Human Resources Division

How we handle your personal data

Data Protection

The Human Resources Division is responsible for the day to day running of the University's HR and Payroll system, CHRIS. This is used to record details about staff and their employment in the University. Further information is maintained on CHRIS to support the Roll of the Regent House balloting mechanism, managed by the Registrary's Office.

Information you provide on the CHRIS/23 Confidential Personal Details form is processed into CHRIS by designated staff within the HR Division. Further information is sourced from contracts of employment and other transactional documentation. All of this data is keyed into CHRIS and reported out using a specialised reporting tool. Sensitive personal data such as ethnicity and disability status is treated confidentially. Data access to these items is highly restricted, ie only designated HR staff can access this data on CHRIS and it is not accessible by Departmental staff or those working outside the HR Division.

The University has a Data Protection Policy.

Higher Education Statistics Agency

Much of the data maintained in CHRIS is required by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) in addition to internal reporting. HESA is a government agency responsible for collecting and disseminating statistics about the HE Sector in the United Kingdom. As a publicly funded University, we are obliged to collect data from staff and use it in making detailed returns to HESA each year. It is important to note that the data is anonymised so that individuals cannot be recognised: personal identifiers, such as names, are not used in this return.

Internal reporting

Internal reporting is an important component of CHRIS activity: headcounts and staff load by Department is a popular measure for example. Statistics are required by the Equality and Diversity section who wish to monitor the effectiveness of policies. Reports are generated in aggregate form, ie headcounts are shown.

Each year the Data Book is published by the Planning and Statistics section of the Academic Division. This booklet is a compendium of staff, student and financial information. The staff data component of the Data Book is sourced from CHRIS data.