Terms Of Use

These terms and conditions apply to your use and viewing of our website. Your use of our website indicates your acceptance of the terms and conditions set out below. If you do not agree to these terms and conditions you must not use this website. We may update and/or revise these terms and conditions at any time without notice. You are responsible for reviewing these terms on each occasion that you revisit our site and if you continue to use our site after changes are made you are deemed to have accepted them. Certain provisions of these terms and conditions may be superseded by expressly designated legal notices or terms located on particular pages of our site.

1 Intellectual Property
1.1 General
The copyright of the design and contents of this website are owned by One NorthEast or its licensors. All rights are reserved. All other intellectual property rights, including trade marks, shall remain with us or our licensors and nothing in this website should be taken as conferring any licence or right to use any trade mark displayed on our website without our prior written approval for any purpose. In particular, but without limitation, you may not use the IGNITE or One NorthEast name in meta-tags or as a sponsored term in search engines.

1.2 One NorthEast material
1.2.1 Content
You may print off or download One NorthEast and IGNITE content on this site as permitted under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) (sections 28 to 30) for the purposes of viewing it on your computer, research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and news reporting, provided that you do not alter it in any way and acknowledge us as the source of the content and the copyright owners.

Any other use of either One NorthEast or IGNITE, is subject to the prior written approval of One NorthEast. Applications should be made to the IGNITE Webmaster, or in writing to the IGNITE Webmaster at our Head Office.

1.2.2 Logos
The copying and use of either the One NorthEast, Government Office for the North East, or English Partnerships logo is not permitted without prior approval of the respective organisations. Permission requests should be directed to the IGNITE Webmaster.

1.3 Third Party material
The permissions to reproduce One NorthEast material on this site does not extend to material which is identified as being the copyright or other intellectual property of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained directly from the third party concerned.

1.4 Software, databases and other tools used on this site ("software")
Except to the extent and in the circumstances expressly permitted by law, you may not rent, lease, sub-license, loan, copy, modify, adapt, merge, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the software used on this site nor may you use, reproduce or deal in the software in whole or in part in any way.

2 Content of this Site
We have made commercially reasonable efforts to check for viruses on our site. We have also endeavored to ensure that the information on or available via this website is correct, not misleading and secure. However, it is possible that the information is out of date, incomplete, inaccurate or has been tampered with by third parties and we give no warranties, express or implied as to its integrity, completeness or accuracy. We may make changes to the content of our site at any time without notice.

3 General use of our site
Use of this website is free and we take steps to ensure it is available 24 hours a day to all permitted users, and that it is accessible. We do not warrant that the site will be continuously available, or that your use of the site will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that the site and server will be free from attack. It is impossible to provide an exhaustive list of exactly what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable use of this website. In general, we will not tolerate any use of our website which damages or is likely to damage our reputation, the availability or integrity of the website or which causes us or threatens to cause us to incur any legal, tax or regulatory liability.

We therefore ask you to treat our website with respect, and not to use the site for any illegal purpose, or in such a way as to infringe or breach other’s rights or to cause or threaten to cause us damage. We also ask you to comply with any relevant notices, policies and terms imposed by third parties whose website you may access through our site.

We reserve the right to suspend the use of our site generally or block your access to any part of the site and/or to suspend or terminate your rights to use the site or any part of it if we suspect misuse. We shall then report any misuse of our site to the relevant enforcement or other authorities and to our advisers. We further reserve the right to disclose any evidence we have which relates directly or indirectly to misuse.

4 Restricted areas of this Site
You will be able to access most of the areas of our site without registering your details with us. Certain areas of our site are, however, only available if you register. Your use of any areas of our site reserved for registered users, such as our knowledge exchange areas, is also subject to the terms of our Acceptable Use Policy.

5 Liability
We exclude all liability and responsibility for any amount or kind of loss or damage that may result to you or a third party (including without limitation, any direct, indirect, punitive or consequential loss or damages, or any loss of income, profits or goodwill, loss of data, or loss or damages arising from or connected in any way to business interruption, and whether in tort (including without limitation negligence), contract or otherwise) in connection with our site in any way or in connection with the use, inability to use or the results of use of our site, any websites linked to our site or the content of such websites, including but not limited to loss or damage due to viruses or other harmful programs that may infect your computer equipment, software, data or other property on account of your access to, use of or browsing our site or your downloading of any material from our site or any websites linked to our site. Nothing in these terms and conditions shall exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury due to our negligence or for fraudulent misrepresentation.

