Volunteering
with Citizens
Advice Salford

What volunteering means to us

“At the heart of our services are our citizens – the people we serve, and our volunteers – who are our citizen advisers, and who make us a very special organisation.”

– Tom Togher, Chief Officer, Citizens Advice Salford

What do we do

We provide free, confidential and impartial advice, and campaign on big issues affecting people’s lives. Our goal is to help everyone find a way forward, whatever problems they face.

People come to us with all sorts of issues. They may have money, benefit, housing or employment problems. You may be facing a crisis, or just considering their options.

Our dedicated volunteers

Every year up to 70 volunteers support the delivery of our work alongside a team of paid staff. Our volunteers come from all sorts of backgrounds and help with everything we do, IT, administration, fundraising, trusteeship – and of course giving advice.

Without the passion and generosity of our volunteers, we wouldn’t be here today.

We know that our volunteers benefit from the experience too – for example all our retired volunteers tell us that volunteering keeps them mentally active and nine in ten unemployed volunteers believe it helps them to move into employment of education. All our volunteers tell us how much they enjoy helping people!

What our volunteers say:

“Citizens Advice Salford helps me to develop as a person”

“Today I made a difference by assisting and advising vulnerable local citizens to solve their problems.”

“I want to give back to my community”

“I like meeting new people from different countries and learning new things”

We provide many different volunteering opportunities

People  volunteer with us for different reasons. Our volunteer roles are varied, challenging and rewarding and our volunteers really enjoy being able to make a valuable contribution and a positive impact on people’s lives.

Volunteering and inclusion

We welcome volunteers from all backgrounds, including Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) volunteers, disabled volunteers, volunteers with physical and mental health conditions, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual, Trans and and Non-binary volunteers, to join our service.

If you have any support, access or equipment needs, we will be happy to discuss this with you to enable you to volunteer.

For applicants who aren’t UK citizens, please note that you’re only allowed to volunteer if your immigration status permits it. Many will, but please do check that you are entitled to volunteer, to avoid breaching the terms of your status. You can find further information about different visa rules on this government webpage. Irish citizens, EU/EEA citizens with settled or pre-settled status, and refugees and asylum seekers are fully entitled to volunteer.

We all share one goal

Volunteer, employee or supporter, we all believe in the same thing; a society where everyone gets the advice they need, and every voice is heard.

How can you get involved?

• We have volunteer roles at all levels depending on your availability and what you want out of volunteering.
• You can volunteer for three months or three years, different roles suit different people.

See our role information and application form below. If you are not sure and want to talk to us about volunteering contact us by email and we will get back in touch!

How we use your data when applying to volunteer

How we collect your information

We collect information about you through your volunteer application form. These are completed online via our website.

Depending on the role we may also collect information through a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. You will be informed if such a check will be required for the role at application stage.

What information we collect

We’ll collect personal information such as name, address, telephone number and email address, previous job history and experience, qualifications, and any support needs you may have.

We’ll also ask for diversity information like your gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation. You don’t have to tell us this.

Where it’s needed for the role, we might contact the DBS for a criminal record check. Once the DBS check is completed and you’ve received your certificate, we’d expect you to share this information with us as part of the background check process.

We may also ask for:

• references for your previous and current work

What we use your information for

The main reasons we ask for your personal information are to:

• check you’ve got the right skills for a role when you apply
• arrange an interview
• contact you to tell you the result of your application
• do checks when we make an offer, for example contacting your references 
• send you an offer email

We’ll treat any diversity information you give us as strictly confidential. We’ll anonymise this information and only use it to look at trends. This means we won’t look at your information individually or compare it to other people and we won’t use it as part of the recruitment selection process.

Who we share your information with

If you accept an offer to volunteer for us we’ll:

• get your permission to share your information with your references

We won’t usually share your personal information with anyone else in a way that could identify you. In some rare situations we have to share your information, for example if:

• we’re investigating a safeguarding issue
• the police ask for the information to help them investigate a crime
• a court orders us to share the information

We sometimes share anonymous statistics with organisations we trust so they can analyse the information.

