Information Management and Compliance. If you have any queries concerning your personal data and how it is processed in relation to the VS scheme, you can contact the Data Protection Officer at dpo@sussex.ac.uk.

The basis for processing your personal data and how we use it

We will use your personal information to enable us to administer the voluntary severance scheme including the submission and processing of applications, decision making and taking forward any decisions such as entering a settlement agreement. We will also use personal data to undertake equality monitoring of the scheme.

When we process personal data, there needs to be a legal basis for doing so and, if we process special categories of data, we need to meet additional conditions too.

The University will be processing your personal data based on ‘legitimate interests’, namely the interests of the University and any staff applicant. Where an application for voluntary severance is agreed, our legal basis for processing your personal data to end your contract of employment is ‘contractual obligation’.

We will use special category data for equality monitoring of the scheme and the condition that permits us to do so is our employment obligations relating to our Equality Duty.

Personal data we collect about you

We will collect the following personal data about you:

To process your application and ensure data security across the entire process and to support administration, scheme monitoring and record keeping:

  • Person number
  • Name
  • Job title
  • Grade
  • FTE
  • School/Division
  • Whether you have multiple roles

To assess applications and for decision making:

  • Your proposed last day of service
  • Your self-declaration of whether or not you discussed your application with the relevant Head of School, Dean, Head of Professional Services, the Chief Technical Officer, or Divisional Director
  • The date of this discussion
  • Your expression of interest in the scheme
  • The time and date that you submitted your application
  • Application assessment and recommendation
  • Application outcome decisions
  • Application feedback
  • Decisions relating to Payment in Lieu of Notice
  • Decisions relating to garden leave
  • Decisions relating to the last day of service

To calculate benefits, monitor costs and to keep a record of the calculations:

  • Your service record, start date, proposed last day of service, actual last day of service
  • Salary details
  • Contract Status
  • Estimated VS payment
  • Actual VS payment

For correspondence with applicants in connection with their application and to keep a record of the correspondence:

  • Work email address

To monitor EDI characteristics to ensure equality and fairness:

  • EDI monitoring information – date of birth, gender, nationality, ethnicity, disability indicators

To execute a settlement agreement and to keep a record of the agreements:

  • Legal advisor contact details
  • Settlement agreements
  • Home address

For more general information about how we use personal data at the University, see our University Privacy Notice.

Retention of personal data

The University will only keep your personal data for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it is processed.

We will retain your data as follows:

  • Where VS is agreed – the application and associated data will form part of the employee record and will be retained in your personnel file.
  • Where VS is not agreed – applications and associated data will be destroyed after 6 months from submission of the application or by 30 April 2022, whichever is the latter.

Disclosure of personal data

We will only disclose your personal data to a third party when we are required to by law, where we have your specific consent, or where appropriate arrangements are in place with regard to data sharing.

If you wish to access outplacement support, your name and contact details will be provided to the outplacement provider, but only with your prior consent.

Your rights including access to information and correction

You have a number of rights under the Data Protection legislation, including the right:

to rectify inaccuracies in personal data that we hold about you

  • to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain ways
  • to obtain a copy of your data in a commonly used electronic form
  • to object to certain processing of your personal data by us

Further information about all of your data rights can be found on the ICO’s website. You may also contact the Data Protection Officer for further information.

You also have the right to ask to see what personal data we hold about you, known as a subject access request. For more information, please refer to our Data Protection pages for guidance on how to submit subject access requests.

You have a right to complain to the ICO about the way in which we process your personal data. You can find further details here.