6 Links
You may not link to this website without our prior written permission, which we may refuse or revoke in our absolute discretion and without the need to provide a reason. If you would like to link to this site, please contact the IGNITE Webmaster for permission.

This website includes links that allow you to leave this website. Where there is any link from this website to other websites or content or features supplied by third parties, we have no control over and are not responsible for the content, use by you or availability of such websites and the content and the existence of such links does not imply that we in any way endorse the material on such sites or the products or services made available by them.

7 Privacy
This website includes areas where you are requested to input information about yourself. Any information you submit to us through this website shall be subject to the terms of our Privacy Code and you grant us a perpetual royalty-free licence to use such information for the purposes set out in that code.

8 Statutory Information
We are One NorthEast, the Regional Development Agency for the North East of England, established and constituted in accordance with the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 with our principal office at:
Stella House,
Goldcrest way,
Newburn Industrial Estate,
Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE15 8NY.

9 General
If any provision of these terms and conditions is held by any court or other competent authority to be void or unenforceable in whole or part, the other provisions of these terms and conditions and the remainder of the affected provisions shall continue to be valid. The failure to exercise or delay in exercising a right or remedy provided by these terms of use or by law does not constitute a waiver of other rights or remedies. These terms and the use of this website and its content shall be governed by and construed in all respects in accordance with the laws of England, and you agree to submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Privacy Code

1 About this privacy code
This privacy code provides an overview of how we comply with data protection legislation to protect the rights of the individuals we deal with. It sets out:

• Who we are and what we do
• How we collect personal information
• What personal information we collect, and why
• How we safeguard personal information
• With whom we share personal information, and why
• How we handle transfers of personal information to countries outside Europe
• Your rights under data protection legislation
• How to make a complaint
• How to find out more

2 Who we are and what we do
One NorthEast is the Regional Development Agency for the North East of England, covering Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, Durham and the Tees Valley (the ‘Region’). Our contact details are set out on the front page of our website. Our activities are particularly wide-ranging but may be summed up in our five main statutory purposes:

1. To further economic development and the regeneration of the Region;
2. To promote business efficiency, investment and competitiveness in the Region;
3. To generate employment;
4. To encourage and enhance the development and application of relevant work skills of the people living here; and in doing so...
5. To contribute to the overall sustainability of the economy in the UK as a whole.

We mainly need personal information so that we can provide grant funding and to introduce businesses to each other. You can find out more about us, and our role in the Region, including copies of our Regional Economic Strategy and our Corporate Plan, on our website.

3 How we collect personal information
3.1 Through web site statistics - We do keep a record of traffic data which is logged automatically by our server, such as your IP address, the URL you visited before ours, the URL you visit after leaving our site and which pages you visit. We also collect some site statistics such as page hits and page views. We are not readily able to identify any individual from traffic data or site statistics.

3.2 By you contacting us by other methods other than the website - The website provides various telephone and fax numbers and email addresses for you to contact us. We will collect information from you through any of these methods. We may also collect other information you supply to us after your initial contact with us.

4 What personal information we collect, and why
The information we collect about you will depend on the nature of your business with us but will be used for one or more of our five statutory purposes referred to above in who we are and what we do. Here is a brief description of the information we collect and how we use it.

4.1 Information you give us on your own initiative - We will use the details you give us to provide information you ask for or to put you in contact with other organisations that may be able to help, process any application you make and review and improve our services.

4.2 Business information that we set out to collect - We actively seek information from businesses from both inside and outside the Region (including those outside of the UK) so that we can build up profiles of businesses and build relationships between them. We obtain this information both directly from businesses, through face-to-face meetings, telephone calls, or through our website, and indirectly from suppliers of business information. Most of this information will relate to the business itself and will not be “personal”. However insofar as this information contains contact details from which individuals may be identified, or relates to sole traders or partnerships, it will usually consist of personal information that is protected by data protection legislation. The personal information we hold is very valuable, as it enables us to make personal introductions between businesses and also provides a central point of contact for us.

4.3 We also collect information from a business when it applies to us for funding. Details are given to businesses before they apply to us, and on the actual application forms. We need this information so that we can appraise projects and decide whether or not to fund them. If a business receives funding, we will collect further information so we can monitor how the funding is spent, and therefore show we are delivering the outputs the funders require us to. The type of information we collect, and with whom we share information we collect depends on the funding package).

