Find out how your survey responses stay confidential.
Survey responses
Our external partner, People Insight, administer the survey and all responses go directly to them. At no point will anyone at the University, including senior leaders and managers, be able to view individual responses.
When the survey closes, People Insight will provide results data and reports for the University based on the overall feedback. Responses from teams with fewer than 10 respondents will be rolled up into a higher-level group of staff to ensure individual responses are guaranteed to remain anonymous.
This means that your responses will not be linked back to you personally. People Insight administers the survey according to strict confidentiality policies and takes this very seriously.
Survey confidentiality
Find out more about how the staff survey is confidential and how we protect your data.
- How can the survey be confidential when you ask me for personal information?
We ask for demographic data at the end of the survey not to identify respondents but to understand any broader patterns that may need addressing, including issues specific to people with particular backgrounds and identities. The demographic data not only allows the University to hear the challenges and difficulties that specific groups may face, it also helps drive our work to advance equality and inclusion, ensure diversity and inform policy changes where needed. This is why it is vital that we hear about the experiences of everyone in our community.
All responses to the survey will be kept completely confidential by our survey partner People Insight who will collect, report, and analyse the data. The presentation of survey results will show the number of people who are in a certain demographic within a team, but not how those individual people have scored against the questions. The response data is always aggregated, and only People Insight have sight of the raw data. The security of this data is part of our contractual agreement with People Insights.
People Insight will produce reports based on the feedback from certain respondent groups – e.g. by different departments – to help better understand the experience of staff in that area. However, reports will only be produced for groups where there are 10 or more respondents. All responses for teams with fewer than 10 respondents will be included in reports at a higher departmental level, so your voice will still be heard whilst remaining anonymous.
- Is the survey confidential if everyone responds through their own unique survey link?
Providing a unique link for every staff member allows People Insight to know who has completed the survey so they can send automated reminders to those who have not yet done so. It also links to certain organisational data such as your School or Division which helps with survey analysis as it tells us about the views and experiences of different groups of staff.
When results are made available by People Insight, the University will only see group data and not any individual data.
- What about anonymity of the free text comments?
Comments are included in the survey results data exactly as you submit them, although People Insight redact information that could identify the respondent or others, such as names and pronouns.
When you are writing the free text comments, you will get the following warning: 'Please take care when providing this feedback. Please note that any comments that you make will be repeated verbatim in the feedback report from People Insight. Although they will not reveal the name of the person who provided the comments, you should consider whether you could be identified from your comments and, if so, whether you would wish to be. If you are concerned about this either before, or after writing your comments, please contact People Insight directly'.
- How is the survey data broken down?
Typically, the data will be broken down by demographics such as Faculty, School or Division, department and also other categories such as role type, ethnicity and gender for example. This will target action planning where most needed. Results data is aggregated and analysis will only be provided for demographic breakdowns with 10 or more responses to ensure that individual responses remain anonymous.
- Who can see the results data?
People Insight collect, report, and analyse the responses, and provide the University with results data and reports for the University overall as well as Schools and Divisions based on the overall feedback. These reports are shared with leaders and with all staff to help us better understand where we need to take action.
Additionally, the results data are also available on an online dashboard for a small number of dashboard users in each School and Division. Dashboard users have access to results data for their specific School or Division only and can drill down further by theme or question. This supports the development of local action plans. The responses remain confidential, as our staff survey operates on the ‘rule of 10’ meaning there cannot be any breakdown of results attributed to any group of fewer than 10 people.
- What privacy and GDPR policies are in place to keep my data safe?
The security of your information is important. All your data is private and confidential, and People Insight takes all reasonable steps to ensure that your information is handled securely and in accordance with its Privacy Policy.
All personal data held by People Insight is held in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR and Data Subjects’ rights, as set out in its Data Protection Policy. People Insight retains and uses your information for only as long as necessary to provide you with services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce legal rights. Formal processes and procedures are in place to securely dispose of devices that may contain client data.