SIA of Town and Community Councils across Wales Privacy Notice

Wavehill have been commissioned by One Voice Wales (OVW) to undertake a social impact assessment (SIA) of the activities delivered by town and community councils across Wales in response to cost of living pressures in their local communities. This research will help provide a foundation of evidence to support the development of OVW’s manifesto ahead of the 2026 Senedd election.

OVW have sent this survey to you on our behalf. We would like to better understand the work your town or community council have done in response to cost of living pressure in your community to help showcase the benefits that councils have created.

Participation in the research is voluntary, but will greatly help in providing invaluable evidence for OVW to help demonstrate the value of the sector to key stakeholders.

Any personal or commercial information collected as part of the research is kept confidential. Your response to the questions will not be made public in a way that could lead to you being identified. The information is only used for research purposes to inform this evaluation.

Your personal and financial data is deleted within six months of the end of the research project.  The data you provide will only be used in relation to this research project and will not be shared with anyone outside of Wavehill. Staff at OVW will not have access to your survey responses. The data is held securely and is only ever used for non-commercial research purposes. We do not share or use your information for commercial or marketing purposes.

If you have any questions, please contact Rhys Maher at Wavehill (rhys.maher@wavehill.com) or Emma Goode at OVW (egoode@onevoicewales.wales).  

Under the new data protection legislation, you have the right to:

• To access your personal data held by OVW.

• To require OVW to correct any mistakes in that data.

• To (in certain circumstances) object to or restrict processing.

• For (in certain circumstances) your data to be ‘erased’.

Please contact One Voice Wales if you wish to do any of these things.

If you have any concerns about how your data has been handled, you can lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office who is the independent regulator for data protection.  You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office on 01625 545 745 or 0303 123 1113, via the website https://ico.org.uk/, or write to: Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Further information

What is social impact assessment of town and community councils across Wales?

Wavehill have been commissioned to undertake by OVW to assess and monetise the social impact generated by town and community councils across Wales. This research involves surveying town and community councils to understand what actions they have taken in their local communities to address cost of living pressures. Our aim is to create a quantitative evidence base for OVW to advocate on behalf of town and community councils ahead of the 2026 Senedd election.

What type of information is collected through the survey?

The survey collects a wide range of data regarding your council and the work you’ve done to address cost of living pressures, the survey will ask about the following topics:

• Your council precept

• Other sources of income for the council

• Staff and volunteer numbers

• Organisations that you’ve partnered with to deliver cost of living initiatives

• The number of people you’ve supported through your cost of living initiatives

• Barriers you face when delivering this work

• Your engagement with Once Voice Wales

What is personal data?

Personal data means any information that could lead to a person being identified either alone or in combination with other widely available information, e.g. their name, their address, or details specific to that person.

The survey does not collect personal information.

How long does Wavehill keep data for?

Financial data and data that would make a council identifiable will be removed six months after the research has been submitted to OVW , anticipated to be September 2026.

What is the legal basis for collecting and processing the data collected?

The legal basis for collecting the data is legitimate interest.

What is the purpose of processing your answers?

Our intention is to compile the data supplied by the survey to create analysis that demonstrates the monetary value of the work done by town and community councils to address local cost of living pressures. Our final reporting will also include additional analyses related to the challenges faced by town and community councils.

In the case where an open text response is reflective of a broader theme or sentiment found in our analysis, we may choose to directly quote you in our report for the purpose of illustrating certain points of view. In the case where we do this, we will anonymise the quote, meaning that it will not be attributable to any town or community council.

Who has access to the data collected through the survey?

Only Wavehill will have access to the data you provide in the survey. Wavehill will be using this data to provide aggregated results to the survey. No language learning models will be used to process the data.

The survey itself does not collect any personal data.

Internal reference: 893-25