Privacy Policy

Website Privacy Policy

Clay Ratnage & Co is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Policy explains how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations).

This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how your rights under the GDPR & PECR are adhered to.

We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you are happy with any changes. By using this website, you agree to be bound by this Policy.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about products and services.

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when.

How is your information used?

We may use your information to:

send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest such as changes in legislation, or information on our services;
to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;
notify you of changes to our services;
respond and/or process information relating to vacancies and job applications. (please see our careers site privacy policy)

We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations and we will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

Who has access to your information?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

How you can access and update your information

The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us.

Website Visitor Tracking

This website uses 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 in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information.

Downloads & Media Files

Any downloadable documents, files or media made available on this website are provided to users at their own risk. While all precautions have been undertaken to ensure only genuine downloads are available users are advised to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.
We accept no responsibility for third party downloads and downloads provided by external third party websites and advise users to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.

Contact & Communication With us

Users contacting this 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 a time 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. This is done in accordance with the regulations named in ‘The policy’ above.

Use of Cookies

This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. As required by legislation, where applicable this website uses a cookie control system, allowing the user to give explicit permission or to deny the use of /saving of cookies on their computer / device.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer’s hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.

Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors or use the cookie control system if available upon their first visit.

External Website Links & Third Parties

Although we only look to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. Shortened URL’s; URL shortening is a technique used on the web to shorten URL’s (Uniform Resource Locators) to something substantially shorter. This technique is especially used in social media, and users should take caution before clicking on shortened URL links and verify their authenticity before proceeding.

We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite our best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social Media Policy & Usage

We adopt a Social Media Policy to ensure our business and our staff conduct themselves accordingly online. While we may have official profiles on social media platforms users are advised to verify authenticity of such profiles before engaging with, or sharing information with such profiles. We will never ask for user passwords or personal details on social media platforms. Users are advised to conduct themselves appropriately when engaging with us on social media.

There may be instances where our website features social sharing buttons, which help share web content directly from web pages to the respective social media platforms. You use social sharing buttons at your own discretion and accept that doing so may publish content to your social media profile feed or page. You can find further information about some social media privacy and usage policies in the resources section below.

Resources & Further Information

Review of this policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated on 24 May 2018.

Privacy notice relating to clients and products and / or services offered and provided

Clay Ratnage & Co takes the protection of your privacy very seriously. We will only use your personal information to deliver the products and / or services you have requested from us, and to meet our legal responsibilities.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you engage us to deliver our products and / or services and/or when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about our products and / or services.

What type of information do we collect from you?

The personal information we collect from you will vary depending on which products and / or services you engage us to deliver. The personal information we collect might include your name, address, telephone number, email address, your Unique Tax Reference (UTR) number, your National Insurance number, bank account details, your IP address, which pages you may have visited on our website and when you accessed them.

How is your information used?

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

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 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 but is typically five or six years. To ensure compliance with all such requirements it is the policy of the firm to retain all data for a period in excess of this from the date we cease to act.

Who has access to your information?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Any staff with access to your information have a duty of confidentiality under the ethical standards that this firm is required to follow.

Third party service providers working on our behalf

We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing products and / or services to you on our behalf, for example to process payroll, provide bookkeeping services. However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own purposes.

We have put in place measures, based upon model contract clauses supplied by the European commission to ensure your personal data is treated by those third parties in a way consistent with and which respects the data protection legislation. Should you require further information about these protective measures, please contact us using the contact details below.

Please be assured that we will not release your information to third parties unless you have either requested that we do so or it is required to complete a task requested by you, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention and detection of crime, fraud or corruption.

How you can access and update your information

Keeping your information up to date and accurate is important to us. We commit to regularly review and correct where necessary, the information that we hold about you. If any of your information changes, please email or write to us, or call us using the ‘Contact us’ on the website main page.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information that offices within the Clay Ratnage & Co. hold about you.

Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

Whilst we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given, or where you have chosen, a password which enables you to access information, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Your data will usually be processed in our offices in the UK. However, to allow us to operate efficient digital processes, we sometimes need to store information in servers located outside the UK. We take the security of your data seriously and so all our systems have appropriate security in place that complies with all applicable legislative and regulatory requirements.

Your choices

We may occasionally contact you by post, email, telephone or other online methods of communication 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 as indicated under ‘Contact Us’ on the main website page.

Your rights

Access to your information: You have the right to request a copy of the personal information about you that we hold.

Correcting your information: We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date and you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.

Deletion of your information: You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:

you consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained
you have validly objected to our use of your personal information – see ‘Objecting to how we may use your information’ below
our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations
we are using your information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent – see ‘withdrawing consent to use your information’ below.

Restricting how we may use your information: In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information about you that we hold or assessing the validity of any objection you have made to our use of your information. The right might also apply where there is no longer a basis for using your personal information but you do not want us to delete the data. Where this right is validly exercised, we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Objecting to how we may use your information: Where we use your personal information to perform tasks carried out in the public interest then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue.

Withdrawing consent to use your information: Where we use your personal information with your consent you may withdraw that consent at any time and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given.

Please contact us in any of the ways set out in ‘Contact Us’ o the main website page if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

Changes to our privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and update it here from time to time.

This privacy notice was last updated on 24 May 2018.

Contact information

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to [email protected] or by writing to Clay Ratnage & Co, Suite D The Business Centre, Faringdon Avenue, Romford RM3 8EN. Alternatively, you can telephone 01708 349095.

Complaints

We seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle your personal information but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at:

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