Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice issued by Manor Croft (Accountants) Limited

1. Purpose of this notice

The Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA 2018”) and the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) impose certain legal obligations in connection with the processing of personal data.

Manor Croft (Accountants) Limited is a Limited Company registered in England & Wales providing accountancy and tax advice. Companies House number 15586848. The registered office is Strixton Manor Business Centre, Strixton, Northamptonshire, NN29 7PA.

This notice will tell you how we look after your personal data, your privacy rights, and our compliance with and your protections under Data Protection Legislation. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

We follow six principles when dealing with your personal data. We will ensure it is:

• Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner

• Processed for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes

• Adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary

• Accurate and kept up-to-date

• Kept for no longer than is necessary; and

• Processed in a manner than ensures appropriate security.

We operate these principles alongside our duty of confidentiality to you.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation and this notice, Manor Croft (Accountants) Limited are the ‘Data Controller’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. We are required under the Data Protection Legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

Where we act as a data processor on behalf of a data controller (for example, when processing payroll), we provide an additional schedule setting out required information as part of that agreement. That additional schedule should be read in conjunction with this privacy notice.

The person responsible for Data Protection is the Director, Joanne Wright.

2. Definitions

Personal data is information that can be linked to a living individual.

A data controller can be an individual or an organisation. They decide what personal data to collect and how it will be used.

A data processor can be an individual or an organisation. They process personal data on behalf of the data controller.

Processing data includes collecting, recording, organising, structuring, storing, adapting, altering, retrieving, consulting, using, disclosing, disseminating, aligning, combining, restricting, erasing or destruction of data.

3. Why we have a privacy statement

Manor Croft (Accountants) Limited (‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ and ‘ours’) is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We appreciate that you do not want the personal information you provide to us to be distributed indiscriminately. We will only use your personal information to deliver the services you have requested from us, and to meet our legal responsibilities.

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation we are required to comply with certain rules which are designed to ensure that any data you provide to us is processed with due care and attention.

4. What we use your personal data for

Our website www.manor-croft.co.uk provides an indication of the services we provide. We will use your personal data for the purpose of providing these services and any others we agree with you or an entity with which you are associated. In addition, we may use it to meet our legal obligations, for the purpose of direct marketing and for other legitimate business interests. Without the relevant personal data, we may be unable to provide the service, support or response being sought from us.

5. How we collect information from you

We obtain information about you when you engage us to deliver our services and when you use our website. You may give us information about you by corresponding with us by telephone, email, post, social media or otherwise.

We collect most of this information from you. However, we may also collect information:

• From publicly accessible sources e.g. Companies House or HM Land Registry

• Directly from a third party e.g. HMRC

• From a third party with your consent, e.g. your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor; consultants and other professionals, your employer and/or trade union, professional body or pension administrator.

We may also obtain information about your employees in the course of our work with you.

6. The data that we collect

The personal data we collect from you will vary depending on which services you engage us to deliver.The information we hold about you may include the following:

• Uour personal details (such as your name, address, date of birth, email address, phone numbers, your Unique Tax Reference (UTR) number, your National Insurance number, passport details, bank details, details of personal assets and income including your employment status, salary and benefits, pension arrangements and/or address);

• Details of contact we have had with you in relation to the provision, or the proposed provision, of our services;

• Details of any services you have received from us;

• Our correspondence and communications with you;

• Information to enable us to check and verify your identity

• Information about any complaints and enquiries you make to us;

• Information from research, surveys, and marketing activities

You are under no obligation to provide any such information, however, this will affect the quality of the services we are able to provide you with if you choose not to.

7. The legal bases for our intended processing of personal data

Our intended processing of personal data has the following legal bases:

• The processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you.

• The processing is necessary for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject (e.g. MLR 2017).

• The processing is necessary to share information that would be of a legitimate interest to you.

It is a requirement of our contract with you that you provide us with the personal data that we request.

8. How we use personal data we hold about you

We may process your personal data for purposes necessary for the performance of our contract with you and to comply with our legal obligations. This may include processing your personal data where you are an employee, subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client.

In general terms, and depending on which services you engage us to deliver, as part of providing our agreed services we may use your information to:

• Provide accountancy, taxation and related services to you

• Contact you by post, email or telephone

• Verify your identity where this is required

• Understand your needs and how they may be met

• Maintain our records in accordance with applicable legal and regulatory obligations

• Process financial transactions

• Prevent and detect crime, fraud or corruption

We may also process your personal data for the purposes of our own legitimate interests provided that those interests do not override any of your own interests, rights and freedoms which require the protection of personal data. This includes processing for marketing, business development, statistical and management purposes.

We are required by legislation, other regulatory requirements and our insurers to retain your data where we have ceased to act for you. The period of retention required varies with the applicable legislation, however to ensure compliance with all such requirements it is our policy to retain all data for a period of 20 years from the end of the period concerned.

9. Change of purpose

Where we need to use your personal data for a reason, other than the purpose for which we originally collected it, we will only use your personal data where that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your data for a new purpose we will notify you and communicate our legal basis for this new processing.

10. Persons/organisations to whom we may give personal data

Where the Firm engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data. Activities carried out by third-party services providers include IT and cloud services, professional advisory services, and administration services.

We may share your personal data with:

• HMRC

• Any third parties with whom you require or permit us to correspond.

