Email Policy

BOZEAT PARISH COUNCIL

EMAIL POLICY adopted 18^th March 2024.

Bozeat Parish Council recognises email as a valuable communications tool that adds to other communication channels and encourages its use by employees and members of the council.  Council email addresses will be provided to the Clerk and all members of Bozeat Parish Council unless they are unable to use the internet.  Any training needs will be provided for employees or members of the council to enable them to use email effectively.

The purpose of the policy is to ensure that the Clerk, employees and all members of the council acknowledge the requirements of GDPR and accountability and to facilitate responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

Policy

• Bozeat Parish Council email addresses are expressly and exclusively for the purpose of supporting the Council’s business activities.
• Council emails must not be used to operate or support a business or private venture.
• Council emails must not be used for transmitting any communication that could be considered to be discriminatory, obscene or otherwise offensive, nor should they contain abusive, profane or offensive language.
• If emails are received that could be considered to be discriminatory, obscene or otherwise offensive, or they contain abusive, profane or offensive language they should be notified to the Clerk.
• Bozeat Parish Council reserves the right to use software to satisfy GDPR and FOI requirements and to monitor and control access to undesirable content.
• Email accounts will be disabled for any employee or member who leaves the council.
• Emails sent to the Parish Council will be checked regularly during the week by the Clerk.
• All emails sent from Parish Council addresses, must be routinely copied to the Clerk to enable a record of council business to be maintained centrally.
• Old emails, including those in the sent and spam boxes, should be regularly deleted, remembering to empty the trash box in order to free up space on the system.
• Council emails may be forwarded to personal email addresses for ease of monitoring but all replies must be sent from a council email address. Any forwarded emails that contain any information covered by GDPR should not be retained externally to the Parish Council’s system.
• Where bulk emails are sent out, or replied to all personal email addresses must be sent from the Blind Copy box to ensure that personal privacy is not compromised.
• When sensitive information needs to be sent by email, it must be included on a password-protected document.