Pursuing inclusive recruitment towards addressing skills gaps and workforce shortages – Privacy statement

Participation in this survey is voluntary. By responding to this survey, you consent to your responses being used exclusively for the purposes outlined here below:

Aggregate responses to this survey will be published as part of reporting on the business challenges experienced by the tourism and hospitality sector in Northern Ireland.

The above will be used to help us to identify examples of good practice and also areas that could be further developed, to inform policy recommendations that will support the sustainability and quality of skills development and recruitment efforts.

Individual comments may also be published, however will be anonymised or redacted as required so that it will not be possible to identify individuals from this information.

Your data will be protected according to the Data Protection Act (1998) and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). All raw data will be held and processed by People 1st International, for only as long as required to produce analysis (expected September 2025, no longer than December 2025). No other parties or organisations, including HATS, TNI, or NIHF, will have access to the raw survey data at any point however anonymised datasets will be shared with Ulster University, who are funding the research through the EPIC Futures NI project on behalf of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Innovate UK and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). In line with funding requirements, there is an obligation to report to the funder on spending and to make data open access where possible, as long as it does not result in participants being identified. Fully anonymised and cleaned data will be stored independently by both People 1st International and Ulster University for up to 10 years.

For the surveys, you can exit the survey at any time, and if you do not click ‘Done’ on the final page, none of your responses will be saved. However, as the survey is anonymous it is not possible to identify/withdraw your responses once you have submitted the survey.

If you would like to register a complaint about this survey and how your data is being used, in the first instance please contact us our Data Protection Manager at: [email protected]

If we cannot resolve your complaint, you have the right to complain to Ulster University. This can be done by contacting Professor Kristel Miller, [email protected] who has provided funding for this research or Ulster University Research Governance, Dr Julie McCarroll, [email protected]. Full details of Ulster University’s research complaints procedure can be found here: http://research.ulster.ac.uk/rg/02078ResearchVolunteerComplaintsProcedure.pdf.