Privacy
How we handle your information
The National Student Policy Trust is the controller of the personal data described here. Our Data Protection Lead can be contacted at the address below.
Website visitors
This site uses privacy-respecting analytics that set no cookies and do not identify you. If you use a form on this site we use what you enter for the purpose stated on that form. We keep contact messages for one year.
Chapter and grant applicants
The forms at /apply collect information about a student think tank or a students' union and the work contact details of the officers dealing with the application. We use it to assess the application against our Grant-Making Policy, to contact you about it, and to keep a record of grant decisions.
- Legal basis: our legitimate interest in administering our charitable grant-making.
- Where it is held: a database hosted in the UK or European Economic Area, accessible only to our think-tank-facing team and Director General. It is never shared with donors.
- Who else sees it: our hosting and database providers, acting on our instructions; the students' union concerned; regulators where the law requires.
- How long: unsuccessful or withdrawn applications are deleted twelve months after the decision. Approved applications are grant records and are kept for the life of the Chapter agreement or grant plus six years.
- What we do not collect: bank details, student personal data, or special category data. Please do not include them in free-text answers.
Students: bursaries and the Training Programme
Training Access Bursary applications are assessed by the Trust's Bursary Assessment Panel: the Partnerships and Chapters Director, who checks the application, and a trustee, who decides; neither may know you. We hold your application form and the evidence you attach (for example a student finance, benefit or hardship award letter, evidence of enrolment, or a letter showing your pre-university address) and any statement of need, in a restricted folder that only the Panel and our Data Protection Lead can open. We use them only to decide your eligibility and rate. They are never shown to donors or to your think tank's committee, and are deleted twelve months after the end of the academic year. Sensitive information (disability, health, ethnicity, care experience, immigration status) is processed only with your explicit consent, given on the form. With your consent we may ask your students' union or university to confirm your enrolment, an award, or your role. We do not ask for bank statements and we do not hold your bank details; your students' union pays your bursary. Where a union has agreed to assess applications itself, it holds the evidence instead under its own notice.
Once you have taken part in the Training Programme you can opt in to our Careers Network, a free service that shares a profile with employers registered with us on written terms; you can withdraw at any time and it has no effect on your bursary. Employers of every kind can register on the same terms, and an organisation that is also a donor receives your profile only as a registered employer. We never share your information with donors, we never tell you or your think tank who our donors are, and we never tell donors who receives bursaries.
We keep programme records for one year after your relationship with the Trust ends and financial records of bursary payments for six years.
Donors and supporters
We collect your name and contact details, the organisation you represent if any, your donation history, your Gift Aid declaration if you make one, your communication preferences, and the results of the due diligence the law requires us to carry out, including sanctions screening.
- Legal bases: our legitimate interest in administering the charity; legal obligation for due diligence and Gift Aid; your consent, or the charitable-purpose soft opt-in, for email updates. Every email carries an unsubscribe link.
- Confidentiality: we do not publish donor names and do not disclose them to the think tanks or students we support. We disclose donor identity only with your consent, to HMRC for Gift Aid, to our independent examiner or auditor, to a regulator or authority where the law requires, where accounting standards require disclosure of transactions with trustees or people connected with them, in confidence to a students' union where a conflict of interest or a breach of our Donor Code affects its students, or where the trustees resolve on legal advice that disclosure is necessary.
- Independence: research produced by the students we support is independent of the Trust and its donors and may reach conclusions you disagree with. We cannot share it before publication or influence it.
- How long: donation, due-diligence and Gift Aid records for six years after our relationship ends; marketing preferences until you unsubscribe.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your information, ask us to correct or delete it, object to our use of it, or withdraw any consent you have given, by contacting the Data Protection Lead at privacy@nationalstudentpolicytrust.org.uk. We respond within one month.