Statutory guidance

Privacy notice: Civil Service People Survey respondents

Updated 3 September 2024

The People Survey is managed by the Cabinet Office. This notice sets out how your data will be used and your rights under Articles 13 and/or 14 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

1. Data

The Cabinet Office will process your responses to the survey questions and metadata about how you complete the survey.

This includes:

• any responses given to attitudinal questions that ask you about your experiences at work
• open-ended questions where you leave a comment
• any responses given to demographic questions that ask about your personal and job characteristics (including sex, ethnicity, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background)
• IP addresses, device type used (computer or mobile device) and web browser for ensuring the survey is accessible to assistive tech users. Completion times for each survey.

Your participation is voluntary. Question A01 is the only question you must answer in the survey, to ensure your answers are grouped together with other survey respondents in your team and organisation.

While we do not ask you to identify yourself, it may be possible in a small number of cases for individuals to be identifiable from a combination of their responses.There is also the potential that despite our request not to, individuals may in error disclose personal data in the  free text boxes. For this reason the Cabinet Office treats People Survey data as personal data. 

2. Purpose

The purpose for which the Cabinet Office is processing your personal data is to help leaders identify where there are problems in their organisation, and to help them to take action to improve staff experiences and wellbeing. By running the same survey across all Civil Service organisations, we are able to compare employee views and experiences across the Civil Service, and provide a means for leaders to be held accountable for people management in a consistent way.

2.1 Legal basis

The legal basis for processing your data is that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. Understanding civil servants’ feelings about working in the Civil Service can inform decisions taken to improve these experiences, and ultimately organisation performance. It is also important to know if groups of staff with specific characteristics have a better or worse experience of working for the Civil Service, so that appropriate action can be taken to level this experience.

Sensitive personal data is personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation. Our lawful bases for processing your sensitive personal data are:

• Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest; it is important to know if groups of staff with specific demographic characteristics have a better or worse experience of working for the Civil Service, so that appropriate action can be taken to level this experience.
• Processing of data concerning ethnicity, religious or philosophical belief, health including disability or sexual orientation, is necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between groups of people with a view to enabling such equality to be promoted or maintained.

3. Recipients

All individual-level responses to the People Survey will be seen by the Cabinet Office’s central Analysis and Insight Directorate and their survey suppliers (Qualtrics, SplitPin, Adetiq). Cabinet Office will also share your individual survey responses with a qualified analyst within your organisation, and may disclose your data in compliance with a Freedom of Information request or in response to a court order or other legal obligation where it would not breach your data protection rights to do so. In the event a Machinery of Government process is undertaken, the results and responses from the originating Departments will be shared with the new Department. To ensure the benefits of the Survey can be incorporated into the new Department’s processes.

Your answers are treated respectfully. Results will be aggregated and only reported where at least 10 people have answered the same question, with the exception of any comments you leave to open-ended questions in the survey. In this situation, the Survey Manager in your organisation will decide who can read these comments. We therefore advise you not to disclose any personal information in your comment which might identify yourself or others.

4. Retention

Your data will be held by the Cabinet Office for statistical purposes for 10 years after the date the survey is completed (there is regularly the requirement to do time series analysis), at which point retention will be reviewed. If the data are no longer in use at this point, they will be deleted; if they are still in use, they will be retained, but their retention will (from then on) be reviewed on an annual basis.

Your data will be held by the Cabinet Office’s survey supplier for up to 4 years after the date the survey is completed, or when asked by the Cabinet Office to delete it.

Aggregate results from the People Survey do not count as personal data and will therefore be kept indefinitely, or until they are no longer considered useful.

5. Your rights

All data received through the People Survey is classed as personal data even though it is provided anonymously. That is because in certain circumstances certain individuals may be identifiable if they have a set of characteristics that allows them to be picked out.

It should be made clear that there is no intention to attempt to identify any individuals from the data. Precautions are also in place to prevent this, however for data protection purposes the survey information is being treated with the same requirements as identifiable data. 

The data collected as part of the survey is done so in an anonymised format. This does limit your data protection rights to the information provided in your survey response. If you were to  wish to exercise one of your rights, the Cabinet Office or their survey supplier will need to be able to identify your individual response to be able to comply. This would not be possible without putting others’ anonymity at risk and therefore will not be undertaken. 

6. International transfers

As your personal data will be stored on Cabinet Office IT infrastructure it may be transferred and stored securely outside the UK. On occasion the survey supplier (Qualtrics) may store your data on their platform based in Frankfurt, Germany or in Dublin, Ireland. Both of these countries have been approved as providing adequate data protection rights.

7. Complaints

If you consider your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator ([email protected]). Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.

8. Contact details

Cabinet Office is the data controller for your data ([email protected]). Where employers have played a role in selecting questions and communicating directly with staff to invite them to the survey, they are joint controllers with the Cabinet Office. Cabinet Office continues to be the lead controller in such circumstances. The full range of responsibilities are set out in a joint controller agreement available here.

The Cabinet Office’s Data Protection Officer is Stephen Jones ([email protected]). The Data Protection Officer provides independent advice and monitoring of Cabinet Office’s use of personal information.