Privacy policy

Through our website, we aim to provide energy advice, resources, tools and services to help you lower carbon emissions to fight the climate emergency and to take steps to start to decarbonise your home or housing stock.

By using the site you are indicating that you accept and agree to abide by our Terms and Conditions.

For more information on our Terms and Conditions, as well as our privacy and data protection information, see the below sections.

For information on cookies and how we use them, click here.

This page was last updated in January 2024.

Privacy and data protection

Privacy and data protection statement

This statement sets out how Changeworks uses and protects any information given to us.

Changeworks needs to keep certain information on its employees, volunteers, service users and customers to carry out its day-to-day operations, meet its objectives and comply with legal obligations.

Changeworks is committed to ensuring that any personal data we hold is dealt with in line with the relevant Data Protection legislation, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (2018).

Personal information will be collected and used fairly, stored safely and not disclosed to any other person unlawfully. We will not share your information with any other organisation without informing you unless required to do so by law. Changeworks may share data within the organisation to help us carry out our business and improve our service. We may also share data with our processors, as and where required to carry out our business.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

We may update this information from time to time, as required. You should revisit this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. If we make significant changes we will inform you separately and/or post an additional notification on our website homepage. This statement is effective from 7th June 2022.

You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the Data Protection Act (2018) and/or UK GDPR, by way of a Subject Access Request. If you would like a copy of the information we hold on you, please write to:

Data Protection
Changeworks
Orchard Brae House, 30 Queensferry Road
Edinburgh
EH4 2HS

Email: ask@changeworks.org.uk

To process such a request, we will require your:

  • Full name
  • Contact information
  • Relationship to Changeworks
  • What information you are requesting

We may also request proof of identity before releasing any information.

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or email us as soon as possible at the above address. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect. If we are holding your data with your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting the Data Protection team at the email address above.

For more information on how or why Changeworks manages personal data, please contact us at the email address above.

If you are unhappy about how Changeworks has processed your personal data, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) using the details below:

Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: www.ico.org.uk

E-marketing

We use the following statement when individuals sign online forms in relation to an ongoing Changeworks project:

Want to be kept updated with energy-related advice, resources, tools and services to help you lower carbon emissions to fight the climate emergency?  

Please tick below: 

  • Yes, Changeworks has my consent to contact me via email 
  • No, sorry  

We promise to keep your details safe and never to share your details with any third parties. We look at engagement with our marketing communications to make sure they’re as helpful as they can be. You can unsubscribe from our marketing emails at any time by clicking on the ‘unsubscribe’ link in Changeworks e-communications. 

Social media terms of use

Changeworks uses social media to engage with interested people, organisations, community groups and businesses. We’re also aware of our responsibilities in ensuring the accuracy and quality of any information we produce.

This policy is an important part of our commitment to ensure that information on our social media accounts is accurate, accessible, and appropriate.

Most social media platforms have their own rules and guidelines which we will follow. We reserve the right to remove any contributions that break the rules or guidelines of the relevant community. We ask that users who interact with Changeworks on social media adhere to the following:

  • Be respectful and topical.
  • Do not swear. This includes the use asterisks etc. to imply swearing. This can offend other users, is unnecessary, and will usually result in your comment being removed.
  • Do not post messages that are unlawful, libellous, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented or racially offensive.
  • Do not post content copied from elsewhere, or for which you do not own the copyright.
  • Do not post the same message, or very similar messages, more than once.  This is known as ‘spamming’.
  • Do not publish your, or anyone else’s, personal information, such as contact details.
  • Do not advertise products or services.
  • Do not impersonate someone else.
  • Please take care not to make defamatory statements. In law this means a statement that lowers the reputation of a person or organisation in the eyes of a reasonable person. We will therefore take down any statement that could be deemed to be defamatory.

Changeworks’ social media channels are moderated regularly Monday-Friday 9am-5pm, and on an ad-hoc basis over weekends and bank holidays. Whilst all attempts are made to answer queries that come through via these channels, because of our operating hours we ask users to contact the appropriate team at Changeworks in the first instance using the contact information listed below.

If you are in need of energy advice, please contact the below and we will respond within three working days:

Job applicants

Changeworks will collect and hold personal data to process your application, share information about future opportunities that we hope will interest you and help us develop and improve our recruitment processes.  

