Privacy Notice for the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme

What is the purpose of this document?

This privacy notice explains how we, Norfolk County Council, use your information to provide the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme on behalf of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex County Councils. To clarify, Norfolk County Council is the managing body for the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme.

By ‘use’ we mean what we do with your information and how we store and share it.

If you have provided consent for the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme to store your details via ‘Privacy Check Notice’ on our digital form, you can withdraw this at any time by emailing: info@innovationmentoring.co.uk

Further details about Us and Your Rights

We are aligned with Norfolk County Council’s general privacy notice which can be found via the general privacy notice on the NCC website. This explains:

Who Norfolk County Council are
Your rights under the UK GDPR (including complaints)

You can also ask us for a copy of these details.

How We Use Your Information

We will use your information to: contact you about your eligibility for the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme (via emails, video calls or phone calls); onboard and process you through the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme (e.g to review your application or assign you to a Mentor or Coach); refer you to other business programmes that could benefit you and your business (e.g. Connected Innovation or the New Anglia Growth Hub); or invite you to events or webinars (e.g Preparing a Bid For Success) to support with business growth development.

We also use your information to review the quality of our services and improve how we work.

We also use your information in other ways compatible with the above.

What information we collect and use about you

We will collect and use your:

Business name
Full name
Job position
Email address
Phone or mobile number
Business or personal address that is supplied
District council
Business size
Sector
Support needed
General comments
How you heard about the programme
Identify which stage of the Innovation Grant Mentoring process you fall under

By law we can only collect ‘special category’ information when it is relevant for the purposes described above.

The UK GDPR makes sure we keep your special category and criminal conviction information safe and secure.. More details are on our website in the document named ‘Special category data and criminal offences data policy’. This explains how we follow these legal duties.

Where We Get Your Information From

We receive most of this information from you, by completing our online form or through using our website, but we also receive it from:

Referrals into our programme from people who work for Norfolk, Suffolk or Essex County Councils, which could include those that work for the New Anglia Growth Hub, Ambitious Essex or the Essex Growth Agency.
Referrals from our contacts within Economic Development teams within local district councils across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.
By signing up to or attending a webinar via our Eventbrite page.

Who we share your information with

We share your information with:

Local Economic Development Teams across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, but primarily Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex County Councils to provide relevant reporting information about the programme and to provide the best business support for you and your business.
Our Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme board panel members, who have signed non-disclosure agreements.
Business Mentors and Coaches are who are employed by Norfolk County Council to work on the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme, who have also signed non-disclosure agreements.
Other business organisations like MENTA or local universities to referral support for your innovative ideas or aspirations.

All information is shared on a need-to-know basis. We do not share more than we need to.

We also share your information with companies that help us do our job. They also have to keep your information safe and only use it to help us. For example, this includes IT providers such as Microsoft.

For the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme, we share information with:

Capsule, who provide are the web development for our website.

We do not process your information outside of the UK and European Economic Area.

Our Lawful Basis for Using Your Information

We have legal reasons under the UK GDPR to use your information because it is necessary:

For the performance of a task carried out in the public interest and the task or function has a clear basis in law
These statutory powers and duties are:
For the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme to provide assistance to a business to understand and assess whether they are eligible to receive fully funded business mentoring or bid coaching.
If someone does not provide the correct details to the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme the person who submitted the enquiry could be rejected or deemed as unsuitable for the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme and/or for other relevant business programmes or initiatives.
If you have provided consent for the Innovation Grant Mentoring Programme team to contact you (via their digital form) you can withdraw this at any time by emailing info@innovationmentoring.co.uk.

We have legal reasons to use (including share) your special category information and criminal convictions information because it is necessary:

For reasons in the substantial public interest and in the exercise of a statutory function
For any lawful reasons

How Long We Keep Your Information

When the information is no longer needed for the above reasons, it will be securely deleted or shredded.

How We Keep Your Information

The information is stored electronically on SharePoint.

Automated Decision Making

We do not make automated decisions (including profiling) about you.

Changes To This Notice

We update this privacy notice from time to time, so please review it often. The date below is updated every time this privacy notice is updated.

This privacy notice was created on 02/04/2026.