Complaints Privacy Notice

The personal data you provide to us as part of your complaint and also any personal data we collect about you (“Your Information”) will be processed by East Dunbartonshire Council 12 Strathkelvin Place, Kirkintilloch, G66 1TJ for the purposes of investigating and resolving your complaint.

You can contact the Council on 0300 123 4510 or customerservices@eastdunbarton.gov.uk.

The Council’s Data Protection Officer is Karen Donnelly who can be contacted on the below noted details:

12 Strathkelvin Place,
Kirkintilloch,
G66 1TJ

Email: DPO@eastdunbarton.gov.uk.

Tel: 0300 123 4510

Your Information will be processed in order to investigate the subject matter of your complaint and provide a resolution.

Your Information may also be shared with other departments within East Dunbartonshire Council or other organisations for the same purposes and also to:

• Check the information we hold is accurate
• Prevent and/or detect crime
• Protect public funds.

Other organisations may include bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, bodies carrying out data matching exercises, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsmen, other councils, public sector agencies, governmental departments, regulatory and law enforcement bodies voluntary organisations and other private companies or entities (such as Council service providers/contractors and/or partner bodies).

The legal basis for processing Your Information is:

• Our legal obligations under the following legislation:
  • The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002
  • The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (to ensure proper administration of the Council’s financial affairs (including the detection and/or prevention of fraud) (and providing such information as necessary to the Accounts Commission)
  • The Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000 (disclosure of data to Audit Scotland for data matching).

Making a complaint to the Council is a voluntary process. Without the correct information however we may not be able to resolve your complaint.

A complaint can be made on an anonymous basis however you won’t receive updates on the progress of your complaint if it is made anonymously.

Deliberately providing false information when making a complaint can waste Council time and resources.

Some of the information East Dunbartonshire Council hold about you for the purposes of dealing with your complaint may come from third party sources.

For example:

• If you make a complaint about one of our contractors/service providers we may get further details from the contractor/service provider about how they engaged with you or the extent of work they carried out for you/at your premises and personal details may be provided to us in the course of these investigations
• If you make a complaint and advise that you have reported the matter to the police we may double check that the police have a record of this complaint and further personal details may be provided to us as a result.

East Dunbartonshire Council uses the Scottish Council of Archives Records Retention Schedules to manage the amount of time the Council keeps Your Information. Further information on these can be found on the Scottish Archives website.

If you are searching SCARRS the Reference which covers Your Information is: 20.004.003.

We will hold Your Information from the end of the last action regarding the complaint for a period of 5 years. Your information will be retained for the minimum period necessary. Your Information will be destroyed under confidential conditions after this period.

Your Information will be accessed by Council employees who need to do so to administer and resolve your complaint.

The Council is also required to ensure proper administration of its funds so details will be checked internally for fraud prevention and verification purposes. Information is also analysed internally in order to provide management information, inform service delivery reform and similar purposes.

Your Information may also be shared with other departments within the Council, bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, bodies carrying out data matching exercises, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsmen, public sector agencies, governmental departments, regulatory and law enforcement bodies and other private companies or entities (such as Council service providers/contractors and/or partner bodies to whom the complaint may relate).