Details
- Name of Service - Surrey Fire and Rescue Service
- Directorate - Surrey Fire and Rescue Service
- Date of Issue - 6 August 2020
- Date of current version - 16 November 2023
- Review Date - 16 November 2025
Notice
The reasons why we use your personal data
This privacy notice is for members and beneficiaries of the Firefighters Pension Scheme, including those who are eligible to join the Scheme, but who have elected not to do so and former members who have received a refund of contributions or completed a pension transfer to another registered pension scheme.
What processing of personal data is undertaken by the team?
Your personal data is collated to deal with all matters relating to the Scheme, including its administration and management. This can include the processing of your personal data for all or any of the following purposes:
- to contact you.
- to assess eligibility for, calculate and provide you (and, if you are a member of the Scheme, your beneficiaries upon your death) with benefits.
- to identify your potential or actual benefit options.
- to allow alternative ways of delivering your benefits, for example, through the use of insurance products and transfers to or mergers with other pension arrangements.
- for statistical and financial modelling and reference purposes (for example, when we assess how much money is needed to provide members' benefits and how that money should be invested).
- to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations as the administering authority of the Scheme.
- to address queries from members and other beneficiaries and to respond to any actual or potential disputes concerning the Scheme.
- for the management of the Scheme's liabilities, including the entering into of insurance arrangements and selection of Scheme investments.
- in connection with the sale, merger or corporate reorganisation of or transfer of a business by the employers that participate in the Scheme and their group companies.
- for contacting members or beneficiaries in respect of ad hoc enquiries, for example, passing on condolences.
What information do we collect?
The types of personal data we hold and process about you can include:
- Contact details: including name, address, telephone numbers and email address.
- Identifying details: including date of birth, national insurance number and employee and membership numbers.
- Information that is used to calculate and assess eligibility for benefits: for example length of service or membership and salary information.
- Financial information relevant to the calculation or payment of benefits: for example bank account and tax details.
- Information about your family, dependents or personal circumstances: for example marital status and information relevant to the distribution and allocation of benefits payable on death.
- Information about your health: for example, to assess eligibility for benefits payable on ill health, or where your health is relevant to a claim for benefits following the death of a member of the Scheme, or to establish the eligibility of a child to receive an ongoing pension due to mental or physical incapacity.
- Information about a criminal conviction: if this has resulted in you owing money to your employer or the Scheme, and the employer or Scheme may be reimbursed from your benefits.
How we are allowed to use your personal data
The legal basis for our use of your personal data will generally be one or more of the following:
- to satisfy our legal obligations as the Administering Authority of the Scheme
- to carry out a task in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority in our capacity as a public body
- for the legitimate interests of administering and managing the Scheme and liabilities under it, calculating, securing and paying benefits and performing our obligations and exercising any rights, duties and discretions the Administering Authority has in relation to the Scheme
- to meet our contractual obligations to you in relation to the Scheme (for example, under an agreement that you will pay additional voluntary contributions to the Scheme), or to take steps, at your request, before entering into a contract
Consent
To process your personal data, we will explain to you what we are asking you to agree to and why. If we have consent to use your personal data, you have the right to remove it at any time. If you want to remove your consent, please contact us at the following email address: pensionreform.sfrs@surreycc.gov.uk and we will deal with your request.
Please be aware however, if you do not give consent, or subsequently withdraw it, the Administering Authority may not be able to process the relevant information to make decisions based on it, including decisions regarding the payment of your benefits.
Who we share your personal data with.
XPS Pensions Group
In order to ensure we are providing the most efficient service we outsource our Pensions Administration and payroll services to the XPS Pensions Group.
Further information can be found on the XPS Pensions Group privacy notice.
Matthews Second Options Exercise
As set out on the Firefighters' members website, from October 2023, a second options exercise will take place to allow eligible retained firefighters to buy pension service as a special member of the Firefighters' Pension Scheme 2006 (FPS 2006).
A retained firefighter transferring from one Fire and Rescue Authority (FRA) to another without a break in service will be treated as having continuous service with the second FRA.
If you are a retained firefighter that has expressed an interest in the second option exercise, and you have provided service for more than one FRA, we (the first FRA) will need to share information about you with the other FRA so they can identify you, including your name, national insurance number and date of birth. This is your personal data under the data protection laws. The second FRA would then return that same data back to us along with your relevant service term(s) and pay information. We both need to exchange this information to determine your entitlement to the FPS 2006 and this means that sharing data is justified under data protection laws because it is necessary for compliance with legal obligations.
If you have any queries about the information that is shared about you as part of your expression of interest in the second option exercise, please contact us at the following email address: pensionreform.sfrs@surreycc.gov.uk.
Other forms of sharing
From time to time we will share your personal data with advisers and service providers so that they can help us carry out our duties, rights and discretions in relation to the Scheme. Some of those organisations will simply process your personal data on our behalf and in accordance with our instructions. Other organisations will be responsible to you directly for their use of personal data that we share with them.
These organisations include:
- Your employer
- Internal and External Auditors
- Government bodies such as the Department for Work & Pensions
- Insurance companies
- Scheme Actuary
- Legal and Investment Advisors
- HMRC
- Pensions software provider
- Tracing bureaus
- Judicial Agencies e.g. courts
- Pensions Regulator
- Pensions Ombudsman
Personal data being sent or processed outside of the UK and EU
In some cases the organisations we share your data with may be outside the UK. This means your personal data may be transferred outside the EEA to a jurisdiction that may not offer an equivalent level of protection as is required by EEA countries. If this occurs, we are obliged to verify that appropriate safeguards are implemented with a view to protecting your data in accordance with applicable laws.
Retention of data
Data will be retained in accordance with SCC countywide data retention schedule
Other information
Further information can be found on the Surrey Pension Fund Privacy Policy and XPS Pensions Group privacy notice
For further information on our privacy notices please see information and privacy.
