This Privacy Notice provides information on how the Chartered Association of Business Schools collects and processes your personal data when you express an interest in, or sign up to, the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme. This Privacy Notice further provides you with information regarding your rights and our obligations.

We process data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018. This Privacy Notice is made in accordance with Article 13 of the UK GDPR.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is funding the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme. The Chartered Association of Business Schools is delivering the Programme, and processing your data, on DBT’s behalf. DBT is the data controller and the Chartered Association of Business Schools is the data processor in relation to your data. We are providing this Privacy Notice on DBT’s behalf.  DBT also has its own privacy policy, which can be accessed here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy/about/personal-information-charter#beis-privacy-notices.

When we mention "we", "us" or "our" in this Privacy Notice, we are referring to the Chartered Association of Business Schools.

Where we process your personal data for purposes other than in connection with the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, we act as an independent data controller. We provide more detail on this below.

Updates to this notice

If this Privacy Notice changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this website page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we will share it with other parties. Last updated January 2024.

Who is collecting the data?

The Chartered Association of Business Schools is committed to safeguarding and respecting your privacy.

We collect and process your personal information on behalf of DBT to administer the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, as further detailed below. We do so in accordance with this Privacy Notice, and in compliance with the UK GDPR and the DPA 2018.

DBT is a department of the UK Government, whose general contact address is: Old Admiralty Building, London, SW1A 2HQ.

The Chartered Association of Business Schools is a registered company (company number: RC000880) and a registered charity in England and Wales (charity number: 1162854). Our address is: 3rd Floor, 40 Queen Street, London, EC4R 1DD.

Why do we process your personal data and what is our legal basis for processing it?

We collect and use your information to manage your expression of interest in the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, promote it to you, process your application form, administer the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme to you and evaluate the programme.

The legal basis for processing your personal data in connection with the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme is that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, by us, on behalf of DBT.

The legal basis for processing your personal data in connection with marketing third parties is so we can send information about the Help to Grow Management Essentials and Help to Grow Management courses that you have expressed an interest in, or registered for.

The legal basis for processing your personal data in connection with departments of the UK Government is that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest.

The legal basis for processing your personal data in connection with our newsletter is with your consent.

The legal basis for processing your Special Category personal data is with your explicit consent, see the Special Category personal data section below.

What data do we collect with your consent?

We collect certain personal data with your explicit consent, these are Special Category personal data and contact details in connection with our newsletter.

You can provide consent for Special Category personal data by selecting a response on the registration form, see the Special Category personal data section below for further information.

You can provide consent for personal data in connection with marketing by expressing an interest in the programme, and by selecting the opt in box on the registration form.

You can provide consent for personal data in connection with our newsletter by selecting the opt in box on the registration form. 

You have the right to withdraw consent at any time, see the Your Rights section below for further information.

How do we collect personal data about you?

The Chartered Association of Business Schools may collect data about you in the following ways:

  • Through our website (smallbusinesscharter.org) if you enter your details, or via your expression of interest or registration for the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme. Please also see the link to our Website Privacy Policy: smallbusinesscharter.org/privacy-policy/.

  • If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence. If you send us personal information via email, letter or phone, we may keep that information and your contact details.

  • If you are a participant, we will collect information relating to your utilisation of the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme learning environment.

  • We will collect data through our learning management system, including your feedback, notes and responses to surveys.

  • Our website uses cookies (text files placed on your computer) which, if you agree, will collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. This information is used to track visitor use of the site and to analyse site activity. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

What personal data do we collect from you?

If you express an interest in or apply for the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, we may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you as follows:

  • Identity Data includes, but not limited to, first name, last name, job title, employer, the unique identifier assigned to you on registration, title, age and gender.

  • Contact Data includes employer address, billing address, email address and telephone numbers.

  • Participation Data includes details about your engagement with the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme.

  • Technical Data includes, but is not limited to, traffic data, browser data, internet protocol (IP) address, weblogs, platform used and other communication data.

  • Profile Data includes feedback and survey responses, information you provide regarding your role at your business, information regarding your interactions with our email communications and attendance at our events.

  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website.

  • We may collect ‘Special Category’ personal data about you as described below. This is more sensitive personal data under the UK GDPR.

