Who we are

Our website address is: www.thefdforum.co.uk
Our mailing address is: PO Box 173, Cranbrook TN17 9DA

Introduction
The FD Forum was set up by a group of FDs from the early sponsored Academies and has now expanded to include Academies, Multi-Academy Trusts and Federations.

The Forum was created as a self-help group to help and advise members in the early days of the Academies programme and to ensure that Academy FDs were able to fulfil the needs of their Academies from a functional perspective. It has now evolved into distinct streams – Finance, HR and Premises. These forums and their subsidiary groups provide a channel for the exchange of information between members relating to the overall breadth of their roles and enabling them to share best practice.

The Forum is not a lobbying group but it will, and does, get involved in any financial matters that impinge on Academies.  By engaging and contributing to the Forums you will confirm to be in agreement with this policy and our terms and conditions.  You will not share your login informatin or any information discussed within these Forums.

Personal Information
The FD forum and its subsidiary groups retains information about its members. Upon joining the FD forum and its subsidiary groups we will request certain personal details such as name, address and contact details, we ask for Academy/Trust/Federation email addresses but in some instances, members will provide a personal address. We will use this information for communicating with members and sending out a yearly contribution invoice towards administration costs.

How we collect information
When members of the FD forum and its subsidiary groups subscribe to our membership or communicate with us, they are asked to give us certain information by completing registration forms or updating information already held on the database. This information requires direct action by the individual at the time in order for us to receive it. Our members have applied consent to the FD forum by actively giving us their details when subscribing. In doing so, they are allowing active communication from us on such matters as stated above. There will always be an option for any of our members to opt out of any further communications.

How long we retain information for
The FD forum will not retain information for longer than necessary. We will only hold onto the information you provide either for as long as you are a member, if legally required or if it is reasonably necessary to resolve disputes, prevent fraud or abuse or if we have a legitimate interest. We may also retain information for a limited period of time as required, even after you are no longer a member or no longer associated with the FD forum. You are entitled to request that any of your data is deleted from our records at any time.

Consent
The FD forum will not contact any persons for whom we do not have consent to do so. We understand that you trust us with your personal information and we are committed to ensuring the security and privacy of your personal information. You are able to do any of the following:

• You can contact us to change, correct or delete any or all of your personal information. We may retain archived copies of your information as required by law or for legitimate business purposes (including helping address fraud and spam).
• You can unsubscribe from receiving any emails or written contact from us by emailing admin@thefdforum.co.uk or in writing to The Administrator, FD forum Group, PO Box 173, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 9DA.
• You can request a readable copy of the personal data we hold on you at any time.

Use of Personal Information and How the Law Applies
There are times when it is not practical or feasible for the FD forum to obtain or record consent, however, this information will only be used or processed if there is a legitimate interest for us to do so, and in doing so your interests and rights as an individual are not harmed.

Changes to your Data
From time to time The FD forum may need to contact those in its membership and database to make sure that we have accurate details for you.

Data Sharing
The FD forum will not rent, swap or sell any personal information to other organisations. Information is only shared with direct connections to the membership.
Please note, we are constantly reviewing how we process and protect data. Therefore, changes to our policy may occur at any time. We will endeavour to publicise any changes.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics
Who we share your data with
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where we send your data
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Passwords
Please do not share your login details to this site with anyone else.