With any personal information you supply to The British Academy of Floral Art we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data.

If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to us.

The British Academy of Floral Art collect the following information to fulfil our business obligations to you:- personal information : Name, Address, Email, Telephone Number, which course you have attended or requested information on. For Higher level qualifications, City and Guilds require the above information, plus full name, date of birth and gender.

This information will be held on our systems only for as long as required by the company to fulfil our obligation to you. Which means we will hold course enquiries and emails for up to 3 years and if you have not taken a course with us with in this time we will delete your data. If you have attended a course we will keep your data and emails for 7 years after completion of a course for tax purposes and our track record of what you have achieved.

We occasionally need to share your personal information with our agents, such as City and Guilds and our Accountants for the fulfilment of our day to day business running. Plus if you are helping us with an event we will share your name and telephone number to the organisation for security and health and safety reasons. Other than this we do not share your information unless you have requested us to do so.

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information The British Academy of Floral Art holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. Individuals also have the rights dictating how The British Academy of Floral Art use their personal data. In particular, you have the ‘right to be forgotten’ and withdraw your consent to the use of your personal data or if keeping that data is no longer required. Please inform us by email and we will arrange for your data to be removed. This policy does not affect your statutory rights.

We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the EU GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation.If there is a breach in data security the British Academy of Floral Art must report it immediately to data protection authorities such as the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the UK. Ideally, breaches should be reported within 24 hours if possible but at least within 72 hours.

We are committed to doing our part to protect the environment and reduce our carbon footprint. As part of our green policy, we strive to use Eco-friendly materials and minimize waste in our operations. We also encourage our customers to join us in our efforts by offering tips on how to reduce their own environmental impact. Together, we can make a positive impact on the planet for future generations.

We implement our green policy through a number of initiatives, including:

In our classes we work with sustainable mediums (no floral foam) which reduces the use of single use plastic (please note our online films were recorded before this policy and where possible we used Bio foam)

We have our own cutting garden which is wildlife friendly

Our building runs on Bio fuel, we use part solar energy.

We compost our green waste and recycle

Use LED lighting

We aim to use companies that are actively improving their products, such as wrapping paper, mediums, and flower food.

We teach the life cycle of products.

Policy written by Julie Collins, she has two sustainable qualifications, Cambridge University Sustainable Management and SFN Foundation in Sustainable Floristry.

Policy

This is the framework for anyone who has experienced dissatisfaction with the British Academy of Floral Art can raise their concerns and identifies how staff should deal with the complaints raised.

The British Academy of Floral art strives for excellence and continually raise the standards of teaching learning and services provided to clients. We do appreciate that sometimes things do go wrong for several reasons. We aspire to be a learning organization who value the learning opportunity presented by complaints to enable us to make changes and improve services

The Academy of Floral Art’s ethos is of integrity, honesty, passion and excellence is the basis of everything we do.

Every attempt should be made to resolve the complaint informally through a dialogue with those immediately concerned eg your tutor.

The Academy of Floral art will make an initial response within 10 working days of receiving a written complaint. A further, more detailed response will be made if appropriate.

You may be offered a meeting with the parties involved if appropriate.

You may appeal to Tina Parkes if you are dissatisfied with the outcome.

Academy clients and staff have a responsibility of courteous behavior to all whilst working for or with the Academy.

All Academy staff are responsible for receiving complaints and treating them seriously, dealing with them promptly and courteously and seeking assistance if required.

Tina Parkes is responsible for resolving complaints, which have reached the appeals stage.

The policy will be reviewed Sept 2025

Procedure

Any Learner who considers that he/she has been unfairly treated has the right to complain. This should be recorded, please see below for what needs to be included-

Making a complaint

Step one

It is always best in the first instance to try and resolve any dissatisfaction/issues by discussing the matter with your assessor or tutor.

An Academy client may prefer to arrange a meeting to discuss the matter with the tutor/assessor. This meeting should be arranged within 10 days of the complaint arising. Discussion with the Academy client will be recorded by the staff member present and a copy emailed to the client so both parties have a record of the issue and how it has been agreed to be resolved.

Step two

If a successful outcome cannot be agreed with the Tutor, then the Academy client can apply in writing to the Academy within 10 working days of step one.

The complaint notification should include the following information:

- Academy client’s name

- Registration details

- Details of the complaint/dissatisfaction

- Date of the incident/s

- Results of incident/s

- Name of person the complaint is being made against

- Action that would give a satisfactory resolve to complaint.

The Academy of Floral art will provide within 5 working days an initial response.

A further, more detailed response will be made if appropriate.

You will be offered a meeting with the parties involved if appropriate.

All records will be kept of any complaints made and how they were resolved. Issues should be fed into the Academy of Floral Arts monitoring and evaluation of quality improvements process as appropriate. Complainants will need to be advise that, while confidentiality will be respected as far as possible, we may need to disclose details of a complaint to relevant staff to allow the British Academy of Floral Art a fair opportunity to resolve the issue. This information may be required by the External Verifier for a City & Guild candidate.

Updated 24/07/2024 Tina Parkes