Terms and Conditions of Use
These terms and conditions of use along with the below “Privacy Notice: How we will use and share your personal data” notice explain your obligations when using this site and how we will process the personal data that you provide to us for the purposes of operating our recruitment procedures.
You can either accept these terms and continue with the application process, or decline in which case you will be returned to the career homepage and will not be able to apply for a vacancy through our recruitment portal.
If you are provided with a User id and/or password at any time by us, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of that User id and/or password. You agree to notify us of any unauthorised use of your User id and/or password. Your account information is password protected for your own privacy and security. Data transmissions are protected by industry standard SSL encryption.
We may amend these terms of use and our Privacy Notice at any time to reflect changes to the law or where we otherwise need to update our procedures. If we make any substantial changes, we will notify you of these by email and on our website. You may withdraw your application at any time if you wish.
Privacy notice
How we will use and share your personal data
This notice explains how Mills & Reeve LLP, 24 King William Street, London, EC4R 9AT, and Mills & Reeve Services Limited, 1 St. James Court, Whitefriars, Norwich, Norfolk, NR3 1RU, will collect, use or otherwise process personal data of current staff and partners (“you”), how we use it internally, how we share it, how long we keep it and what your legal rights are in relation to it.
“Personal data” is information relating to you as a living, identifiable individual.
What information may we hold about you?
In the course of facilitating your employment, we may obtain a range of personal data about you.This data may be received from you, or it may be received from a third party such as a referee obtained from a public source.
The types of personal data that we hold might include:
· The contact details that you provide to us, including names, addresses and telephone numbers.
· Other personal details, such as your date of birth or marital status
· Your position, role, contract terms, grade, salary, benefits and entitlements.
· Records about your recruitment, including your application paperwork, details of your qualifications, references, requests for special arrangements and communications regarding our decisions
· Details of any relevant criminal convictions or charges that we ask you to declare to us, either when you apply to us, or during your employment. Further, we carry out pre-employment checks including Disclosure and Barring Services (“DBS”) check for roles engaged in regulated activity, roles carrying a higher degree of responsibility, or for any role which involves exposure to personnel or highly confidential information as part of their normal duties, which will provide us with details of any relevant criminal convictions and/or cautions that you have received.
· Details of your disciplinary history. It is a requirement of firms regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”) to check that all new employees, and individuals the firm contracts with, do not cause or contribute to a breach of the SRA’s Standards and Regulations.
· Copies of passports, right to work documents, visas and other documents required to comply with immigration checks
· Pensions membership data, including identification numbers, quotes and projections, terms benefits and contributions.
· Details of any medical issues and/or disabilities that you have notified to us, including any consideration and decision on reasonable adjustments made as a result.
· Equality monitoring data.
· Your financial details, including bank and building society account numbers, sort codes, BACS IDs, NI numbers, tax codes, payslips and similar data.
· Learning and development records, including your attendance, completions, accreditations and certifications.
· Promotion and progression records, including applications, references and supporting materials, records of deliberations and decisions, feedback and awards.
· Records regarding grievances, disciplinary proceedings or investigations prompted by, involving or relating to you.
· Photographs (CCTV from our office locations or taken by us for identification purposes to be displayed on the Mills & Reeve LLP’s intranet, and in the case of fee earners, be displayed on the Mills & Reeve LLP’s website and used for marketing purposes. Please contact the HR team if you would not like us to disclose your photograph in this way)
· Absence records, including leave requests, sickness records and related data.
· Computing and email information, including login information and usage of our IT systems, IP address(es), equipment allocated to you and records of network access.
· Access control information from our office locations.
The purposes and legal basis for processing your personal data
To the extent that we have a contract with you (or one is in prospect), the primary legal basis for processing your personal data is that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, including, but not limited to, training, remuneration, benefits, performance appraisal, essential communication about issues affecting their work location or critical systems.
Processing of your personal data may be necessary for compliance with our legal and professional obligations to third parties as an employer including, not limited to, right to work, tax and equality and inclusion.
Further we may process your personal data in pursuit of our legitimate interests. We have legitimate interests in:
· in supporting the wellbeing of our current staff and partners and promoting a supportive work environment;
· in undertaking client specified and contractually binding identity checks and other verification;
· in protecting the safety and wellbeing of everyone whilst on our premises;
· in maintaining the security of the systems, premises, equipment and information to prevent cyber or physical incidents;
· in recording activities for evidentiary purposes in the case of suspected or actual security or other incidents affecting Mills & Reeve;
· in recording relevant activities for evidentiary purposes in formal Mills & Reeve disciplinary processes arising from breaches in policies and/or employment terms and conditions;
· in monitoring capacity and quality to deliver an appropriate level of service to clients;
· in seeking confidential legal advice when necessary and/or or establish or defend legal claims.
· We may also use your personal information, typically in an emergency, where this is necessary to protect your vital interests, or someone else’s vital interests.In a small number of cases where other lawful bases do not apply, we will process your data on the basis of your consent.
