Privacy Policy
Background
The Home Energy Advice North East programme is delivered by Energy Saving Trust of behalf of North East Combined Authority (NECA) and is funded by the UK Government (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero).
Privacy Notice
This privacy notice sets out how the Home Energy Advice North East programme uses and protects any information that you give to us when you call use this website and the scheme services.
The Home Energy Advice North East programme is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website or our advice services, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
We may change this privacy notice from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 02/04/2024.
To contact our data protection officer please write to Energy Saving Trust England, 223-231 Pentonville Road, London, England, N1 9NG or email DataProtectionOfficer@est.org.uk
What we collect
Under the Home Energy Advice North East programme we collect :
- Your full name
- Contact information (i.e. contact number, postal and email addresses)
- Information about your property (e.g. occupancy, type of heating, cost of heating)
As part of our in-person advice service, we will collect information on whether you receive benefits or you have a health condition we should know about to assess eligibility.
Please note that as part of our over-the-phone advice service, you may be offered the option to use Homewise. This is a tool created by Energy Saving Trust which creates a personalised improvement plan based on information about your home. Please view our Homewise Privacy Notice here for more information about how your personal data may be used in this service.
What we do with the information we gather
The Home Energy Advice North East programme is delivered on behalf of NECA and the UK Government in performance of its public tasks.
We require the information we collect about you to understand your needs and provide you with relevant energy advice and a better service, and in particular:
We ask for your contact details so that we can:
- respond to requests, enquiries and complaints received from you
- to contact you about services requested by you
- get your feedback about the services your received, and monitor the success of the scheme and its impact on the environment
- keep our internal records up-to-date
- improve our products and services
- audit our scheme
We ask for other personal information and property information so that we can:
- provide services requested by you
- assess likely eligibility for the relevant funding streams not administered by us
- analyse householder trends
If you are assisting a customer completing the form, we collect your information so that we know who you are and know how to contact you if necessary. We may use the information gathered through your use of our website to customise our website according to your interests.
UK Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) will be commissioning an independent evaluation of the LEAD project after delivery completion in March 2025 and personal data will be used by DESNZ/their contractor for this purpose.
What happens if you do not provide the personal information that we request?
If you do not provide all the necessary information, we may not be able to continue with the service you have asked us to provide. We explain when this is the case at the point where we collect personal information from you if it is not clear why we need it.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order 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 online.
How we share your information
The Home Energy Advice North East programme is delivered on behalf of NECA and funded by UK Government. NECA has appointed Energy Saving Trust to manage the scheme. Details of how to exercise your rights are outlined in the Controlling your personal information and your data rights section below.
Where we have identified you are eligible for other assistance (e.g. local authority support), we may share limited personal information (i.e. name, contact details, eligibility route) with your local authority.
Sometimes we use other companies and organisations (third parties) to process personal information for us. For example, we use third parties to:
- maintain our IT systems
- carry out research
- deliver in-person advice
Information collected to provide over-the-phone advice will be shared with NECA, as the funders of this aspect of the programme. Data may also be shared with UK Government as part of their evaluation and monitoring of UK Shared Prosperity Fund funded projects.
If you have received in-person advice, this information will be shared with NECA, as they fund this programme. NECA will share the data with DESNZ and the Net Zero Hub.
We have asked our partners, Groundwork North East and Cumbria, and Community Action Northumberland to carry out in-person advice on our behalf, and your data will be shared with them in order for them to contact you and arrange a home visit, if requested. Your data will be used by them in order to provide you with advice.
Where we share personal data with third parties, we will implement appropriate data sharing agreements. Where we make use of third parties to process personal information, we will ensure that they have adequate security measures in place and that they comply with this privacy notice.
We share information, for analysis and reporting purposes, with government departments and bodies.
We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.
How long we hold your information for
If you have received in-person advice, your data will be held securely and will be retained for the duration of 1 year following completion of the programme in March 2025, unless we hold it to comply with our legal obligations or in connection with legal claims.
If you have received over-the-phone advice, your data will be held securely and will be retained for the duration of 7 years following completion of the programme in March 2025, unless we hold it to comply with our legal obligations or in connection with legal claims.
How we use cookies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system. Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
Please view our Cookie Policy here.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to enable you to visit other websites of interest easily. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy notice applicable to the website in question.
Controlling your personal information and your data rights
The information you provide when you phone the contact number on our website is collected by Energy Saving Trust on behalf of NECA. Any subsequent contact when you engage with Groundwork North East, Cumbria and Community Action Northumberland (CAN) or our Energy Advice and Engagement Officers may collect further information from you, also on behalf of the Home Energy Advice North East.
Energy Saving Trust does not make cold calls (we do not sell insulation or solar panels etc). If you are receiving cold calls from an organisation, the Information Commissioner’s Office has some useful advice and, if you haven’t already, it may be worth considering registering with the Telephone Preference Service.
For further details about how Energy Saving Trust handles personal data, please refer to its own privacy notice.
You have the right under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, within certain legal parameters, to ask us:
- for details about how we use your personal information;
- to see what personal information we hold about you;
- to correct your personal information;
- to erase your personal information in certain circumstances;
- not to use your personal information in a particular way;
- to port your personal information in a commonly used electronic format;
- to restrict how we use your personal information; and
- not be subject to automated decisions about you and to request human intervention.
If we have asked you and you have given us permission to use your personal information in any particular way, you have the right to withdraw that permission at any time.
If you would like to request details of personal information which we hold about you or a copy of the information held on you please write in the first instance to Energy Saving Trust England, 223-231 Pentonville Road, London, England, N1 9NG or email DataProtectionOfficer@est.org.uk. If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please contact us as soon as possible using the above details. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.
If you have made a complaint to us about how we handle your personal information that we have not been able to resolve, you have the right to complain to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office on the Information Commissioner’s Office’s website.
Changes to our privacy notice
We regularly review our privacy notice to keep it up-to-date. Any changes that we make will be posted on our website.
This privacy notice was last updated 02/04/2024.