Legal Services

How the council's Legal Services team uses your information.

Purpose and lawful basis for processing

North Devon Council's Legal Services team is an in-house legal team. We collect and process personal data for the following purpose of providing legal advice or legal representation on behalf of the Council or a third party public body (in respect of which we are able to act pursuant to the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970).

The lawful bases we rely on are as follows:

  • Article 6(1)(c) of the GDPR, which allows us to process personal data where this is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject; and
  • Article 6(1)(e) of the GDPR, which allows us to process personal data when this is necessary to perform our public tasks as a local authority - this will be pursuant to the legislation referred to above or the public functions of the Council's internal departments or third party public organisations that we advise and/or represent

If the information we collect or process pursuant to our provision of legal advice or representation contains special category data, such as health or criminal offence information, the lawful basis we rely on to process it is article 9(2)(g) of the GDPR. This also relates to our public task and the safeguarding of your fundamental rights. And Schedule 1 part 2(6) of the Data Protection Act 2018 which relates to statutory and government purposes.

What we need

We are supplied with personal data collected by our client officers within the Council or by our client third party public authorities. We need this information to investigate, conduct legal research, enter into correspondence and provide legal advice/draft legal documents to allow the Council or our client third party public authorities to fulfil their legal obligations and/or their respective public functions as public authorities. When we receive new instructions we set up a case file. This normally includes contact details for the relevant parties and any other information that we need to provide appropriate legal advice.

What we do with it

We use your data to provide legal advice or representation to our client officers within the Council or to our client third party public authorities. Where you are separately legally represented or have someone acting on your behalf we will use your data in correspondence with your representative. If you are acting on behalf of someone, we’ll ask for information to satisfy us of your identity and, if relevant, ask for information to show you have authority to act on someone else’s behalf. Where we require specialist legal representation we will share you data with relevant experts, such as a barrister or specialist solicitor acting on our instruction.

How long we keep it

For information about how long we hold personal data, see our Retention Schedule.

What are your rights?

We are acting pursuant to our public task in respect of acting on behalf of the Council or a third party public authority to provide legal advice and representation. You therefore have the right to object to our processing of your personal data. There are legitimate reasons why we may refuse your objection, which depend on why we are processing it. For more information on your rights see Your Rights.