Privacy Policy

SARAC

Privacy Notice

Version: 2.0

Last Reviewed: July 2026

Next Review: July 2027

Who we are:

SARAC is a charity authorised and regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Our address is 19-20 Borough Road, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, DE14 2DA.

The information we use and where we get it from:

SARAC is committed to providing a confidential service to its clients.

Most of the information about you, that we process, will have been provided by you. We also process information about you, when we talk to other statutory agencies on your behalf and with your explicit consent.

We only collect the minimum amount of data that we need, to offer an effective service. We process various categories of personal information such as contact details and information about housing, employment, benefits, immigration, finance and relationships. All of the information is relevant to the services that we access on your behalf.

We are counsellors so we may process certain special categories of information, such as information about health and criminal convictions. We also process data for our funders about your age, gender, which ethnic group you belong to and if you have any disabilities. These special types of information are counted for statistical purposes to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010.

We also process personal information about our staff. This information is processed on the basis of contractual requirements or our legitimate interests to manage our human resources.

You are able to leave messages on our telephone systems. Those messages will include your personal information.

How we use your information:

We use your personal information to provide counselling and support services, communicate with you, maintain accurate records, meet our legal and safeguarding responsibilities, and improve the services we provide.

The lawful basis for processing your personal information is that it is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into an agreement for services and to fulfil our agreement with you once support has begun. We also process information where necessary to meet our legal obligations and, where appropriate, for our legitimate interests in delivering safe, effective and well-managed services.

As part of providing counselling and support, we process special category personal information, including information relating to your health and wellbeing. We do this only where permitted by UK data protection law and where it is necessary for the provision of our counselling and support services or to meet our legal and safeguarding responsibilities.

Where we ask for your consent, this relates to specific activities, such as contacting another organisation on your behalf or sharing your information with a third party. We will explain why your consent is needed and you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing your consent for these specific activities will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before consent was withdrawn or any processing we are required or permitted to undertake under the law.

Your information is stored and processed within the United Kingdom. Where any service provider stores information outside the UK, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with UK data protection law.

Children and Young People

SARAC supports children and young people who may have experienced abuse, trauma, or other safeguarding concerns. This means we may process information relating to their health, wellbeing, family circumstances, and involvement with education, social care, or criminal justice agencies where relevant to the support we provide.

Such information is handled with strict confidentiality and in accordance with UK data protection and safeguarding legislation.

Sharing your information:

Our clients receive a confidential service and we take that commitment very seriously, so nothing that you tell us will be shared with any other organisation or individual without your express permission.

We use third parties to provide specific services for us. They act as data processors on our behalf and we have written contracts in place with them. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us.

They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

Our clients receive a confidential service and we take that commitment very seriously. We will not share information about you with other organisations or individuals without your permission, unless we are required or permitted to do so by law, or where there is a safeguarding concern or a serious risk of harm. We will explain these limits to confidentiality when you begin using our services.

Our counsellors receive professional clinical supervision to ensure safe and effective practice. Information discussed in supervision is treated confidentially.

How long we will keep your information:

We retain our client’s personal data for a period of 6 years beyond the end of the support relationship.

Human resource data will be kept for 6 years after the employee leaves the organisation. Personal information supplied as part of job applications will be kept for one year before it is destroyed.

Your telephone messages are usually deleted after the message has been retrieved. This is usually 24-48 hours but could be up to 3 weeks, if the office is closed for the Christmas holidays.

Requests for access to your personal information should be made to our Data Protection Officer using the contact details below.

Security:

As part of our data protection responsibilities, we have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that your information is kept secure and confidential.

Your rights:

You have certain legal rights to control what we do with your information. You have the right to get access to your information; to request that we correct or update your information; to object about or request that we restrict processing your data in some circumstances and to receive your information in a portable format. You also have the right to withdraw your consent at any time or to request that we delete your information.

You should understand that exercising your rights could mean that we are no longer able to provide you with access to our services. If you withdraw your consent, it will not affect the lawfulness of processing that took place prior to the withdrawal.

Data Protection Complaints:

If you have a concern about how we handle your personal information, we want to hear from you.

How to raise a concern:

You can contact the Data Protection Lead via the staff email address (staff@sarac.org.uk) or by letter. Please describe your concerns as clearly as you can and include any relevant dates or details.

What happens next:

We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it. We will then investigate your concern and respond to you without undue delay.

If you remain dissatisfied:

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.