Privacy Policy

St Helens Borough Council's Arts Service Privacy Policy explains in what circumstances we collect information, how we collect it, what information we collect, how we use it and for how long, how we share any information and finally your rights in relation to any information stored.

We collect personal information about you in conducting one of the following activities.

When you register to receive the Arts Service Ezine and supply email details to enable us to send one off notifications of specific events.
When you sign up to be entered onto our Artist/Creative Industries, Arts in St Helens Database for Groups and Individuals or Partner databases.
When you complete an evaluation questionnaire after attending one of our performances, events or workshops. However, as this information is anonymised it is not considered to be personal data.
When you buy a ticket for an event via our ticketing app, Eventbrite.
When we collect personal information to allow you to take part in one of our participatory sessions such as a writing group, taking part in the Arts Award Programme or as part of our community programmers group.
When we work with our third-party partners when we share information to enable events to take place e.g., sharing numbers of tickets sold etc.

The Legal Basis for all personal data processing is consent as per Articles 6 (1) (a) and 9 (2) (a) of the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR).

1) How do we store your data?

We store your data in the following ways;

For the Arts Ezine we store your data on a third-party web placed platform called Dotmailer which is compliant with UK GDPR.
Any information collected for our Artist/Creative Industries, Arts in St Helens Database for Groups and Individuals or Partner databases, Participatory sessions, and any information we send to Third Party Partners is stored on a secure folder within the Arts Service files.
Our Evaluation Questionnaires are anonymised, and information captured is sent directly to PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) via a third-party platform called Illuminate. PWC collect the information on behalf of Arts Council England, who are the funders of our Arts in Libraries programme. How PWC store this data is outlined at point 3 below.
For information taken from our ticket platform, Eventbrite, we will store your information in our secure database within the Arts service files. How Eventbrite store your data is outlined at point 3 below.

2) What information do we collect about you and how do we use it?

We collect and use your data in the following ways:

For the Arts service Ezine the only information we collect is your name and email address. We will use your email address to send you the Arts Ezine via a monthly roundup to tell you about events, activities (including partner activities) and library service updates we think may be of interest to you and occasionally we may send a special message to alert you to a specific event or opportunity. You can view and edit this information at any time by clicking on the link provided within each Arts Service Ezine. Please note the Dotmailer Platform which we use to send you the Arts Service Ezine allows us to monitor:
When / if you open the Arts Service Ezine
Which links (if any) you clicked onto from the Arts Service Ezine.
For the Illuminate evaluation questionnaires, we collect information around your view of the arts, the event you attended, St. Helens Library service and then background information on your age, gender etc. The responses given through the Illuminate questionnaires are used to demonstrate to Arts Council England how the funding is being used and people's views on specific events and programmes of work. The demographic data gathered about individuals is used by Arts Council England to evaluate if they are reaching the diversity of the population in England across all protected characteristics. However please bear in mind this information is anonymous and cannot be linked back to your identity. Please note, the responses are anonymised in that you do not provide information that can identify you specifically and as such this is not deemed to be personal data.
For the Artist/Creative Industries databases we collect your name, your email address, phone number, postcode and any information about your artistic background or skill e.g., Visual Artist, specialist Arts training provider etc. to contact individuals or partners about any artistic, business or funding opportunities etc. that may be of interest to you. When appropriate, we will tailor our contact to ensure that any opportunities that may arise are specific to your preferences. For partner databases we collect your name, email address, and details on your area of business or expertise to allow us to alert you to events and opportunities that may arise. Again when appropriate, we will tailor our contact to ensure that any opportunities that may arise are specific to your preferences. For our Arts in St Helens Groups and Individual database, we collect your name, name of group (if relevant), role in the group (if relevant), email address, phone number (optional), postcode (optional) and the artform/s that you are interested in. Again when appropriate, we will tailor our contact to ensure that any opportunities that may arise are specific to your preferences.
For participation sessions we collect information to allow us to contact you when sessions are taking place, together with relevant personal information; this can include your name, contact details, parent contact details etc. and if applicable, medical information, should we be organising a trip etc. We will use any information collected about you to ensure we can deliver a safe and inclusive experience for you when we deliver these projects.
For the Eventbrite sign ups we collect your name and email address to allow tickets to be sent to you. Banking details are stored within the application, and we don't have access to this information. For details on how Eventbrite uses your information please refer to the Eventbrite link at point 3 below. The information we collect from Eventbrite is used when we contact you after the event to send an Illuminate evaluation questionnaire or alert you to new events. Occasionally prior to the event we may send you new information about the event itself e.g., where (on a rare occasion) we may have to change the event venue or cancel etc.
Information we collect for/from third party partners is limited to contact details for people participating in sessions delivered by other agencies we use to deliver our work, or in limited specific instances such as sending on parent permissions for children to take part in an Arts Award programme to the national partner, Trinity College etc., to ensure that they have enough information to be able to deliver the agreed activities safely and inclusively.
We occasionally may have, or set up a data-sharing agreement with a partner organisation. For instance, if we are providing an arts activity in collaboration with another arts organisation. In these instances, you will be asked if you wish to share your contact details with the partner organisation when you sign up for the event. In this instance unless we specifically request or want personal information to be shared, any evaluation questionnaire that you complete will be anonymised and will be shared with the partner.
Please note; unless you have given us permission when you sign up for a specific database, for St Helens Borough Council Arts Service to share your contact details with other parties (e.g. to pass on your contact details as a freelance artist for prospective work opportunities) St Helens Borough Council Arts Service will NOT share your information for marketing or service information purposes with:
Other St Helens Borough Council departments
Organisations / companies outside of St Helens Borough Council
Individuals.

