Public Consultation, Statutory Representations and Petitions
The Council is a data controller and registered with the Information Commissioner.
The Council processes information data in accordance the Data Protection Act 2018 and also supports the principle of open government and the right of the public to have access to information particularly where the information is used to inform decision making processes or helps the public to understand the issues that the Council has to consider.
Information provided in response to a public consultation exercise or provided to the council by way of a petition or following a right to make statutory representation, including personal information, may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes that apply to public authorities. These are primarily:
The Freedom of Information Act 2000;
The Data Protection Act;
The Environmental Information Regulations 2004
Some other statutory provisions, such as the Town and Country Planning Acts or the Licensing Acts.
By participating in a public consultation exercise, or by making representations under a statutory procedure, or by signing a petition you will as a consequence be giving your consent to the Council's use of personal information provided by you for the purposes for which it was collected - this may including passing it on to other public authorities connected with that purpose, or publishing on the Council's website the results of the public consultation exercise or the details of a petition that has been received or the details of any other representations made.
If you want to withdraw your consent to the use of your personal information for any of these purposes please write to the Data Protection Officer at the address on the left of this page.
Please note that in many cases we will be able to remove personal data from the Council's website documents as soon as practicable after receiving notice from you, but we will not be able to prevent access to the information if there is statutory obligation to publish or to make the information available for public inspection.
If you want any other information that you provide to the Council in connection on with any public consultation, statutory representations or a petition to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this it would be helpful if you could write at the same time as you provide it to the Council's Data Protection Officer (details above) to explain why you regard the information you have provided as confidential.
If we receive a request for disclosure of the information we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances.
For other information about the Council's processing purposes in respect of personal information collected and held by it please go to the Information Commissioner's website and inspect the data controller register.