Whilst we fully accept all of our responsibilities under current legislation, we also aim to go beyond the strict confines of the law to provide equality of opportunity for all. We will continue to formulate and review policies to that end. We aim to:

• recognise that everyone has a right to their distinctive and diverse identities
• have a workforce which generally reflects the customers we serve
• understand how diversity can improve our ability to deliver better services
• provide services which are responsive to our customers’ needs
• provide all employees with the necessary training and development they need to contribute to our goals
• provide a supportive, open environment where all employees may use their talents fully, and where employees and customers are treated fairly and with dignity and respect, in an environment free from abuse or offensive behaviour, bullying or harassment, intimidation or prejudice regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnic origin, marital status, age, disability, gender identity, religion or belief, impairment, marital status, responsibility for dependents, social background, employment status or any other individual characteristic which may unfairly affect a person’s opportunities in life.

Furthermore, we recognise the benefits of helping our employees to balance the responsibilities of their work and private life.

Learning to work with people’s differences, visible or not, enables us to all work together effectively and helps us to anticipate and meet the needs of all of our customers; recruit, retain and develop the best people; act responsibly in the communities of which we are a part; and also fulfill our legal commitments. 

We seek to provide equality of opportunity for all applicants and employees via our recruitment, selection, development and promotion policies. In addition to this equality and diversity policy, we also have a separate equal opportunity policy which aims to ensure everyone receives treatment that is fair, equitable and consistent with their skills and abilities. 

The actions we will take to make this policy work include: 

• providing training and communications to raise awareness and understanding of diversity and equal opportunities issues, to show their impact on the business and individuals 

• through the above, ensuring that decisions on recruitment, access to training and promotion are made only on the basis of ability 

• regularly reviewing our employment policies to ensure that people are treated fairly, equitably and consistently with their skills and abilities 

• developing patterns of work which are consistent with the need of all staff to maintain an appropriate work-life balance 

• reviewing working arrangements to ensure that they do not restrict the opportunity for employment or career progression of members of disadvantaged groups 

• monitoring the composition of our workforce to provide us with robust data to evaluate the effect of our policies

• routinely monitoring all actions under the grievance and disciplinary procedures by gender, race, disability, age and any other criteria we deem to be appropriate 

• providing the opportunity for employees who think they have been treated in any way contrary to this policy, to raise and resolve issues. 

The Managing Director has overall responsibility for ensuring the implementation of this policy. 

As employers we are liable for the actions of our workers and therefore all of our managers are responsible for this policy’s successful implementation within their own departments and should take steps to ensure staff working for them understand and follow this policy.

This policy applies to all employees, who are required to understand and follow this policy.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that our working environment does not prevent people from taking up positions for which they are suitably qualified. This may include physical adaptions or more flexible ways of working. 

Our employment policies and procedures will be continually reviewed to ensure compliance with this policy, to reflect current best practice and to remove barriers experienced by members of disadvantaged social groups in seeking employment with us, and working for us. 

Induction training for all new recruits will be tailored to individual needs, but will in all cases include awareness of our diversity policy and how it applies to individuals. 

We will then continue to take specific steps to raise awareness of diversity throughout the business, initially particularly targeting employees involved in recruitment and selection processes. Publicity will be developed and disseminated in ways which bring diversity issues to the attention of all employees and people who have dealings with our business. A wide range of cultures will be displayed and celebrated in our publicity material.

We recognise that our ability to meet our clients’ diverse needs is improved by having a diverse workforce which has the skills and understanding to achieve our service objectives. We will take all appropriate steps to ensure that all staff receive fair consideration of their training and development needs and promotion opportunities to enable them to develop their full potential within Accent Catering Services Ltd. 

Standard training modules, reference manuals and training materials will be updated where necessary. 

Any employees whose circumstances change whilst employed by us will be given full support by the business to maintain or return to a job appropriate to their experience and abilities. 

We will consider requests for flexible working under our policies in a way which fairly balances the needs of the individual and our business. 

We will take appropriate steps to encourage the participation of all employees to ensure that, wherever possible, our employment practices recognise and meet their needs and will involve our staff in determining what can be done to make sure they develop and use their abilities at work. 

Harassment includes behaviour that is offensive, frightening or in any way distressing. We have a separate policy on bullying and harassment which makes it clear that such behaviour is totally unacceptable. 

We undertake to listen to our customers and involve them in the development of services which recognise and value their diversity. 

Positive discrimination on grounds of sex, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, disability or age is unlawful. It is however lawful to provide specific training or development opportunities aimed at under-represented groups to enable them to compete equally for job opportunities with the remaining workforce and we will do these wherever we feel it may be necessary to promote our diversity policy. 

