Financial Interests :

It is essential that the NSTA establishes and maintains a reputation for impartiality, integrity and high professional standards. There must never be any reason for people outside the NSTA to suspect that our decisions may be influenced by private interests. We therefore impose certain restrictions on Board Directors’ and staff members’ financial and non-financial activities.

The NSTA records all declared conflicts in a register of financial interests. The register holds details of any pecuniary interest, or other material benefit, which a Board Director or staff member receives or holds which might reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her actions whilst employed by the NSTA.

All Board Directors and staff members are asked to complete a financial interest disclosure form (see annex) and send it to Head of Governance. This is to be done both on joining the organisation and on an annual basis.

Board directors and staff members must declare all their and their immediate family members’ UK and overseas shareholdings (including any beneficial interest in shares) and any other interests in any relevant public or private company or other commercial organisations (such as a partnership) (including pending issues of share options, performance shares or restricted stock from a previous employer).

Board Directors and staff members should disclose whether a spouse, partner or close family member is employed within the oil and gas, carbon storage or offshore hydrogen industries.

The Company Secretary will review all returns and the NSTA will disclose Board Directors’ declared interests in the Annual Report and Accounts.

NSTA Board Directors and staff members are not allowed to purchase any shareholdings or other interests directly held by them or their immediate family in any public or private oil or gas, carbon storage or offshore hydrogen company (operators and supply chain) unless such purchase is by a managed fund over which they have no control. 

Any Board Director or staff member who plans to sell any shareholdings or other interests make any transaction directly held by them or their immediate family in any public or private oil or gas, carbon storage or offshore hydrogen company (operators and supply chain) should inform the Company Secretary or your Director, giving reasonable advance notice before doing so, to consider whether a conflict of interests may arise from such sale.

Conduct:

  • The NSTA values all our people. We seek to perform to a high standard to effectively regulate and support the UK the oil and gas, carbon storage and offshore hydrogen industries. We aim to inspire pride and work in partnership with colleagues and stakeholders from Industry, Government Departments and other Agencies. The NSTA Code of Conduct details what is expected of you whilst working in the NSTA and highlights your key responsibilities as an employee and our values and behaviours:
    • Values:  Accountable, Fair, Robust and Considerate.
    • Behaviours:  One Team - proactive, efficient, delivery-focused, respected and trusted - a catalyst for change.
  • Harassment and bullying will not be tolerated by the NSTA.  Staff in the NSTA have an absolute right to come to work without fear of being harassed, sexually harassed, bullied or in any way mistreated. As an organisation, we would consider such behaviour a violation of our values, and a complete misalignment with our expected behaviours. 

Confidentiality and the Official Secrets Act:

  • Staff in public bodies owe a general duty of confidentiality to their employer under civil law. NSTA staff are therefore required to protect official information held in confidence.  The Official Secrets Act 1989 applies to any member of the public who has, or has had, official information in their possession.   The Act makes unlawful disclosure of certain information a criminal offence. 

Conflicts of Interest and Share Ownership:

  • Although it is preferable that employees do not hold significant shareholdings in the the oil and gas, carbon storage or offshore hydrogen industries, and are therefore not seen as potentially conflicted, we recognise such shareholdings may exist.
  • Board Directors and all staff members must declare all their and their immediate family members’ UK and overseas shareholdings (including any beneficial interest in shares) and any other interests in any relevant public or private company or other commercial organisations (such as a partnership) (including pending issues of share options, performance shares or restricted stock from a previous employer). Board Directors and staff members should also disclose whether a spouse, partner or close family member is employed within the the oil and gas, carbon storage or offshore hydrogen industries.
    Upon receipt of the required information, the Company Secretary will assess the degree of exposure and will identify whether further measures are needed.  The Company Secretary will review all returns and the NSTA will disclose Board Directors’ declared interests in the Annual Report and Accounts. Further information is available on request. 

Political Activity:

  • NSTA staff must not allow their personal political views to inhibit, or appear to inhibit, loyal and effective service to the NSTA. Further details of the extent to which staff can take part in political activities are available on request.

Privacy Statement/GDPR:

The NSTA is required to keep and process information about you for normal recruitment and employment purposes. The personal information we hold and process will be used only for our management and administrative use, or to comply with our legal obligations. We will hold and use it to enable us to run the company and manage our relationship with you effectively, lawfully and appropriately.

Much of the personal information we hold for recruitment and selection purposes will have been provided by you. The information we may collect and hold includes:

  • Your application which includes your personal details such as name and contact details.
  • Your curriculum vitae with details of your work experience to date
  • Correspondence with, or about, you, for example letters to you  confirming the outcome of a stage in the process
  • Recruitment and selection assessment forms

Where we have collected your personal information for the purpose of your employment by the NSTA, we will normally retain it for a period of 6 years after you have left the NSTA.  Personal information collected in the course of job applications will be held for up to 12 months from the date of application.

We also collect anonymised information that, under the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, is deemed to be special category personal data. This includes:

  • For the purposes of monitoring equality and diversity: disability, age, gender, nationality, race/ethnic origin, religious belief, sexual orientation.

We may also need to share your personal information with the third-parties who are involved in the recruitment and selection process.

As set out in our general Privacy Notice, if, in the future, we intend to process your personal information for a purpose other than that for which it was collected, we will provide you with information on that purpose and any other relevant information.

Further personal data is required for employment and if you are successful in joining the NSTA we will also use your personal data to:

  • comply with the terms of the employment contract we have with you
  • perform our statutory functions
  • comply with our legal obligations (for example, with respect to tax legislation) and to protect our legal position in the event of legal proceedings
  • monitor and improve our performance as an employer (including with respect to diversity).

If you require further details of our data retention and processing policies please contact: nstarecruitment@nstauthority.co.uk

Appeals

Appeals against non-selection for interview or against the conduct of the interview must be sent to the Resourcing Manager or the Head of HR within two working days of receiving notification of the outcome.  

Grounds for Appeal are restricted to those identified below and appeals outside the scope of these grounds will not be considered:

  • a procedural irregularity that can be seen to have materially disadvantaged the individual’s candidature; or
  • a demonstrable infringement of the NSTA's equal opportunities policy causing real disadvantage; or
  • any exceptional circumstances (unknown to the selection panel).