• Subcontractors

• An alternate appointed by us in the event of incapacity or death

• Tax insurance providers

• Professional indemnity insurers

• Our professional body the Chartered Institute of Taxation and the Association of Accounting Technicians and/or the Office of Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervisors (OPBAS) in relation to practice assurance and/or the requirements of MLR 2017 (or any similar legislation)

• Identification search agents.

If the law allows or requires us to do so, we may share your personal data with:

• The police and law enforcement agencies

• Courts and tribunals

• The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

We may need to share your personal data with the third parties identified above in order to comply with our legal obligations, including our legal obligations to you. If you ask us not to share your personal data with such third parties we may need to cease to act.

11. Access to your information

Your information will be shared internally where necessary. Any Directors and employees with access to your information have a duty of confidentiality under the ethical standards that the Firm is required to follow.

The Firm will not transfer your data outside of the UK unless your affairs require it.

12. Data Security

We have put in place commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties 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 data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

13. Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our site. This helps us to provide you with a better experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. Cookies are usually a string of numbers and/or letters that a website transfers to your hard drive. The cookies enable the website to ‘remember’ you either for the duration of your visit (session cookies) or for repeat visits (persistent cookies). Cookies do not contain any personal information about users.

Types of Cookies We Use:

Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are essential to enable you to navigate around websites securely and to provide you with services you have specifically requested.
Functionality cookies: These cookies enhance the functionality of websites by storing your preferences. For instance, they can remember your name and location if you provide this information.
Performance cookies: These cookies improve the performance of websites. For instance, they help pages load more quickly.
Online behavioural and third-party cookies: These cookies store information about your behaviour online such as your browsing history. For instance, they help us tailor the advertising we show to you.
Anonymised analytical cookies: These cookies ensure that anonymous data about your browsing behaviour is collected every time you visit the website. This way we can see how visitors use the website and improve on that basis.

14. Managing Cookies

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but if you prefer you can change your browser settings to prevent this. Cookies can be managed through the browser menu and are commonly referred to as ‘preferences’, ‘privacy’, or ‘security’.

You are not obliged to accept all cookies when you use our website, however, you may not be able to take full advantage of our site or use certain functions if you disable them.

15. Website Visitor Tracking

This website may use tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. The software will save a cookie to your computer’s hard drive to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website but will not store, save, or collect personal information.

16. Contact & Communication with Us

Users contacting us through this website do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until it is no longer required or has no use. Where we have clearly stated and made you aware of the fact and where you have given your express permission, we may use your details to send you products/services information through a mailing list system.

13. Your choices

We may occasionally contact you by post / email / telephone with details of any changes in legal and regulatory requirements or other developments that may be relevant to your affairs and, where applicable, how we may assist you further. If you do not wish to receive such information from us, please let us know by contacting us at info@manor-croft.co.uk.

14. Your rights

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Should your personal information change, please notify us of any changes of which we need to be made aware by contacting us, using the contact details below.

You have a right to request access to your personal data that we hold. Such requests are known as ‘subject access requests’ (“SARs”).

You have the following rights, which you can exercise free of charge:

• Access and obtain a copy of your data on request;

• Require the Firm to change incorrect or incomplete data;

• Require the Firm to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;

• Object to the processing of your data where the Firm is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and

• Ask the Firm to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the Firm’s legitimate grounds for processing data.

Please provide all SARs in writing marked for the attention of Joanne Wright, Manor Croft (Accountants) Ltd. To help us provide the information you want and deal with your request more quickly, you should include enough details to enable us to verify your identity and locate the relevant information. For example, you should tell us:

1. Your date of birth

2. Previous or other name(s) you have used

3. Your previous addresses in the past five years

4. Personal reference number(s) that we may have given you, for example your national insurance number, your tax reference number or your VAT registration number

5. What type of information you want to know

If you do not have a national insurance number, you must send a copy of:

• The back page of your passport or a copy of your driving license; and

• A recent utility bill.

DPA 2018 requires that we comply with a SAR promptly and in any event within one month of receipt. There are, however, some circumstances in which the law allows us to refuse to provide access to personal data in response to a SAR (e.g. if you have previously made a similar request and there has been little or no change to the data since we complied with the original request).

You can ask someone else to request information on your behalf – for example, a friend, relative or solicitor. We must have your authority to respond to a SAR made on your behalf. You can provide such authority by signing a letter which states that you authorise the person concerned to write to us for information about you, and/or receive our reply.

Where you are a data controller and we act for you as a data processor (e.g. by processing payroll), we will assist you with SARs on the same basis as is set out above.

15. Right to withdraw consent

In circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose (for example, in relation to direct marketing that you have indicated you would like to receive from us), you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time.

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information (personal data) for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

16. Changes to this notice

We may amend this privacy notice from time to time. Any policy changes, either due to business reasons or future changes in legislation, will be published on our website www.manor-croft.co.uk and, if substantial, may be promoted on the website or through other communication methods.

This privacy notice was last updated in May 2024.

17. Complaints

If you have requested details of the information we hold about you and you are not happy with our response, or you think we have not complied with the GDPR or DPA 2018 in some other way, you can complain to us. Please contact: joanne@manor-croft.co.uk or telephone us on 01933 832708.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues, at any time. The ICO’s contact details are as follows:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone - 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745

Website - https://ico.org.uk/concerns