Artist/Creative Practitioners/ Creative Industries survey 2025

For the Artist/Creative Practitioners/ Creative Industries survey, in addition to your responses to our survey questions about your training and developmental needs, we collect background information on your age, gender, postcode etc.
We will use the findings from the Artist/Creative Practitioners/ Creative Industries survey to inform our future work, including:
The next stage of work by the Arts Service/Arts in Libraries Team - including Artists Together.
Creative Sector support plans by the Growth Company, appointed by St Helens Borough Council to deliver a range of business support in the Borough.
Developmental work taking place by Kindred in partnership with St Helens Borough Council at Street and a Half (SnA) in Haydock St, St Helens.
Developmental work by the Arts Strategy Steering Group partners including Artist Led St Helens.

If you provide your email address to subscribe to the Arts Ezine, the Creative Industries database, or to enter the Prize Draw, it will only be used for the purpose that you have authorised. Your contact details will not be used to identify your survey responses as an individual.

3) How long will we keep your details for?

We will keep your details for each activity on the following basis:

For the Arts Service E-zine, In January of each year, we will review who has been opening the arts update emails. If you have not opened our emails in the previous 12 months we will delete your contact details from our mailing list, your contact details will be deleted from Dotmailer, and we will contact you to tell you we have done this but will also send you a link to re-subscribe should you wish to choose to do this.
For Illuminate, PriceWaterhouseCoopers will keep your information for the length of the contract they have with Arts Council England (which is currently March 2026) or 7 years, after which all data will be destroyed securely in line with their data destruction policy. A copy of their privacy policy can be found here Illuminate (illuminate-data.org.uk)
For our artist and partner databases we will contact you in April each year to see if you still want to be kept on our lists for contact purposes. At this stage you can either re-subscribe or be taken off our lists.
For participation sessions we will keep your contact and other details for the duration of the project and then will delete your details from our files.
For Eventbrite ticketed events we only have access to your contact details and no other information. For details on how Eventbrite uses your information please view this link here https://www.eventbrite.com/help/en-us/articles/460838/eventbrite-privacy-policy/
For third party projects we will keep your contact and other details for the duration of the project and will then delete your details from our files.
For the Artist/Creative Practitioners/ Creative Industries survey we will keep the summary of your responses for up to 7 years (so that we can use the responses to review our progress). Your individual name and email will not be stored alongside your responses

4) Your Rights

Your rights can be summarised as follows;

If you have consented to receive the Arts Service Ezine, you may opt out at any time.
For the Artist/Creative Industries, Arts in St Helens Database for Groups and Individuals or Partner databases and for participation data, you can contact us at any time via the Arts Service email facility at ArtsService@sthelens.gov.uk to have your details removed or via the yearly subscription reminder above.

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, you can make a Subject Access request via the online form www.sthelens.gov.uk/informationrequests or by emailing sars@sthelens.gov.uk

If you are unhappy with how we process your information you can contact the Council Data Protection Officer in the first instance. If you remain unhappy, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office via www.ico.org.uk/global/contact-us

5) Other websites

Our Arts Service Ezine may contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to the instances described above so when you go to other websites e.g., via the link for another organisation on our Arts in Libraries website, you should read their own privacy policies.

6) Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review, and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 23rd July 2025.

7) St Helens Borough Council's Data Protection Officer

The Council have appointed a Data Protection Officer who can be contacted via dataprotection@sthelens.gov.uk

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