General responsibilities
You must use council systems for council business unless it is necessary to use a NCCC and no alternative corporate solution exits.
If it is necessary to use NCCCs then you must:
- exercise professional judgement and ensure you can justify its use
- be proportionate
- only use them for communicating basic, non-sensitive information
NCCCs must not be used for sensitive communications unless there are exceptional circumstances. In any instance you must keep it to the absolute minimum and where possible delete the communication as soon as is practicable. Sensitive information relates to information which if lost or compromised could have a moderately negative impact on the council or individuals. Examples include:
- Special Categories of Personal Data such as health or ethnicity data
- commercially, politically, or financially sensitive information
Communications remain our responsibility and continue to be subject to our policies including our:
Council information held on NCCCs could become the subject of an information access request and you may be asked to search NCCCs in response to a request. Deletion or concealment of material relevant to an information request may be a criminal offence.