How we will use your data when you’re a volunteer 

Citizens Advice Salford collects and processes personal data relating to its volunteers to manage the volunteering relationship. Citizens Advice Salford is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

Citizens Advice Salford is the data controller for your personal data.   Some personal data is shared with National Citizens Advice including for the following purposes:

• Allow you to use national systems
• Provide support and handle enquiries
• Facilitate quality checks
• Assist in handling complaints and grievances
• Collecting expressions of interest for recruiting volunteers
• Allow National to carry out finance functions on our behalf

National Citizens Advice privacy information in regards to local office staff and volunteers can be found on our website.

Personal data Citizens Advice Salford Advice collects

Citizens Advice Salford collects and processes a range of data about you. This includes:

• your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number, date of birth, sex
• data about your emergency contacts 
• details of your schedule (days of volunteering and volunteering hours) and attendance at bureau
• details of training you have participated in
• data about medical or health conditions, including whether or not you have a disability for which Citizens Advice Salford needs to make reasonable adjustments
• equal opportunities monitoring data, including data about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, health and religion or belief

Citizens Advice Salford collects this data in a variety of ways. For example, data is collected through:

Information collected directly from you, such as:

• application forms/reference details
• forms completed by you at the start of your volunteering
• correspondence with you during your volunteering
• interviews, meetings or other assessments
• Call recordings for quality purposes – where applicable

Data is stored in a range of different places, including in your volunteer folder in Citizens Advice Salford’s Google Workspace and Casebook. 

Why Citizens Advice Salford processes personal data

Citizens Advice Salford needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example to comply with health and safety laws.

In other cases, Citizens Advice Salford has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the employment relationship such as call recordings

Processing volunteer data allows Citizens Advice Salford to:

• ensure effective general business administration
• provide references on request 
• respond to and defend against legal claims
• maintain and promote equality in the workplace

Who has access to data

Your data will shared with:

• The Chief Officer/Deputy Chief Officer/Senior Management Team/Trustees have access to personal and relevant special category data, as required for their respective roles.  
• The management team has access to your contact details, emergency contacts, via Google Workspace.  
• The Chief Officer/Deputy Chief Officer/Senior Management Team have access to some personal data, for example they will be able to view your annual reflection.
• Citizens Advice nationally have access to some of your personal data such as contact information, job role and work patterns in order for you to use Casebook and other National IT platforms for example Skillbook
• Three Rings our Volunteering database have access to some personal data for the purpose of maintaining a volunteer database and a rota system. 
• Citizens Advice performance assessors may have view access to your staff and volunteers records to ensure that our management processes are robust

Citizens Advice Salford will not directly  transfer your data to countries outside the European Economic Area. This should be checked against your suppliers.  National Citizens Advice systems do not transfer your data outside of the EEA.

Some special categories of personal data, such as data about health or medical conditions, are processed to carry out legal obligations (such as those in relation to volunteers with disabilities and for health and safety purposes). 

Where Citizens Advice Salford processes other special categories of personal data, such as data about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. data that Citizens Advice Salford uses for these purposes is anonymised or pseudonymised.

How Citizens Advice Salford protects data

Citizens Advice Salford takes the security of your data seriously. Citizens Advice Salford has internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties.

All users are required to comply with the IT Acceptable Use policy. 

Where Citizens Advice Salford 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.

How long Citizens Advice Salford keeps data

Citizens Advice Salford will hold your personal data for the duration of your volunteering. The periods for which your data is held after the end of volunteering are outlined in Citizens Advice Salford’s data retention policy see the link. Policy

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

• access and obtain a copy of  your data  that identifies and relates to you, provided that there is no legal exemption for us to withhold disclosure
• require Citizens Advice Salford to change incorrect or incomplete data. Professional opinions may remain on file if relevant
• Citizens Advice Salford to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing
• object to the processing of your data where Citizens Advice Salford is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing
• Ask Citizens Advice Salford to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override Citizens Advice Salford]’s legitimate grounds for processing data

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please email Tom Togher at tom.togher@citizensadvicesalford.org.uk 

l If you believe that Citizens Advice Salford has not complied with your data protection rights and you have raised it internally without success, you can complain to the data Commissioner through the ICO website.

Our lawful basis for using your information