We rely upon Contract and Legal Obligation as our lawful bases for processing your personal data, as outlined in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). 

Any information we process relating to your recruitment application that is classified as special category personal data (e.g. health, religion or ethnicity) or relating to criminal convictions is processed in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act (2018). 

What will we do with the information you give us? 

We will use the information you provide during the recruitment process to progress your application with a view to offering you an employment contract with us or to fulfil legal or regulatory requirements if necessary. We will not share any information you provide with third parties for marketing purposes. 

We will use your contact details to contact you to progress your application, communicate with you about future vacancies. Based on your preferences we will send job alerts and energy-related advice, resources, tools and services to help you lower carbon emissions to fight the climate emergency.  

What information do we ask for and why? 

The information we ask for is used to assess your suitability for employment. You don’t have to provide what we ask for, but it may affect your application if you don’t. We will use your feedback about our recruitment process to develop and improve future recruitment campaigns. 

Registration and Application  

If you use our online application system, your details will be collected by our data processor, Eploy, on our behalf. You will be asked to set up an account within our Eploy system to apply for a role.  

We will automatically sign you up to our talent pool for 12 months so we can let you know about future opportunities. You’ll always have the option to remove your details using your profile should you wish to. You can also amend your preferences about job alerts with your profile.  

We ask you for your personal details including your name, contact details and CV. We’ll also ask you about previous experience, education, and for answers to questions relevant to the role. Our recruiting manager, recruitment panel and human resources team will have access to all this information. 

You will also be invited to provide optional equal opportunities information. Any identifiable information shared as part of equal opportunities will only be visible to our human resources team. Any information you provide will be used to produce and monitor equal opportunity statistics. 

Shortlisting 

Our hiring managers and interview panels shortlist applications for interviews. They will be provided with an anonymised version of your application without your equal opportunities information if you have provided it. 

Assessments and interviews 

We may ask you to participate in assessment days, complete tests or occupational personality profile questionnaires, attend an interview, prepare and deliver a presentation, or a combination of these. The recruiting managers, the recruitment panel and assessors have access to your application and contact details (excluding any equal opportunities information) to assess your application and contact you as necessary. 

Conditional offer and onboarding 

If we make a conditional offer of employment, we’ll ask you for information to carry out pre-employment checks. You must successfully complete pre-employment checks to progress to a final offer. We must confirm the identity of our staff and their right to work in the United Kingdom and seek assurance as to their trustworthiness, integrity, and reliability. You must provide the following: 

  • Proof of your identity – you will be asked to provide documents to verify your right to work, and we will take copies. 
  • Proof of your qualifications – you may be asked to provide documents for verification, and we will take copies. 
  • Reference contact details – we will contact your referees, using the details you provide, directly to obtain references. 

If you accept a conditional offer of employment we will gather further information from you to set you up as an employee including bank details, information for HMRC and payroll which includes date of birth, national insurance number, sex and next of kin contacts. 

How long is the information kept? 

Data for successful applicants will be kept for six years after your employment end date, as employment law requires. Data on unsuccessful applicants is held for up to six months after the application, after which it is anonymised.  

If you are part of our talent pool your personal data will be held for up to one year, after which you will be asked to confirm if you wish to continue to be part of the talent pool. You can opt out at any time through your Eploy account.  

We use anonymised statistical information about applicants to help inform our recruitment activities, but no individuals are identifiable from that data. 

How we make decisions about recruitment 

Final recruitment decisions are made by recruiting managers, the recruitment panel and our Human Resources team. We take account of all the information gathered during the application process. 

You can ask about decisions on your application by contacting our Human Resources team by emailing recruitment@changeworks.org.uk. 

Accessibility

This website has been designed to be as useable and accessible to as many people as possible. We are always working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website and in doing so adhere to many of the available standards and guidelines.

This website endeavours to conform to level Double-A of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities. Conformance with these guidelines will help make the web more user friendly for all people.

Complaints and feedback

At Changeworks we respect our customers and believe they are entitled to the highest standards of service. Our Customer Care Policy Statement outlines our aims in customer care for the following:

  • What you should expect when you contact us
  • The standard you should expect
  • Lets our staff know what is expected of them
  • Encouraging comments/complaints from our customers