Who we are

LGIU is a membership organisation. Our members are local authorities, trade unions, and other organisations with an interest in local government and public service delivery. Our address is LGIU, 251 Pentonville Road, London N1 9NG.

LGIU is the data controller for the information that you provide to our organisation.

Personal data

The data we collect can include:

• Name, job title, employer details.
• Email address, phone number, and postal address (usually work details, but sometimes personal if you choose to give us your personal contact details).
• Communications and notification preferences, e.g., your preferred topics, newsletters, and which regular emails you would like to receive.
• Technical data, including: IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access our website.
• Data about how you use our website, e.g., last login, pages that you access, or reports that you download, and your use of other services, e.g., if you book onto one of our events or training courses.

How we collect data

We collect personal data that you give us directly when you:

• Create an account (register) on the LGIU website.
• Make updates to your information on your ‘My Account’ page.
• Book an event or training course on our website.
• Contact us with queries about our service, requests for more information.
• If you are nominated for the Cllr Awards.
• Apply for a job with us.
• Submit a request for our newsletters.
• Contact us via email.

We use technology to collect data during automated interactions:

• When you visit the LGIU website, we collect data, including but not only: traffic data, location data, and other communication data. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Visit our cookie statement for more information.

Public sources:

• We sometimes gather personal data from publicly available sources, e.g. council websites and conferences.

Surveys and other research activities:

• The LGIU carries out a range of research activities, including surveys on behalf of its members. We use Survey Monkey for most of our surveys. We may collect contact details, such as names, emails, job titles, and postcodes; and demographic data, such as age and gender. In some surveys, we may collect special category data (such as ethnicity). Where we do so, we rely on your explicit consent and ensure additional safeguards are in place to protect this information.

How we use your personal data

The LGIU is a membership organisation and we provide services directly to councillors and employees from our member organisations where those individuals have requested it or at times when we believe that the organisatinal membership warrants it. We also provide a limited information service to non-members. We also use personal data to further our work and campaigns. We use the personal information that we collect for a number of purposes, including:

• To send out emails that are part of the membership services that we offer, including: policy briefings; Daily News; weekly roundup (‘The view’); Future Local updates, topic alerts, or new publications/reports.
• For invitations to events, eg APPG meetings, roundtables, Cllr Awards, Leaders’ dinners, and networks.
• Provide marketing for our training events.
• Sending out links to surveys and polls.
• Contacting officers or councillors in relation to providing our membership and other services.
• Information about taking part in our annual Cllr Awards.
• Setting up and administering the organisational membership accounts and as part of the relationship management process.
• To fulfill our contractual obligations to you or your organisation.
• As part of our recruitment processes.
• Website account set up and administration.
• To develop new services and consult our members when we are proposing changes to existing services.
• For data analysis and research.

We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.

Legal basis for processing your personal data

The UK GDPR describes six possible legal grounds for processing your personal information:

• consent
• contract
• legitimate interests
• vital interests
• public task
• legal obligation.

Our use of personal information will always be on the basis of one or more of these legal grounds.

Most of the personal data we hold and use has been provided to us by the individual (with their consent). For example, when you create an account on the LGIU website or when you apply for a job with us. Where your personal information is used by us for marketing purposes, you will always have the option to change your consent for different types of emails or unsubscribe completely.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before you withdraw consent. You can withdraw consent on our website in your My Account section. If you don’t have an account, you can email us at [email protected] and request amendments and/or removal.

Some personal information we use on the basis of legitimate interest, such as contacting and providing services to current or prospective members or conducting polls and surveys of our membership organisations.

Where we rely on legitimate interests as our legal basis, these interests include maintaining and developing our membership network, conducting research, and promoting relevant membership services, so that we can honour our contractual obligations to your organisation, for example, if you are a nominated lead contact for your organisation.

We always consider and balance any potential impact on your rights before processing your data on this basis. You have the right to object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests.

We do receive some personal information from third parties, such as Oscar Research, with consent obtained.

Sharing your data

The way we manage our website and some of its functionality requires us to cooperate with and share data with third parties, in particular our website developers and other partners we work with. Other internal processes require us to share data with third parties, for example, our accountants and auditors. Our research activities may also require us to share data with research or polling organisations.

We are very careful in selecting our partners and choosing organisations that share our commitment to data privacy and security; we only allow them to use data for specific tasks, and we do not allow them to use your data for their own purposes. When we work with other companies, we always put contractual agreements in place to ensure your data is protected.

We do not sell data or share it with other organisations for their own use.

International transfers

Some of our third-party service providers may process personal data outside of the UK. Where this occurs, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as:

UK adequacy regulations; or

Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or International Data Transfer Agreements (IDTAs).

How long we keep your data for

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Account data is retained while your account remains active and for 2 years afterwards.

Recruitment data is retained for 1 year following completion of the recruitment process.

Research data is retained for 2 years, unless anonymised.

Where specific retention periods are not stated, we determine retention based on legal requirements and operational necessity.

How we protect your data

We take the confidentiality of personal information very seriously and use recognised security and access controls to protect the information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or corruption. We have procedures and processes in place to ensure that your personal information is managed appropriately. These include:

• Ensuring our team understands how to protect your data.
• Through defined data management procedures
• Working with our data processor partners to ensure we follow the best quality standards in managing your data.

Your rights

Under the UK GDPR, you have a number of rights with regard to the data that we hold about you. You have the right to see the data we hold about you, correct it, and erase it. You also have the right to limit how we process that data, object to it, and have the data transferred to another party (portability). We will only use your data as permitted by the law.

Complaints

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Lead at [email protected].

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

This privacy notice was last updated in March 2026.