Accent Catering Services Ltd will monitor its progress towards diversity by doing the following: 

• monitoring the ethnic, gender, age and disability profile of our employees to enable us to understand the composition of our workforce to identify any areas of inequality 
• monitoring applicants for jobs, training and development, grievances, disciplinary hearings, dismissals and other reasons for leaving 
• monitoring employee opinions and comments though an annual employee survey, employee forums and feedback via the appraisal system
• performance monitoring through customer feedback, surveys, focus groups, and proper investigation of any customer complaints

Any employee who feels he/she has been treated in a way which is contrary to this policy should raise this either formally through the grievance procedure, or informally with a senior manager, or a member of HR. 

Any breaches of this policy by employees will be fully investigated and may lead to disciplinary action. 

Ian Crabtree, Managing Director has overall responsibility for implementing and monitoring this policy, which will be reviewed on a regular basis following its implementation (at least annually) and additionally whenever there are relevant changes in legislation or to our working practices. 

The Company collects and processes a range of information.  This comes from our employees predominately.

The Company collects this information in a variety of ways. For example, data is collected through application forms or CVs; obtained from passports or other identity documents such as driving licence; from forms completed at the start of or during employment (such as benefit nomination forms); from correspondence; or through interviews, meetings or other assessments.

In some cases, the Company collects personal data from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers and information from criminal records checks permitted by law.

Information may come from the UKVI, (UK Visas and Immigration Service) in relation to right to work in the UK.

If an employee has been subject to a TUPE transfer information will be given to us from the previous employer.

The Company needs to process data to enter into an employment contract and to meet its obligations under the employment contract. For example, it needs to process data to provide an employment contract, to pay employees in accordance with employment contracts and to administer benefit or pension entitlements.

The Company needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example it is required to check an employee’s entitlement to work in the UK, to deduct tax, to comply with health and safety laws and to enable employees to take periods of leave to which they are entitled. For certain positions within educational or care home settings, it is necessary to carry out criminal records checks to ensure that individuals are permitted to undertake the role in question.  It is also a requirement to abide by the statutory guidance for schools and colleges, this involves obtaining information that may not be required in other businesses.

In other cases, the Company has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the employment relationship.

Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, is processed to carry out employment law obligations (such as those in relation to employees with disabilities and for health and safety purposes). Information about trade union membership is only processed to allow the Company to operate payment for union subscriptions where requested by the employee.

Where the Company processes other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. Data that the Company uses for these purposes is collected with the express consent of employees, which can be withdrawn at any time. Employees are entirely free to decide whether or not to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.

Data is stored in a range of different places, including in personnel files at Head Office, in the Company’s IT system and on site.

Information will be shared internally, with members of the HR team (including payroll), managers in the business area and IT staff where access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles.

We sometimes need to share the personnel information we process with other organisations.  Where this is necessary we comply with all aspects of the Data Protection Act (DPA) and information is limited to a need to know basis only. The Company shares data with third parties in order to obtain pre-employment references from other employers and to obtain necessary criminal records checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service. The Company may also share data with third parties in the context of a TUPE transfer and with schools where this is requested as part of their single central register requirements. In those circumstances the data will be subject to confidentiality arrangements.

The Company also shares data with third parties that process data on its behalf, in connection with payroll, the provision of benefits, the provision of training and the provision of occupational health services.

The Company will not transfer data to countries outside the European Economic Area.

The Company takes the security of data seriously. The Company has internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties. Any data that is kept in paper form is in locked cabinet to which only authorised personnel have access. Any data stored within the Company’s IT system can also only be accessed by authorised personnel.

Where the Company engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.

The Company has a hardware firewall across the entire company network and antivirus software on all PC’s and laptops.

The Company will hold personal data for the duration of employment. The periods for which data is held after the end of employment are:-

• Personal data comprising details of next of kin, death in service, equal opportunities monitoring, trade union membership and holiday request forms – data will not be held after the end of employment.
• Payroll data (e.g. data relating to PAYE, maternity pay, SSP) – 3 years (HMRC may request payroll data for ex-employees up to 3 years following the end of employment).
• Employee records (e.g. data relating to employees’ personal records, performance appraisals, disciplinaries, contracts) – 6 years (this data could be used to defend a county court or high court claim which may occur up to 6 years later)

As a data subject, an employee has a number of rights. They can:

• access and obtain a copy of their data on request
• require the Company to change incorrect or incomplete data
• require the Company to delete or stop processing their data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
• object to the processing of their own data where the Company is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing
• ask the Company to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not their interests override the Company’s legitimate grounds for processing data

If an employee would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Human Resources Department at HR@accentcatering.co.uk.

If an employee believes that the Company has not complied with data protection rights, they can complain to the Information Commissioner.

All employees have some obligations under their employment contract to provide the Company with data. In particular, they are required to report absences from work and may be required to provide information about disciplinary or other matters under the implied duty of good faith. They may also have to provide the Company with data in order to exercise their statutory rights, such as in relation to statutory leave entitlements. Failing to provide the data may mean that they are unable to exercise their statutory rights.

