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Contact Centre Privacy Notice

Powys County Council (PCC/we) provides services to its local communities and the people who live in them.

Undertaking this work means that we must collect and use personal information about the people we provide services to and keep a record of those interactions. To do this, PCC's Customer Services, Housing, Assist (Social Care), and Income and Awards (Finance) teams utilise the Contact Centre platform. It provides PCC with the ability to manage multiple contact channels (i.e., telephone calls, website chats, social media chats, and SMS) in one place, in turn providing PCC's customers with multiple contact options and faster and improved services.

Since we collect and use personal information about individuals via the Contact Centre, we must make sure that they know what we intend to do with their information and who it may be shared with. 

In this privacy notice, Customer Services have summarised some of the keyways in which we use your personal information within the Contact Centre. This privacy notice is supported by the individual service area's privacy notices such as:

Further service area privacy notices can be found at Data Protection and Privacy

Who uses the Contact Centre and why?

The Contact Centre is the main telephone response service for Customer Services, the Housing Department, Social Care, Income and Awards and ICT (although ICT do not process customer personal data).

Customer Services will manage most incoming telephone calls for General enquiries/Reception calls, Corporate Complaints, Environmental Services, Highways, Refuse, Trade Waste, Garden Waste, Careline, Blue badge, payments, Welsh line (not an exhaustive list). Other services using the contact centre platform will process data relating to the services they provide - for further information, visit their privacy notices.

Personal data is used to assist a customer with their query. The department to which your query relates to may choose to record customer personal data within their own systems to ensure they manage it appropriately.

Housing and Assist (Social Care) only record calls. An automated message will inform you that calls are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

For calls where payments are made into our payments line or payments that are taken via other queues, i.e., transferred internally to departments, recording ceases at the point of transfer.

What personal data is collected?

Personal data volunteered by a customer can include:

  • Contact detail such as name, address, telephone number, property, and email addresses.
  • Identifying details, including date of birth and national insurance number.
  • Financial information, including employment, income, bank account details.
  • Family information including ages, dependents, marital status.
  • Information about the subject matter's health and medical details.

Where does the service get my information if I didn't provide it? 

The source(s) of personal information provided during a call to/from Contact Centre may include:

  • Information provided by another member of the public (e.g., complaint or concern)
  • Information provided by an elected Councillor on behalf of their constituent.
  • Information provided by other Council officers/services that liaise with the Contact Centre in the interests of its customers, or the Council itself.
  • Information provided by another organisations (e.g., Emergency Services, health board) regarding an individual.

What will we do with your personal information?

Personal data is processed to ensure that a customer's query reaches the correct department. Once it reaches the appropriate department and Contact Centre Contact Officers/equivalent members of staff are no longer required to process the personal data, it is erased (see the Retention Section below for further details).

Where calls are recorded, personal information can be used in the following ways:

  • Transfer your call to an appropriate department of the Council.
  • Quality and Training Purposes: Written records only provide partial information. A call recording provides a more rounded view and allows us to better understand customer experience and assess the processes applied. This can help us identify any improvement areas and ensure the quality of service provided by Contact Centre staff. Managers and supervisors can listen in to calls to rate the quality of a call by using the information within the call recording and or listening in to inform training subjects of the quality and use this in individual employee development plans.
  • Gaining a better understanding of our customers - Many calls are verbally resolved without the need to complete any records. Listening to sample calls will help us better understand our customer needs, review the service and gain a more informed view of organisations we signpost to.
  • Complaints and Disputes: Where information is entered onto an electronic system this becomes the established record. In the event of a complaint or dispute, a call recording may provide additional information to help us investigate any allegations, to protect the interests of the subject matter and/or the Council by using the information within the recording to respond to complaints regarding the Contact Centre and/or other Council services.
  • Legal Claims: For use in the defence of legal claims against the Council, e.g., Highway claims.
  • Employee Safety and Wellbeing: A recording may become a vital piece of evidence in the event of any threats being made to the Council or an individual.

Personal data will also be used in line with the privacy notices listed above.

What is the legal basis for the use of this information?

Personal data is processed on the following bases: -

  • Legal Obligations - using the information to comply with a common law or statutory obligation.  
  • Public Tasks - to exercise 'official authority' and powers that are set out in law; or to perform a specific task in the public interest that is set out in law.

Examples for both above may include e.g., Ensuring Highway defects are managed, fly tipping addressed, waste collected, noise nuisance reported etc. and the defect of legal claims against the Council.

There may be times when personal data is processed in line with other legal basis'. For example:

  • Consent
  • Vital interests
  • Legitimate interests

Does the service share my personal information with any other organisation?

Whilst information gathered during a call may be shared with other Council services or external organisations to assist in the resolution of the subject matter's enquiry, call recordings are confidential and will only be shared with the following, where reasons for sharing is justified:

  • Other Council services who work with the Contact Centre, with the intention to assist in resolving a dispute or complaint.
  • The Police, to assist in the resolution of a criminal matter.
  • Other organisations involved in the care of the subject matter (i.e., Social Services/Health care professionals etc)

How long will my information be kept?

Call recordings, transcripts, webchat and social media logs, and SMS will be retained for 12 months.

Your information, your rights

The UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives you important rights, including the right to access the personal information the services hold about you.

Please visit the Council's privacy notice (Data Protection and Privacy) for more information on these rights, as well as the Council's Data Protection Officer (DPO) contact details.

Contact Us

If you have any concerns or would like to know more about how the contact centre is using your personal information, please contact us in one of the following ways:

  • By email: customerservices@powys.gov.uk
  • General line: 01597 82 74 60
  • In writing: Customer Services, County Hall Spa Road East, Llandrindod Wells, Wales LD1 5LG