Terms & Conditions

The terms and conditions of use set out below apply to the website owned, operated and controlled by the CORNWALL COUNCIL, located on the World Wide Web at https://www.ciosgrowthhub.com (the “Growth Hub website”).  By using the Growth Hub website, you are deemed to have full knowledge of the following terms and conditions and to accept them.  If you do not agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions, please do not use the Growth Hub website.

(1) Introduction

The Growth Hub website offers a business support service(s) (the “Service” or “Services”) with those Services being provided through the Growth Hub website.  The Growth Hub website acts as a signposting website and holds data for the purposes of providing business and skills support for businesses in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

If you (the “Service User” or “You”), whether acting as an individual or as a representative of a business decide to use the Growth Hub website, you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions of use.  The administrator of the Growth Hub website, and the data owner, is CORNWALL COUNCIL contact address is Bickford House, South Wheal Crofty, Station Road, Pool, Cornwall, TR15 3QG.

(2) Alteration to the Terms and Conditions

At any time, CORNWALL COUNCIL may change, modify, add to or remove part or all of these Terms and Conditions.  You should therefore check these Terms and Conditions periodically to see if they have changed.  Your continued use of the Growth Hub website following any change in the Terms and Conditions will be deemed to constitute acceptance by You of those changes.  These Terms and Conditions must be read in conjunction with the Acceptable Use Policy (see item 14) which forms part of these Terms and Conditions.

(3) Copyright

All material accessible on the Growth Hub website is protected by copyright. See separate Website and Copyright Disclaimer at https://www.ciosgrowthhub.com/website-disclaimer.

(4) Continuity of Service

CORNWALL COUNCIL will use reasonable endeavours to provide a prompt and continuing service.  CORNWALL COUNCIL does not, however, warrant that the service it provides will continue uninterrupted or without delay or that it will remain unchanged.  In particular, CORNWALL COUNCIL reserves the right to bring the Growth Hub website down as and when it considers it to be necessary or desirable for the purposes of maintenance.

(5) Indemnity

In using the Growth Hub website, You agree to indemnify CORNWALL COUNCIL against any actions, claims, demands or other proceedings brought by any third party against CORNWALL COUNCIL as a consequence of Your use of the site.  Neither CORNWALL COUNCIL nor any of our Service Delivery Partners (“SDPs”) provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered through the Growth Hub website for any particular purpose.  You acknowledge that such information may contain inaccuracies or errors and CORNWALL COUNCIL expressly excludes liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law.

(6) Quality of Service

Whilst CORNWALL COUNCIL will use its reasonable endeavours to ensure that the information contained in the Growth Hub website is correct and reliable, no warranty, either express or implied, is given as to the accuracy or completeness of that information.

(7) Links to External Sites

The Growth Hub website contains hypertext links to a number of websites owned, operated and controlled by third parties. CORNWALL COUNCIL has no control over or proprietary interest in any of these websites and, as such, makes no warranties with regard to the quality, security, accuracy or any other aspect of such sites, and excludes any and all liability arising from use of the same.  The Growth Hub website may contain and provide information which is owned by or licensed to CORNWALL COUNCIL, for which reproduction is prohibited.

The Growth Hub website also provides signposting to external sources of information (such as external organisations and the services that they provide, through external links out from the Growth Hub website).  This signposting is to provide further support and information that may be of use to you and your business.  It does not specifically signify that CORNWALL COUNCIL endorses these external sources and CORNWALL COUNCIL has no responsibility for the content or quality of information or services provided by them.

(8) Third Party Contributors

You acknowledge that many parts of the service provided on the Growth Hub website are provided by third party service providers (“TSPs”) and not by CORNWALL COUNCIL.  You agree that shall bear no responsibility to You in respect of any aspect of any third party services or contributions provided by TSP’s and that Your only remedy for failure to provide such services is a remedy against the relevant TSP.

Where appropriate the provision of any third party services to You by any TSP shall be provided to You on the terms and conditions of the relevant TSP.  It is Your responsibility to make yourself aware of such terms and conditions.

Acceptance by You of any services provided by a TSP may form a contract between You and the TSP directly.  It is Your responsibility to check whether acceptance of such services will be construed as confirming Your total and unequivocal acceptance of the TSP’s terms and conditions of service.

(9) Your Responsibilities

You must ensure that at all times You observe these Terms and Conditions.

