Freedom of Information and Data Protection enquiries should be made to Edward Lazell, Deputy Registry Manager, Royal College of Music, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BS or elazell@rcm.ac.uk

The RCM recognises the importance of protecting its information assets and, in particular, the information relating to its staff, students and other individuals in whatever form that information is held.

The College needs to keep and process certain information about such persons so that, for example, staff can be recruited and paid, programmes organised, facilities provided and legal obligations to funding bodies and government complied with. As part of its teaching and research commitments it will also utilise information about other people, eg visitors attending concerts. In doing so, the College must comply with data protection legislation and process that information in accordance with the eight Data Protection Principles set out in the legislation.

The College’s Data Protection Officer, the Deputy Registry Manager, will handle day-to-day issues relating to notification, advice on compliance and with subject access requests.

All data, whether held electronically or manually, must be kept securely and not disclosed unlawfully.

The College respects the right of its staff, students and others to access personal data about them which is being held by the College, either electronically or in a relevant filing system, to check that it has been fairly obtained, that it is accurate, and to have such data corrected where necessary. It also recognises the right of a data subject to withdraw consent to the processing of personal data where such processing could cause them significant damage or distress.

The College aims to publish as much information as possible via our Publication Scheme. If you wish to request information that is not covered in the Publication Scheme then please submit your request in writing to the Deputy Registry Manager.

Freedom of Information legislation extends the public’s rights of access to information held by public authorities, includes higher education institutions, and imposes a number of obligations on them. Members of the public have a statutory right (with some minor limitations) to request any information held by the RCM, regardless of when it was created, by whom, or the form in which it is now recorded.

The College has a ‘Publication Scheme’ which is a list of the classes of information the College has committed itself to publishing. Its purpose is to ensure that the College, as a public authority, makes as much information as possible publicly available. The College has made available (either on its website or in some other form) all the information included in its approved Scheme.

The public, including other corporate bodies, have the right to make a request for any other information not already published under the Publication Scheme.