4.4 Direct marketing preferences When you give us your contact details, we may ask you whether or not you would like to receive further information from us about inward investment opportunities, business development and funding opportunities. This may be our own information or that produced by our subsidiaries or by other organisations. We may send this information to you by a variety of means, including email, fax and post. If you do agree, you can change your mind at any time and ask us not to send you further information (see your rights under data protection legislation below). We may also ask you if you would like us to pass on your details to other organisations in the local business network including the business links, enterprise agencies, Chamber of Commerce, Learning Skills Council and other similar organisations so they can inform you of business events and opportunities and offer you opportunities to develop and advance your business. If you agree but then change your mind, you will need to contact these organisations direct to ask to be removed from their lists).

4.5 Research statistics - We anonymise the information we collect and then use it to produce and publish regional statistics. We will always ensure the statutory safeguards for statistical research are in place. So we will never use personal information in the course of this research to support measures or decisions with respect to particular individuals or in such a way that is likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress to any individual. Any resulting research statistics will not be made available in a form which identifies individuals, unless those individuals have agreed to be identified.

5 How we safeguard personal information
We recognise that you retain rights in the personal information we hold about you. We will keep that information secure, and use it only for specific legitimate purposes.

5.1 We have obligations to keep personal information secure, which we take seriously - We will keep personal information secure by taking appropriate technical and staff measures against the unauthorised or unlawful processing of that information and against its accidental loss, destruction or damage.

The Director of Corporate Resources has overall responsibility for implementation of security procedures. We take steps to ensure the personal information we have is high quality. However we cannot do this without your help! So please ensure you give us accurate information, tell us as soon as possible of any changes, and tell us as soon as possible if you notice mistakes in the information we hold about you as this helps us to keep our information reliable and up-to-date. We will also contact you from time to time to check whether the information we have on you is still accurate and up to date. We will keep personal information until you inform us you no longer wish us to.

Information relating to funding is kept for as long as is required by the funders.

5.2 We keep confidential information confidential - Please note that under a freedom of information code of practice, we are not permitted to class as “confidential” information that is not actually confidential in reality, even if it is marked confidential. However in respect of any information we receive from you that is truly confidential, we will take steps to ensure it remains confidential. Unauthorised disclosure or misuse of personal information by staff will lead to disciplinary action.

5.3 We review our policies and audit our procedures regularly - We review this code and our other data protection policies regularly to make sure they are appropriate and up to date. We also carry out regular audits to monitor our security policies and procedures and revise them if necessary.

6 With whom we share personal information, and why
If you have applied to us for funding, then your information has to be shared with various government authorities and auditors for the purpose of avoiding any financial irregularity. If we hold your information for any other reason, then almost all our sharing of your information will be at your specific request. So most of the time, information is shared on a case-by-case basis. If we do enter into any "block" sharing of your information with other organisations in the business support network, it will be strictly for the purposes specified above in who we are and what we do and done only with your consent, or as permitted by law. From 1 January 2005, we may be required to disclose information about your business in response to an access request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, unless an exemption applies.)

7 How we handle transfers of personal information to countries outside Europe
7.1 Data protection laws globally - Although we have laws within Europe that protect personal information, most other countries outside Europe do not. By ‘Europe’ we mean the European Economic Area, which comprises the EU member states, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. European data protection legislation prohibits the transfer of personal information to any country outside Europe, unless that country provides adequate protection.

7.2 Why we need to transfer personal information - We need to transfer personal information for two main reasons. First, because part of our work is to help inward investors find business partners within the Region, so we may need to give contact details of individuals in the UK to an overseas business. Secondly, we use a network of overseas offices to support our inward investment activities, to attract new investment to the North East of England and to raise the region's profile on a global basis. Those offices are based in Europe, Asia and the United States, and you can find further details of where they are on our website. One NorthEast and/or other Regional Development Agencies ("RDAs") operate the overseas offices. We may need to pass contact details of individuals in the UK to those offices so that they can provide assistance.

7.3 How we transfer personal information overseas - Data protection legislation allows us to transfer your personal information outside Europe if you give us your unambiguous consent. By ‘consent’ we mean a freely given, specific and informed indication of your wishes. So we will ask you specifically whether you would like us to pass on your details to an inward investor, or to one of our overseas offices, when we collect your information, and before we hand over your details where reasonably practicable.