(10) Queries

While every effort is made to ensure that any enquiry You submit is dealt with promptly, CORNWALL COUNCIL cannot guarantee that Your query will always be dealt with within the time-scale You require.

If Your enquiry is submitted to a TSP linked to the Growth Hub website and operating through the Growth Hub website, then CORNWALL COUNCIL staff will not necessarily read or see Your enquiry.  CORNWALL COUNCIL cannot guarantee complete confidentiality and recommends that You do not include sensitive information, or information which could be classed as a trade secret, via the Internet.

(11) Disclaimer

CORNWALL COUNCIL shall not be liable for any claims or losses which are due to circumstances beyond CORNWALL COUNCIL’s reasonable control. CORNWALL COUNCIL shall not be liable for any claims or losses to the extent that these relate to profits, indirect or consequential losses.

This disclaimer does not affect Your statutory rights (if any) and no part of these terms and conditions seeks to avoid liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation or for negligence causing personal injury or death.

(12) General

These Terms and Conditions are governed by and shall be construed in accordance with English law.

(13) Acceptable use policy (the “Policy”)

13.1 General

This Policy provides only general guidance with regard to the use of the Growth Hub website by You.

13.2 Copyright

(a) If You place material, including software, on the Growth Hub website You will automatically grant to CORNWALL COUNCIL the right, at no cost, to copy, adapt, edit, publish, distribute, translate and otherwise use all such material and to grant to its other customers the right to print copies of the material for their own use. Subject to this grant, You will retain all rights in the material.

(b) You may not place copyright material on the Growth Hub website without the written permission of the owner of the copyright or of some person authorised by the owner to give such consent. You must, if requested to do so by CORNWALL COUNCIL, provide written proof of such consent.

13.3 Content

(a) When posting any advertisement or other commercial solicitation or material to any special interest group or site it is Your obligation to comply with all applicable laws.  In particular, the advertisement or commercial solicitation must comply with all relevant legislation, statutes, regulations and codes in any relevant jurisdiction.

(b) Posting private or other confidential material to any special interest group is prohibited.

(c) Posting any information that is confidential and/or commercially sensitive.

(d) Impersonating another business or person or otherwise falsifying Your business or other name in any post to any group is prohibited.

(e) post any information that would be in breach of a court order from a court of competent jurisdiction.

(f) Any communication or posting which may be perceived or construed by CORNWALL COUNCIL to be harassment of a third party by e-mail is prohibited as is the use of the Growth Hub website for sending computer viruses or the like.

(g) You must not publish on the Growth Hub website any material which infringes the rights of any person (including, without limitation, their copyright, trademark, confidential information or other intellectual property rights) or which is, in CORNWALL COUNCIL’s sole and absolute opinion, abusive, blasphemous, obscene, pornographic, defamatory, vitriolic, discriminatory, menacing in character, illegal or deliberately inflammatory. CORNWALL COUNCIL considers the publication of such materials and other inappropriate materials to be severe abuses of the Growth Hub website.

(h) You must not use the Growth Hub website to perform or to solicit the performance of any illegal activity or any activity that is contrary to generally accepted convention or is intended to solicit membership or sale of any services competing with the Growth Hub website.

(i) CORNWALL COUNCIL reserves the right in its sole and absolute discretion to delete any material on the Growth Hub website without prior notice whether or not it violates any of the standards set out in this Policy.

14.4 Consequences of ignoring or failure to comply with the Policy

(a) If CORNWALL COUNCIL in its sole discretion considers that You are in breach of any of this Policy then CORNWALL COUNCIL may take such action as it, in its sole discretion, considers appropriate.  This may include (but shall not be limited to), the editing or deletion of any material appearing on the Growth website or the termination of Your rights of access to any service. You will not be entitled to any credit or compensation for any loss of access to any service which results from any such action taken by Us under this Policy.

(b) You accept that CORNWALL COUNCIL gives no undertaking to You that it will take any action to ensure compliance with the Policy by any other customer and that CORNWALL COUNCIL is entitled to take such action as it considers appropriate under the Policy or to refrain from doing so at its absolute discretion.

(c) Whilst CORNWALL COUNCIL does not have any obligation to monitor the Growth Hub website it reserves the right to prohibit activities which in its absolute judgement may cause harm of any kind to other customers, third parties, the Growth  Hub website or CORNWALL COUNCIL.

(14) Definition of Business Support Services

By registering your organisation on the Growth Hub website, you accept our definition of business support as follows:

A range of professional business services that can help businesses start, develop and grow.