Special category personal data (“sensitive”) and details of criminal offences
Certain personal data is subject to additional safeguards under data protection legislation. Such information includes details of:
· your racial or ethnic origin;
· your political opinions;
· your religious beliefs or other beliefs of a similar nature;
· whether you are a member of a trade union;
· your physical or mental health or condition;
· your sexual life;
· the commission or alleged commission by you of any offence, or
· any proceedings for any offence committed or alleged to have been committed by you, the disposal of such proceedings or the sentence of any court in such proceedings.
It may be necessary for us to process some sensitive personal data in order to comply with legal or regulatory obligations (including making reasonable adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, or to fulfil our obligations to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Complaints Service), or if we need to do so in order to seek confidential legal advice, or establish or defend legal claims.
It may be necessary for us to process some sensitive personal data for purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity between specified groups by monitoring specified diversity data (ethnic/racial origin, religious/philosophical belief, physical/mental health and/or sexual orientation).
We will process sensitive personal data you have provided with your explicit consent for specific purposes, such as reporting first aid information to us, requesting occupational health assistance or other wellbeing support. Where such data is processed by us on the basis of your explicit consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time: this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing based on your consent before you withdrew it.
The consequences if you decide not to provide your data
If you decide not to supply personal data that we have requested and as a result we are unable to comply with our professional, legal or regulatory obligations, then we may not be unable to enter into, or continue, with your employment.
For example, copies of your passport, right to work, and visa information will be collected by us at the time of your application to enable us to comply with UK Immigration and Visa requirements or financial data, including your account number and sort code, BACS ID, NI number, salary, tax codes and payments information are collected by us at the time of your appointment to enable us to pay you in accordance with the contract between us.
Some data that you give to us is provided on a wholly voluntary basis – you have a choice whether to do so.
Examples include: equality monitoring data, which is requested by us as part of the equality monitoring that we undertake to fulfil our legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010 or disability and health condition information, which you may choose to provide to us in order that we can take this information into account when considering whether to make a reasonable adjustment.
Who will see or use your data and who might we share it with?
Your personal data may be seen by the HR Team in the course of their duties and your manager as relevant.
We may need to share your data with relevant third parties to facilitate our contract with you for example BACs payment providers to pay you, or where you ask us to share your data for example to select other benefits.
We may also outsource some of our services or engage consultants, professional advisors and others to support us in delivering or evaluating our services (for example, auditors, trainers, courier or IT services).In these cases relevant personal data would be provided to and processed by the provider of such services, in accordance with the terms of our contract with them and to the extent appropriate for the performance of that contract.
We might need to share or transfer your data confidentially with relevant parties and/or their professional advisers if there is a merger, acquisition, change of control, joint venture or other similar arrangement involving Mills & Reeve LLP.
Exceptionally we might need to share your personal information in order to obtain necessary confidential legal advice or to comply with our insurance, legal or regulatory obligations. For example, we may have to provide some public authorities such as HMRC, or to the SRA.
Transfer of your data to other countries
In the course of carrying out the activities referred to above we may transfer your data to other countries, which may not have the same legal protections for your data as the UK.
Where data is being transferred outside of the European Economic Area, we will take steps to ensure that your data is adequately protected in accordance with UK legal requirements. Where we are in a contractual relationship with the recipient, such protection will normally consist at minimum of appropriate contractual protections agreed between us and the recipient.
Otherwise for example we may transfer your data if it is necessary for performance of our contractual duties to you, or because we have other legal obligations to transfer the data, or it is necessary for important reasons of public interest. If you require further detail about the protections in connection with any particular relevant transfer, matter or jurisdiction please ask us.
How long will we keep your data
We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purpose of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.
Where your personal data relates to your employment, we expect to retain your personal data in accordance with our retention policies for up to seven years after your employment or partnership deed ends. This policy is reviewed periodically and the periods for storage specified in it may alter depending on the requirements of law and regulation, best practice and insurance.
We may be obliged to suspend any planned destruction or deletion under our retention policy where legal or regulatory proceedings require it or where proceedings are underway such as require the data to be retained until those proceedings have finished.
Please note that we may keep anonymised statistical data indefinitely, but you cannot be identified from such data.
Your rights over your data
You have the right to request copies of the personal data we hold about you.If you wish to obtain a copy of your personal data, you may contact us by emailing dataprotection@mills-reeve.com
You also have the right to ask for inaccuracies in your data to be corrected, and in certain circumstances for us to stop processing your data or for your data to be erased. Some of these rights are not automatic, and we reserve the right to discuss with you why we might not comply with a request from you to exercise them.
If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this web site or your dealings with this web site, please use the following contact point: dataprotection@mills-reeve.com
If you believe that we have not complied with any of our obligations under data protection laws in the UK, please let us know. You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Initial published version April 2018 (v2), updated August 2018 (v3), January 2019 (v4), September 2019 (v5), January 2021 (v6), March 2022 (v7) April 2023 (v8)