8 Your rights under data protection legislation
You have various rights. You are most likely to want to exercise the following ones. Your right to see a copy of the information we hold about you, on payment of a statutory fee which is currently £10. Before we agree to this, you must provide with sufficient evidence of your identity and sufficient details of the information you wish to see to enable us to locate it. If you would like to see a copy of the information we hold about you, please download, print and complete our Subject Access Request Form.

Your right to be removed from our mailing lists. Instructions on how to stop further mailings will usually be contained in any direct marketing material we send you. Otherwise please contact our Data Protection Officer.

Your right to correct any errors in information we hold about you, and to change or correct any details you have already given us. Please inform us about changes to your details so that we can keep our records accurate and up to date.

For further information, please contact our Data Protection Officer.

9 How to make a complaint
Any complaints about our handling of personal information should be addressed to Head of Legal Services, at the address on the homepage. If your complaint relates to the handling of your personal information by an organisation with which we share information, then please let us know that. We aim to respond to your complaint within 21 days of receiving it. You have a right of appeal in relation to any decision we make, which we will tell you about when we respond to your complaint. We will always review our procedures and practices in line with any justified complaints.

10 How to find out more
10.1 Data Protection Officer - If you want to know more about what information we have about you, or the way we use your information, you can contact our Data Protection Officer.

10.2 Data Protection Register - When we ask you for information, we will comply with the law, including the Data Protection Act 1998. We are a data controller for the purposes of that Act. Our entry in the register of data controllers is Z8473392. In brief, our register entry describes:

• the personal information processed by us or on our behalf and the category or categories of individuals to which they relate
• the purpose or purposes for which personal information is processed
• the recipients to whom we intend to disclose personal information, and
• any countries or territories outside the European Economic Area to which we transfer personal information.

10.3 Information Commissioner - For independent advice about freedom of information, data protection, privacy and data-sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner at:
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF,

Tel: 01625 545745
Fax: 01625 524510
e-mail: mail@ico.gsi.gov.uk
Website: http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") applies to your use of the restricted areas of this website and is incorporated into the terms of use for our site, which you should read before using our site. Your use of any restricted areas on our site indicates your acceptance to both our terms of use and the terms of this AUP. If there is any conflict between this AUP and the terms of use, the terms of this AUP shall prevail.

Although we may from time to time monitor or review the content of the restricted areas of our site, we are under no obligation to do so and assume no responsibility or liability arising from any material or content posted by you or any third party.

The list of behaviours below is not exhaustive. What we generally require of our users is considerate behaviour, which does not abuse the facilities we have made available to you. We will not permit behaviour that damages our reputation or that of any other member of the business support network, or behaviour that has a negative impact on our (or our suppliers’) equipment or network, or on other users.

1. Legality
You will be responsible for your own use of the restricted areas of our site and with all applicable laws and regulations, codes, policies and Internet etiquette, and must not use our site for any illegal purpose. Here are some examples of what we require.

• You must be over 18 years of age.
• When you register with us to use a restricted area, you must not use a false identity or pseudonym, to give the impression that the message or posting originated from someone other than you.
• You must not post content or use the restricted areas in a way that infringes others’ intellectual property rights. You must have relevant permissions to use others’ intellectual property, for example, a report written by a third party where the third party has not given permission for its reproduction.
• Any content you post on our site must be accurate and, where necessary, up-to-date.
• You must not post content or other materials in breach of contract.
• You must not post confidential information or trade secrets.
• You must not use our site to advertise your goods or services or promote your organisation’s aims and ideals.
• Any content you post on the restricted areas of our site (including without limitation, text, images, sound, video or other electronic files or material) must be legal, decent and honest. You must not use content which is illegal or indecent, for example of a pornographic, obscene, indecent, defamatory, racist, abusive, offensive, menacing or extremist political nature or which may incite violence, sadism, cruelty or racial hatred, or which may facilitate prostitution or paedophilia.
• You must not post defamatory materials in the discussion forums. You agree that we may, without liability to you, disclose your identity to any third party with a legitimate interest in knowing that information, such as law enforcement agencies, or a third party which is the subject of your comments.
• You must not collect or store personal information of other users of the restricted area.
• You must not use our site (whether intentionally or otherwise) to send or forward spam (unsolicited email), chain letters, pyramid schemes, mail bombs, to launch denial of service attacks, to plant or send viruses or other disruptive programs or devices, or to engage or enable others to engage in unauthorised decryption of protected material.
• You must not interfere with or disrupt the site or servers or networks connected to it.
• You must not pirate or illegally copy software or other proprietary material or enabling such copying through a peer-to-peer service. Any file exchange service we may provide from time to time is provided on the clear understanding that it is not used for any illegal purpose.