If you opt-in to receiving our newsletter, we collect, use, store and process the following contact information about you: your name, address (preferably your business address), company, telephone numbers and email address. We also record that you have opted-in (or unsubscribed, where applicable).

Special Category personal data

We may collect information revealing racial or ethnic origin and disability with your explicit consent, for the purposes of evaluating equal opportunities. This information will be shared with DBT for those purposes. It will not be used to make any decisions regarding your application to the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme.

If you separately choose to disclose information regarding any disability you may have and/or your accessibility requirements, we may use this information to make reasonable adjustments to assist with delivering the Programme to you.

What do we use your personal data for?

If you express an interest in and/or register for the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, we will use data collected to:

  • Respond to you if you submit your details, express an interest in the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme and/or if you complete our online registration form.

  • Share your data with Indigo Tree Digital Limited, our learning management system providers, to create your participant profile on the online platform and deliver the Programme content to you.

  • Share your data with our marketing partners, as detailed in this Privacy Notice.

  • Share your data with the Cabinet Office, as detailed in this Privacy Notice.

  • Share your data with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in connection with the promotion of the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, as detailed in this Privacy Notice.

  • Share your data with DBT and evaluation partners to monitor, evaluate and market the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, as detailed in this Privacy Notice.

  • Maintain e-mail, telephone and offline contact with you in relation to the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme and the Help to Grow: Management Programme.

If you opt-in to receiving our newsletter, we will use data collected to send it to you by e-mail, preferably at your place of business.

Where do we process your personal data and how do we keep it secure?

We process data at our registered office: 3rd Floor, 40 Queen Street, London, EC4R 1DD. Our staff who work remotely and our third party service providers do so under contracts which protect your data, as described below.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, or used, accessed, altered, or disclosed in an unauthorised way. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents and contractors who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach.  DBT will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office of a breach where it is legally required to do so.

We will take all steps necessary to ensure that your data is processed and stored in a secure environment, in accordance with our legal obligations and the UK GDPR and DPA 2018.

What are our principles for retaining personal data?

In accordance with the UK GDPR and the DPA 2018, we retain personal data for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is being processed or to comply with our legal obligations.

You can ask us to delete your data: see Your Rights below for further information.

Any Special Category personal data that we may collect for the evaluation of the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme with your consent shall be deleted from our records within six months after the conclusion of the entire Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme. This data will be deleted by DBT within six months of the evaluation completion.

There are some circumstances where personal data may lawfully be stored for longer periods or permanently, such as for statistical purposes or if the data is anonymised.

Your contact data, processed for the purposes of monitoring, evaluating and marketing the programme; and sending our newsletter, will be retained up to two years from last engagement, opening, viewing content or engaging in links, with the newsletter; or until you request erasure of your personal data. 

What personal data do we share with DBT?

If you are a participant, we will share your personal data with DBT and evaluation partners, to enable it to monitor and evaluate the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, and in accordance with DBT’s instructions as data controller.

We will share the following information with DBT:

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme participant core information (name, email address, phone number, organisation, gender job title).

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme participant optional information (ethnicity, age, disability status) if consent if given.

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme business information (geographical area of business, Business Turnover, number of employees in business, business sector).

  • Participant satisfaction and engagement data.

  • Technical Data, which is collected through the cookies on our site if you agree. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

DBT’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted as follows: DBT Data Protection Officer, Department for Business and Trade, Old Admiralty Building, London, SW1A 2HQ. Email: data.protection@businessandtrade.gov.uk.

Do we share your personal data with third parties?

As mentioned above, we will share some of your personal data Indigo Tree Digital, our learning management system providers, who will create, manage and support the online platform that will be used to deliver the Programme to you.  This will include the following information:

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme participant information (name, email address, phone number, organisation, company address, job title, the unique identifier that is assigned to you on registration and other information provided on your application form).

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme business information (geographical area of business, number of employees in business, business sector, business turnover).

Other third party service providers who help support our platform will also have access to your data for this purpose, including Ashton Court Group Limited, which is developing and supporting our customer relationship management platform.

We and DBT will share some of your personal data with third party monitoring and evaluation partners for the purpose of evaluating the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme and following up on expressions of interest which have not converted to registrations. Evaluation partners may be granted access to our learning management system for these purposes.