(15) Acceptance criteria

You acknowledge that to be accepted as a business support provider on the Growth Hub website, your services must fall within at least one of the support categories listed on the website.

The Growth Hub website is not intended to be an environment for business-to-business sales.  The Growth Hub website is intended to be an environment to find business support so that local businesses can support each other and grow.  Business Support Services will be accepted on this basis only.

CORNWALL COUNCIL reserves the right to reject applications or remove organisations and services which do not meet these acceptance criteria.

You agree that your newly submitted business support service may not be accepted onto the site for 72 hours. CORNWALL COUNCIL reserves the right to obtain a reference prior to accepting a Business Support Service provider onto the Growth Hub website.

(16) Data Protection

(16a) GDPR 2018

You acknowledge the duties of CORNWALL COUNCIL (and any third party appointed by CORNWALL COUNCIL to manage and administer the Growth Hub website) under the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (GDPR) and shall give all reasonable assistance where appropriate or necessary to comply with such duties.

CORNWALL COUNCIL shall ensure that personal data and sensitive personal data is safeguarded at all times in accordance with the law. For further information, see separate Privacy Notice at www.ciosgrowthhub.com.

(16b) How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you on the Growth Hub website through:

  • Filling in the registration forms This includes personal data you provide when you:
      • create an account on our website;
      • apply for our services;
      • request marketing to be sent to you;
      • give us some feedback.

 

(16c) Automated technologies or interactions

As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns.  We collect this personal data by using cookies and Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel.

    • Google Analytics:  When someone visits this site we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns.  We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site.  This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone.  We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.  For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.
    • Cookies:  Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit.  They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. Some examples of cookies could be:
      • storing information to personalise the website to your chosen requirements
      • cookies can be used to record users behaviour on a website, for example to record the pages they have viewed
    • There are two different types of cookie that can be placed in your browser by a website:
      • Session cookies are only used for the period you use the website and are deleted when you close your web browser.  A new cookie would then be placed in your web browser if you were to visit the same website again in the future
      • Persistent cookies remain in your browser once you have left the site and closed your web browser.  The next time you visit the site the information in the cookie will be used to ensure the website works as set up at the previous visit.  For example, to display certain things on the homepage.  Persistent cookies will expire if the website that set them is not visited again within a certain timescale.
    • Cookies on this website:  We use a number of different cookies on this website and the sub domains and third party systems we run.  Examples include:
      • We use a google analytics cookie on our website and all our online systems to record website usage.  We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site.  We collect this information in a way which does not identify anyone, we do not make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting any of our websites and we do not share this information with anyone.
      • Account related cookies:  If you create an account with us then we will use cookies for the management of the signup process and general administration.  These cookies will usually be deleted when you log out however in some cases they may remain afterwards to remember your site preferences when logged out.
      • Email newsletters related cookies:  This site offers newsletter or email subscription services and cookies may be used to remember if you are already registered and whether to show certain notifications which might only be valid to subscribed/unsubscribed users.
      • Forms related cookies:  When you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.
    • More Information - Managing cookies on your PC:  Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings.  To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit https://www.aboutcookies.org/
    • You can choose to block the cookies that are set by the Growth Hub website, however you must be aware that doing so may mean that parts of the site will not work correctly. 
    • Changes to the way websites use cookies:  The law that controls how cookies are used on websites has changed.  There is more information about cookies on the Information Commissioners website. https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/
    • Facebook Pixel:  We use the Facebook pixel to collect information to provide measurement services and targeted advertising on Facebook as described in their Data Policy.  You can find out more, including how to opt-out of the collection and use of information for advertisement targeting on their website at https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies/

(17) The role of Growth Hub website

The Growth Hub website provides support providers with the opportunity to reach new service users and connect with businesses, to improve communication with businesses and reach those they have previously been unable to.  In addition, it provides businesses with a mechanism for easily reaching the support available to them and to make an informed choice about the services they engage with.  It also provides users with signposting towards additional business support services.

(18) Our relationship with you

The Growth Hub website is reliant on up-to-date and relevant information on the support services that providers and businesses offer. CORNWALL COUNCIL is committed to ensuring that the site is effective and usable for both businesses and support providers.

The Growth Hub has received £[INSERT AMOUNT] from the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK Government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK by investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills. For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-pr…

 

The full name of our organisation is Cornwall Council which manages the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Growth Hub (Growth Hub)

You can contact Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Growth Hub by emailing [email protected].