Find out how your survey responses stay confidential.
Survey responses
Our external partner, People Insight, hosts the survey on its platform. At no point will anyone at the University, including senior leaders and managers, be able to view individual responses.
When the survey closes, results reports for the University, and Faculties and Divisions, based on the overall feedback will be shared with all staff. 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 observes strict confidentiality policies and takes this very seriously.
Survey confidentiality - frequently asked questions
Find out more about how the staff survey is confidential and how we protect your data.
- How do we protect the confidentiality of responses?
All responses to the survey will be kept completely confidential on the People Insight platform. 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 responded to the questions. The response data is always aggregated, and only People Insight has sight of the raw data. The security of this data is part of our contractual agreement with People Insight.
Reports will be produced based on the feedback from certain respondent groups – e.g. by School, Division or 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 enables automated reminders to be sent to those who have not yet completed the survey. It also links to certain organisational data such as your Faculty, 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 on the People Insight platform, the University will only see group data and not any individual data.
- How is the survey data broken down when reported?
Typically, the data will be broken down by Faculty, School, Division, or Department and also other categories such as role type and ethnicity, for example. This information is provided from demographic data submitted by staff in MyView. Segmenting the data in this way helps us to target action planning where most needed. Results data are 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?
Responses are collected, reported, and analysed directly on the People Insight platform, 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 Faculty, School and Division. Dashboard users have access to results data for their specific area 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 are 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 are 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.