1. Following election to a seat of the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, a Member will be issued with a Tunbridge Wells Borough Council email address using the following format: firstname.surname@tunbridgewells.gov.uk
  2. Only this email address should be used for all legitimate council work, and at any time when the Member is acting as an official representative of the Borough Council.
  3. This email address should not be used for personal communications, private business purposes, for any work on behalf of a political party, lobby groups or pressure groups external to the council, or when canvassing for support during the pre-election (purdah) period.
  4. All data sent to the email address remains in the ownership of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, and should be treated in accordance with the eight principles set out in the Data Protection Act, in particular when saving, downloading or forwarding data to a non-Tunbridge Wells Borough Council owned device.
  5. Privacy, transparency and security issues should be considered by the Member before forwarding on any information from this email account, to personal email accounts outside of the Council’s network. Any personal, sensitive or commercial information should be re-dacted from emails before forwarding on, unless the recipient has an identifiable need for the information to be disclosed.
  6. The Borough Council will provide means of access to the email account by a password protected web hosting service (currently Microsoft RDS), or through a webmail service, that can be accessed from personal devices using secure credentials. These are the preferred methods of access to council information.
  7. Upon request, the Borough Council will provide means of access to the email account from a password/passcode protected personal mobile device. Where this has been requested, the Member will agree to allowing Mid Kent ICT to set up their personal device using the in-built mail client, and to install security software that will prompt for password/passcode access before use. Should the device be lost or stolen, the security software will automatically wipe the phone of data should the incorrect password/passcode be entered (up to eight tries).
  8. Should a Member who has requested a council email account to be set up on a personal device resign from the Borough Council, or in the event of losing their seat at election, the Member must bring their device into the council officers within five working days of this happening, in order that the account and security software can be removed by Mid Kent ICT. This deadline will be extended should a Member die in office.
  9. Training on the use and access of council emails will be mandatory for all Members who are new to the council (as part of the Member Induction programme) and will be provided to any other Member on request. This training will take place in the council offices.