Procurement contracts - privacy notice

Processing of personal data within the procurement activity is necessary in order to analyse expenditure, evaluate the proposals received in response to a market sounding exercise, a call for quotation / tender or other market engagement process.

The personal data that we hold may be used for:

• contacting you in connection with a procurement exercise
• contacting you in respect of establishing or managing a contract between us and our suppliers
• meeting transparency obligations
• publishing within the internal online trading database to allow officers to contact you for more information on what can be shared

Local authorities can use information to carry out tasks that are in the public interest, as well as to provide services that we are under a statutory obligation to provide. Most personal information is processed in order to comply with a legal obligation and / or due to necessity for the performance of contract to which a tender is submitted in line with Public Procurement Regulations 2015.

If you fail to give certain information when needed, we may not be able to fully evaluate your quotation / tender or satisfactorily assess your performance and you may therefore be eliminated from the procurement process. We may not be able to make contact with you or to inform you about potential business opportunities or be able to award a contract to you.

Information will be collected from tender and / or quotation documents on our Online Trading Network (OTN) database.

We won't keep your information for any longer than it's needed, and will dispose of both paper and electronic records in a secure way. The length of time we need to keep information collected for the procurement process varies. We have a retention schedule (PDF, 2 MB)(opens new window), which sets out how long we keep records and the reason why.

Information given for procurement and contracts may be shared internally within us. For example, finance, audit and legal services. Where it's a joint procurement with other parties, your information will be shared with those parties. For example, another local authority or the NHS.

Information will be shared with our service users who receive services from suppliers, and the people who care for them, as far as this is necessary to allow service delivery.

Subject to contractual and other legal safeguards, we will share individuals' information with organisations commissioned to provide services to suppliers, such as electronic tendering systems and payment services.

We may publish, or release under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002, actual contracts, deliverables provided under contracts, and information about compliance with contracts and performance under those contracts.

We don't pass your details to third parties unless we are lawfully able to do so for the prevention and detection of crime and fraud, or for the collection of taxes.

Depending on why we need to process your information you'll have rights to how your information is used. More information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, can be found within our main privacy policy.

If you've concerns about the processing of your personal data by us, you can contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing, visit the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website (opens new window).

Please contact us if you need this information in an alternative format.

This notice will be kept under regular review and was last updated in October 2020.