2. Security
You will be responsible for any losses of data, breaches of security, viruses and disabling or harmful devices that you download or which infect our site as a result of your error or omission or other precaution you fail to take in relation to your use of our site and for the avoidance of doubt, we shall have no responsibility or liability to you or any third party in respect of the same.

3. Contacts
If we need to contact you we will use the email address you give us when you register. You must ensure the email address is live. We will assume you have read all email addressed to that email address. We may take action (including legal action) on the basis of this assumption.

4. Breach of this AUP. We will endeavour to act fairly and reasonably if we suspect or discover a breach of our AUP, or if you breach, or we have grounds to suspect you have breached, any applicable law, code, policy or regulation.

However we do reserve the right to take whatever action we consider appropriate and proportionate in the circumstances. This may mean we send you a formal notice requiring you to desist from such behaviour. It may be suspension or termination of your access to our site without notice to you. It may mean we inspect or permit a police or other relevant authority to inspect any content and material posted by you or on our website and remove any content or material which we, in our absolute discretion, consider to be unacceptable or undesirable.

We will be entitled to co-operate fully with a police or other relevant authority or any court order requesting or directing us to disclose your identity where you have posted such content or material on our site.

Because it is impossible to create an exhaustive list of unacceptable behaviour, we may conclude that some behaviour is unacceptable, and therefore suspend or terminate your access, even if it does not match exactly the examples set out in this AUP.

Accessibility Statement

One NorthEast is proud to say that we endeavour to make sure that every page complies with the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), as part its Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This site has been built to achieve Priority Level 3 checkpoints.

How This Benefits Visitors
To illustrate how compliancy has made this site accessible, we have listed representative disabilities below and explained how this site meets the users' needs.

Visual (Impaired)
Those with visual impairments (e.g. myopia) can scale on all pages on the site to suit their own requirement. All text on pages is scaled, including all menu item.

Hearing
There is no content on this site that cannot be accessed by the deaf or hard of hearing. To put this into context: If we were to include audio clips we would also provide a text version of the soundtrack. If we were to include movie clips or video streaming we would also provide time-indexed subtitles.

Speech
In the future this site may be fully accessed using any voice-controlled computer and web browser. Further details about this facility will be available on the website when it becomes available.

Cognitive
The layout of this site is uniform on all pages. The main (horizontal) menu is structured identically on all pages (i.e. any section can be accessed from anywhere in the site). Secondary level navigation changes in context with the primary menu selected and this is displayed at the top of the page)

Neurological
There are animated images on this site located in the help function. These have been designed to assist users navigate around the IGNITE website. Prolonged viewing of the animated images could – in extreme cases – cause difficulty for someone suffering from particular neurological disorders.

Features for the Visually Impaired

One NorthEast incorporates several features to support the blind and poor-sighted.

Text Scaling
All text on One NorthEast is specified in percentage terms, meaning that its size can be increased inside the browser window for easier viewing. The ability to support text scaling varies from browser to browser, but given below are some guidelines for the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Opera.

In Internet Explorer, select the View | Text Size menu command. You can then choose from a range of text sizes (Largest, Larger, Medium (default), Smaller and Smallest). Note that Internet Explorer cannot resize images.

In Netscape Navigator, select the View | Text Zoom menu command. You then have a range of text sizes (in percentages) to choose from, or you can select your own percentage. You can also continually increase or decrease the current zoom factor by pressing the Ctrl and +, or Ctrl and - key combinations. Note that Navigator cannot resize images.

In Opera, select the View | Zoom menu command. You then have range of percentages to choose from. Opera scales everything on the page, not just text, so images will also increase in size as you increase the zoom factor.

Even the same browser product can behave differently on different platforms. For example, Internet Explorer on the Mac will scale images, whereas the Windows version cannot. Check with your supplier for details.

Give Us Your Feedback
We are committed to providing an accessible service at One NorthEast. If you experience problems or have any suggestions for improvement, please email us at info@ignite-ne.com