Digital Careers Upskill Programme
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is made up of the ten Greater Manchester councils (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan) and the Mayor of Greater Manchester.
The Skills for Growth programme has been designed to fill occupational skills gaps identified from employers, who have continually highlighted that they cannot find the technical skills in Greater Manchester required to support and grow their businesses. To respond to this Greater Manchester has secured approximately £40 million pounds of the European Social Funded to deliver Skills for Growth from 2020-2023. The aim of the three-year programme is to support more than 25,000 individuals and over 3,000 businesses. The Skills for Growth programme activities will align with general strategic Greater Manchester priorities around supporting business growth and delivering an integrated approach to employment and skills. In addition, it will support providers of education, employment, and training to better meet the needs of residents and employers through the creation of new partnerships and innovative methods of delivery.
The Skills for Growth Programme has a dedicated web page which is updated regularly as the programme evolves: Skills for Growth - Greater Manchester Combined Authority (greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk)
The GMCA will use the information listed below to deliver the programme and evaluate the effectiveness of Skills for Growth Programme. We will use where it is necessary to provide your data to ensure funding payments from ESF to GMCA.
Further guidance supplied by ESF is contained within the link below:
How the European Social Fund is helping you (skillsforgrowthsme.co.uk)
The GMCA will collect the following details in order to process your information for the purposes of ESF Skills for Growth Skills Delivery
For processing personal data our lawful basis is:
Article 6 1(e) processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller
For processing special category data our lawful basis is:
Article 9 2(g) processing is necessary for the reasons of substantial public interest
The information GMCA collect will be used to ensure that the GMCA are meeting their contractual requirements with ESF (European Social Fund) and are able to claim funding payments made from ESF to GMCA. The information will be used to ensure that GMCA can evaluate the impact of the programme to ensure the funding is being used in the best interests of the residents and business within Greater Manchester.
The GMCA are committed to the security of the information we collect. We aim to ensure that there are appropriate, physical, technical, and managerial controls in place to protect any personal information you may provide to us, for example our network is protected and monitored. Within our offices all our staff receive training on handling data securely.
Where we use external companies to collect or process data on our behalf, we carry out comprehensive checks on them before we work with them and ensure that contracts are in place that set out our expectations and requirements.
This programme is funded by ESF (European Social Fund) the GMCA will follow the guidance on document retention provided by ESF. This states that electronic and paper-based documents must be stored for 10 years after the closing of the programme in 2023.
All partners who are delivering the Skills for Growth Programme including: Growth Company (SME Support), York Consulting (Evaluation Partner) and Skill Delivery Providers (continually being procured throughout the programme and list of up to date procured providers can be requested skillsforgrowth@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk).
The GMCA has commissioned York Consulting an organisation to carry out this research and evaluation on their behalf as part of the Skills for Growth Programme. York Consulting that is doing the research may want to contact you to provide additional information, via focus groups, telephone interviews or feedback forms. Supporting the GMCA with this evaluation research can have many benefits and your participation with the additional contact is greatly appreciated. Consent to participate in the evaluation process will be captured on induction/registration to the Skills Programme.
The GMCA must comply with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Under data protection law, your rights include:
Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.
If you wish to make a request, please contact us at:
Email - officeofdpo@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk
Postal - Office of the DPO GMCA, Churchgate House, 56 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 6EU
The GMCA will only be able to comply with your rights in relation to the information they have collected.
If you are not satisfied with how the GMCA is using the information we hold about you please contact our Data Protection Officer by emailing officeofdpo@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk.
If you are still not satisfied with the GMCA’s response to any request to exercise your individual rights or if you believe that the GMCA is not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can contact the Information Commissioners’ Office:
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
For more details on how the GMCA will use data please visit the GMCA Website (https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/who-we-are/publication-scheme/privacy-policy-and-data-protection/ )