We will share the following information with evaluation partners:

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme participant core information (name and job title).

  • Your contact data, to enable evaluation partners to contact you for evaluation, and to ask why you did not complete the registration process (if applicable) after you expressed an interest for the Help to Grow: Programme.

We and DBT may share some of your data with the Cabinet Office for evaluation purposes and to guide their communications campaign for the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme.

We may share the following information with the Cabinet Office:

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme participant core information (gender job title).

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme participant optional information (ethnicity, age, disability status) if consent is given.

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme business information (geographical area of business, Business Turnover, number of employees in business, business sector).

HMRC intends to promote the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme to businesses on its database. We will share with HMRC the data of businesses which have registered for the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, to enable HMRC and DBT to measure the impact of this promotional activity.

We may share the following information with HMRC:

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme participant information (company and trading name, company address).

  • Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme business information (Company ID/Registration Number (or Companies House number)).

No personally identifiable data on individuals will be shared with HMRC.

We may also pass your information to third parties for the purposes of completing tasks and delivering services to you on our behalf, for example when we work with a partner to deliver an alumni event; or when briefing the facilitator or speaker ahead of an alumni event.

We may share your information with Blueberry Marketing Solutions Ltd (Blueberry Marketing Solutions Ltd’s Privacy Information) to enable it to contact you to promote the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme to you, if you have expressed an interest.

We will share the following information with Blueberry Marketing Solutions Ltd:

  • Your Identity Data (name and organisation).

  • your Contact Data (email address).

We use the following third party providers to send our newsletter: Salesforce (Salesforce’s Privacy Information), WordPress (WordPress' Privacy Information) and Campaign Monitor (Campaign Monitor's Privacy Information).

We use Change++ to produce automated reports on the personal data that we collect about you and other users/participants through our website and our learning management system platform (Change++ Privacy Information).

We will not sell your information to third parties.

When we use or work with third party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations, we disclose only the personal data that is necessary to deliver and manage the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme, or to send you our newsletter if you opt-in.

We require all our third party service providers to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

Your Rights

How can you change your preferences for our newsletter or update the data we hold on you?

If you would like to change your preferences about the information we send you, you can. If you want to opt-out of receiving our newsletter, click ‘unsubscribe’ on the emails we send you with it.  If your details have changed you can ask us to update the records we hold about you. To do so, please contact us by emailing enquiries@charteredabs.org or call +44 020 7236 7678.

How can you access the personal data we hold about you?

You have a right to request copies of the personal data we or your business school hold about you. This is commonly referred to as a Subject Access Request. There are some exemptions to this right, which means you may not always receive copies of all the information we process. You can read more about this right here. If you would like to make a Subject Access Request, please write to us at enquiries@charteredabs.org, and put ‘Subject Access Request’ in the subject field. DBT is required to respond to your Subject Access Request within 1 month of your request under UK GDPR. However, if your request is complex or we receive a number of requests from you, DBT reserves the right to extend the time for response by a further two months. We or DBT would confirm this with you in writing.

You will not normally have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, if your request is clearly unfounded or excessive, DBT could refuse to comply with your request.

What other rights do you have in respect of the data we hold about you?

You may:

  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local the law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

    • If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.

    • Where our use of the data is unlawful, but you do not want us to erase it.

    • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

    • You have objected to our use of your data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

How do we use cookies and how can you control them?

Most websites you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, please see this link to our Cookies Policy.

Third Party Links

This Privacy Notice may include links to third-party websites. Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party links or notices and are not responsible for their privacy statements.

How to contact us or to make a complaint?

If you have any questions about our work with the Help to Grow: Management Essentials Programme or if you would like to make a complaint, please contact us by emailing enquiries@smallbusinesscharter.org or call +44 020 7236 7678.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or our data protection practices, or if you are not happy with the way that we have handled your personal information, you can contact our data privacy manager:

Ramin Bokaian, Ramin.Bokaian@charteredabs.org, Chartered Association of Business Schools, 3rd Floor, 40 Queen Street, London, EC4R 1DD. Tel: 020 7236 7678.

DBT’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted:

By Post at: DBT Data Protection Officer, Department for Business and Trade, Old Admiralty Building, London, SW1A 2HQ.

By Email to: dataprotection@businessandtrade.gov.uk.

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator.