The Royal Pinner Educational Trust Privacy Policy                                                                                         Last updated March 2026

The Royal Pinner Educational Trust (“we”, “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy and being transparent about how we use your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and your rights.

1. Who we are

The Royal Pinner Educational Trust, Charity Number Charity Number: 1128414,  is the data controller for the personal information we collect and use.

Contact us: Email: admin@royalpinner.co.uk

2. How we collect information

We collect personal information in the following ways:

Direct interactions

When you contact us by email, telephone, post, through our website, in person, or submit an application for grant funding.

Third-party sources

Information shared with us by relevant third parties, such as schools, local authorities, other organisations, or professionals supporting your application.

3. Information we collect

Identity and contact details

Such as your name, email address, address and telephone number.

Application information

Information you provide as part of your application, including circumstances, financial information, supporting evidence, and updates.

Uploaded documents

Documents you upload or that we share with you, and any messages exchanged with our staff.

Children’s information and special category data

Applications may contain sensitive personal data, such as health information or details relating to children.

Internal decision records

Case manager notes, decisions and status updates form part of your case record.

4. How we use your information

We use your personal information to:

• Process and assess your enquiry or application for grant funding
• Request additional information
• Communicate decisions and updates
• Manage records of our relationship with you
• Facilitate joint funding or collaboration with partner organisations (where relevant)
• Liaise with schools involved in your application
• Improve our services

Decisions

Decisions about applications are made by people. Some decisions or updates may be communicated by telephone or personalised email.

5. Sharing your information

Schools named in your application

We may share necessary personal information about you or your child with any school identified in your application to:

• Request further information needed to assess your application
• Liaise with the school to arrange payment of any grant
• Request updates or periodic reports
• Support the administration of your application and any grant awarded

Service providers (acting on our behalf)

We use trusted service providers to operate our systems. These providers act only on our instructions and must protect your data:

• Hosting and infrastructure: Easyspace
• Email sending: Microsoft 365
• Applications:  Lightning Reach
• AI processing (support tools): OpenAI (used for summarisation, consistency checks, and internal review support)
• Accounting and finance: Xero (to maintain grant-payment records and meet accounting requirements)

Joint funders and partners

Where an application involves joint funding or requires collaboration with another organisation.

Professional advisers

Legal, safeguarding, financial or compliance advisers where necessary.

Regulators and law enforcement

Where required by law.

6. AI and automated processing

We may use AI tools to support internal review by identifying missing or inconsistent information, summarising content or helping case managers prioritise follow-up questions.

AI is a support tool.

We do not make grant decisions based solely on automated processing.

A human decision-maker always reviews the relevant information.

7. Legal basis for using your information

We use your information under the following lawful bases:

• Contract / steps to enter a contract – to process your application and grant if awarded
• Legitimate interests – to administer our services, maintain records and security, and prevent fraud
• Legal obligation – for financial and regulatory record-keeping
• Consent – only where you voluntarily opt into a specific optional activity (not for core service delivery)

Where we process special category (sensitive) data, we do so only under the conditions permitted by data protection law, using appropriate safeguards.

8. How long we keep your information (Retention)

We keep personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this policy. When it is no longer needed, we securely delete or anonymise it.

Retention periods

• Withdrawn/Incomplete applications: Partial application data retained for 1 year after the last contact
• Unsuccessful applications (rejected): retained for 2 years after the final decision
• Successful applications: retained for the duration of the grant and up to 6 years after completion
• Special category data: retained for 1 year
• Minimal summary record: after deleting case records, we retain non-identifying aggregate statistics indefinitely for reporting purposes
• Financial/accounting records: retained for 6 years (legal requirement)
• Donor Records:  retained for 6 years after last donation/contact

Safeguarding, complaints and legal holds

Information may be retained longer where necessary for safeguarding concerns, complaints, investigations or legal claims. Access to such data is restricted.

9. Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

Public website

We use cookies on the public website to enable certain functions of the Service and to provide analytics.  You may control cookies via your browser settings, but disabling essential technologies may prevent the website from functioning correctly.

11. Your rights

You have rights under data protection law including:

• Access to your data
• Correction of inaccurate information
• Request deletion (in some circumstances)
• Restrict or object to certain uses
• Request a copy of your data in a portable format

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we handle your information.

12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Any changes will be published on our website with an updated “Last updated” date.