Privacy Policy

Tell Us About — a survey platform operated by NEREO

Last updated: 11th July 2026

About this notice

Tell Us About is a survey platform operated by the North East Regional Employers’ Organisation (NEREO), a not-for-profit body comprising the 12 local authorities of the North East of England and its wider Advisory Service membership. The platform is used to run surveys for NEREO and for other public sector organisations across the region and beyond, including local authorities, NHS bodies, police and fire services, and combined authorities.

This notice explains how we handle personal information in connection with the Tell Us About website and the surveys hosted on it. It sits alongside two other documents you should read together with it:

The privacy notice shown on each individual survey, which gives the specific detail for that survey (who is running it, what it collects, what it is for, and how long the data is kept). Where anything in that survey notice differs from this platform notice, the survey notice takes precedence for that survey.
Our Cookie Policy, which explains the cookies and similar technologies used on the website.

If you are looking for NEREO’s general corporate and membership privacy notice (covering services such as North East Jobs, DBS checks, NEREO Campus and Associate services), that is a separate document available at www.nereo.gov.uk.

Our privacy promise

We promise:

To keep your information safe and private.
Never to sell your information.
To be clear, on every survey, about what we collect and why.
To collect only what a survey genuinely needs, and to keep surveys anonymous wherever possible.

Who is responsible for your information

Because Tell Us About hosts surveys on behalf of many different organisations, the organisation legally responsible for your information (the “data controller”) depends on the survey you are taking part in. There are three possibilities, and the privacy notice on each survey will tell you which one applies:

NEREO is the controller. For surveys NEREO runs for its own purposes, such as regional workforce benchmarking or member research, NEREO decides how your information is used and is responsible for it.
NEREO and the commissioning organisation are joint controllers. For many commissioned surveys, NEREO and the organisation that commissioned the survey share responsibility for your information. Both are named in the survey’s privacy notice.
The commissioning organisation is the controller and NEREO is its processor. For some surveys, the commissioning organisation decides everything about what is collected and why, and NEREO simply provides the platform and collects responses on their behalf. In these cases the commissioning organisation is responsible for your information, and you should refer to their privacy notice for the full detail. NEREO acts only on their documented instructions.

In every case, NEREO operates the platform securely and applies the safeguards described in this notice.

Anonymous surveys

Many surveys on Tell Us About are fully anonymous. Where a survey is anonymous, we do not collect your name, contact details, or any information that would let us identify you or link a response back to you. The survey’s own privacy notice will state clearly whether it is anonymous.

If a survey is anonymous, please note that we will not be able to find, change, or delete your individual response after you have submitted it, because we have no way of knowing which response is yours. This also means that if you make a request to access or delete “your data” for an anonymous survey, our honest answer will be that we hold no personal information about you.

What information we collect

What we collect depends entirely on the survey. Each survey’s privacy notice lists exactly what that survey asks for. Across the platform, information collected through surveys may include:

Your responses to the survey questions.
Work-related details such as job role, employer, or type of organisation, where a survey asks for them.
Contact details, only where a survey specifically asks for them (for example, to enter a prize draw or to be contacted about the results) and only where you choose to provide them.
Special category information — such as ethnicity, disability, health, or religion — only where a survey collects it for a stated purpose such as equalities monitoring. Answering these questions is always optional, and where they are collected we rely on your explicit consent or another lawful condition, which the survey notice will explain.

When you use the website itself, we also collect limited technical and usage information through cookies and similar technologies. Our Cookie Policy explains this in full.

Our lawful basis for using your information

Data protection law allows us to use personal information only where we have a lawful basis for doing so. The basis depends on the survey, and the survey’s privacy notice will tell you which applies. For Tell Us About surveys, the basis is usually one of:

Consent — for voluntary surveys where taking part is entirely optional. Submitting your responses is your clear, affirmative indication of consent. You can withdraw at any time before the survey closes.
Public task — where a survey is carried out by, or on behalf of, a public body exercising a statutory or official function (for example, equalities monitoring under the Equality Act 2010, or statutory workforce reporting).
Legitimate interests — used mainly for website analytics rather than survey responses, and only where our interest is not outweighed by your rights.

Where a survey collects special category information, we also rely on an additional condition under Article 9 of the UK GDPR, which is normally your explicit consent.

Who can see your responses

Who sees your responses depends on the survey, and the survey notice will always tell you. As a general rule:

Individual responses are seen only by the team running the survey — either NEREO staff, the commissioning organisation’s team, or both, depending on the survey.
Results are normally published or shared only as anonymised, aggregate statistics or as an anonymised report, so that individuals cannot be identified.
We do not sell your information, and we do not share individual responses for marketing.

Our sub-processors

To run the platform we use a small number of trusted service providers who process information on our behalf under contract:

Podio, operated by Citrix Systems Inc., provides the survey form collection and storage. Some data is processed by Citrix in the United States under Standard Contractual Clauses, which is a legal safeguard approved for international transfers.

We do not otherwise transfer your information outside the UK without an appropriate safeguard in place.

How long we keep your information

Retention is set per survey, and the survey notice will tell you what applies to that survey. As a general approach:

Identifiable survey responses are deleted within a stated period after a survey closes — commonly 12 months, unless the survey notice says otherwise.
Anonymised and aggregated results, which cannot identify anyone, may be kept indefinitely for research, benchmarking, and statistical purposes.

Where NEREO acts as a processor, we delete or return the information on the commissioning organisation’s instruction when their survey and any agreed retention period end.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the following rights over your personal information:

The right of access — to ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
The right to rectification — to have inaccurate information corrected.
The right to erasure — to ask us to delete your information, subject to legal or public-task exceptions.
The right to restrict or object to processing — to ask us to pause or stop using your information in certain circumstances.
The right to data portability — to receive certain information in a reusable format, where we rely on consent.
The right to withdraw consent — where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time, which is as easy as giving it.

Two important points for a survey platform:

For anonymous surveys, we cannot act on access, correction, or deletion requests for a specific response, because we cannot identify which response is yours.
Where NEREO is a processor for a survey, and you contact us to exercise your rights, we will forward your request to the commissioning organisation (the controller) without undue delay, and assist them in responding. You may also contact them directly.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details below. You will not usually have to pay a fee, and we aim to respond within one month.

How to complain

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so we can try to put it right:

Data Protection Officer NEREO, Northern Design Centre, Abbotts Hill, Baltic Business Quarter, Gateshead, NE8 3DF Email: info@nereo.gov.uk

We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and aim to give a full response within 30 calendar days. If we need more time, we will write to you within that period to explain why and give a revised timescale.

If you remain unhappy, or we fail to respond in time, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO):

Website: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint Telephone: 0303 123 1113 Post: ICO, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Changes to this notice

We may update this notice from time to time to reflect changes to the platform or to the law. The “last updated” date at the top shows when it was last revised. Significant changes will be highlighted on the website.

Contact us

For any questions about this notice or how we use your information on the Tell Us About platform:

Email: info@nereo.gov.uk Post: NEREO, Northern Design Centre, Abbotts Hill, Baltic Business Quarter, Gateshead, NE8 3DF Phone: 0191 249 3852