Certain information, such as contact details, right to work in the UK and payment details, have to be provided to enable the Company to enter a contract of employment. If they do not provide other information, this will hinder the Company’s ability to administer the rights and obligations arising as a result of the employment relationship efficiently.

Employment decision are not based solely on automated decision making.

Certificate information will be kept securely, in lockable, non-portable, storage containers with access strictly controlled and limited to those who are entitled to see it as part of their duties.

In accordance with section 124 of the Police Act 1997, the results of the DBS check are confidential between Accent Catering and the employee.  Certificate information is only passed to those who are authorised to receive it in the course of their duties.  We maintain a record of all those to whom certificates or certificate information has been revealed and it is a criminal offence to pass this information to anyone who is not entitled to receive it.

In accordance with the DBS code of practice, this information can be discussed with the Head of a School or Nursing Home or alternatively with a Safeguarding Officer.  Consistent with the DBS code of practice, copies of certificates must not be taken and held by anyone other than the direct employer.

Certificate information is only used for the specific purpose for which it was requested and for which the applicant’s full consent has been given.

In accordance with legislation, if employees have access to children or vulnerable adults whilst performing their job, such employees will be required as a condition of their employment to undergo a vetting process which involves a Disclosure and Barring Service record check being carried out by the DBS.  Any offer of employment for such employees is subject to the receipt of an enhanced disclosure to the satisfaction of the company.  The offer of employment will be withdrawn if the results of the disclosure are unacceptable to the company. 

Accent Catering’s pre-joining documentation states that it is a condition of employment that an employee must bring in their completed disclosure application when requested.  Once the application is complete, an email notification is received from the DBS containing the certificate number and date and advising whether or not there is any information on the certificate.  Where the certificate is clear, the number and date are recorded and no further action is taken.  Where there is content on the certificate, the employee is requested to bring in the certificate immediately, thus allowing the necessary decision relating to recruitment to be made.  Accent Catering reserve the right to exercise our own discretion by continuing the employment of any individual whose DBS clearance contains information which does not pose a risk to anyone on the client premises.

For all employees a record is kept of the certificate issue date, the type of certificate requested, the position for which the certificate was requested, the certificate reference number and details of the recruitment decision taken.

• All of our clients will have an approved code of practice for dealing with matters relating to child and vulnerable adult protection. Accent Catering Services Ltd staff should be aware of its existence and everyone may have access to it through the Operations Manager.
• This code of practice is issued not only for the protection and proper treatment of children and vulnerable adults, but also to facilitate the protection of staff.
• Accent Catering Services Ltd are committed, if required by our client, to ensuring that an up to date DBS Disclosure is obtained (either by Accent Catering Services Ltd or client) for anyone who works for the company (see Accent Catering Services Ltd ’s DBS Policy).

• At no time should an employee be alone in the same room as a child or vulnerable adult.
• At no stage should an employee go to a boarding or residents corridor alone. (Except if your contract provides a Housekeeping service, in which case you would be subject to an Enhanced DBS Disclosure).
• There should be no physical contact with any child or vulnerable adult.
• Any contact with a child or vulnerable adult outside the normal parameters of the catering department should first be cleared with Operations Manager and Head Teacher/Home Manager.
• Employees are encouraged at all times to be friendly and positive and to respond to reasonable requests as helpfully as possible.
• Employees should be vigilant at all times. Asking unknown visitors whether they can assist them and reporting such visitors to the school/home reception.
• Employees should immediately refer any poor behaviour or unacceptable attitudes to a member of the teaching/care staff and Accent Catering Services Ltd unit manager. Under no circumstances should the employee take unilateral disciplinary action, nor attempt to scold a child or vulnerable adult.
• Employees should at no time use aggressive or obscene language towards or in the presence of children or vulnerable adults.
• Avoid favouritism. Do not single out one pupil/resident in a group because you know their name. This could upset people who are feeling isolated or unhappy.
• Do not accept any gifts from pupils/residents.
• Employees are advised to consider very carefully any situation, which could give rise to any allegation whatsoever, and to avoid such situations completely.
• Should an employee have any concerns whatsoever, he/she should report them to the Chef/Manager or to a member of teaching staff.

In an ideal world this website wouldn’t exist, a client would acknowledge the importance of having web copy before the design starts. Needless to say it’s very important, content is king and people are beginning to understand that. However, back over in reality some project schedules and budgets don’t allow for web copy to be written before the design phase, this is sad but true.

We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:

• Internal record keeping.
• We may use the information to improve our products and services.
• We may periodically send emails about new products or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided.
• From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone, fax or mail. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:

• Whenever you are asked to fill in a form on the website, look for the box that you can click to indicate that you do not want the information to be used by anybody for direct marketing purposes
• If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by writing to or emailing us at info@accentcatering.co.uk
• We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We may use your personal information to send you information about third parties which we think you may find interesting if you tell us that you wish this to happen.

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or email us as soon as possible, at the above address. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.