About our Terms:

These terms tell you the rules for using our website https://www.leancompetency.org/ (our site). You should read these terms carefully before using the site.
By accessing or using our site or otherwise indicating consent, you agree to be bound by these Terms and the documents referred to in them.
You are solely responsible for all costs and expenses you may incur in relation to your use of our site.
If you do not agree with or accept any of these Terms, you should stop using our site immediately.

Who we are and how to contact us:

https://www.leancompetency.org/ is a site operated by Lean Competency Services Ltd (“We”). We are registered in England and Wales under company number 08624706 and have our registered office at Lean Competency Services Ltd, sbarc | spark, Maindy Rd, Cardiff, CF24 4HQ, Wales, UK
To contact us, please email info@leancompetency.org.
You can find our contact information on our site by following this link https://www.leancompetency.org/contact/.

There are other terms that may apply to you

These terms of use refer to the following additional terms, which also apply to your use of our site:

Our Privacy Policy https://www.leancompetency.org/lcs-privacy-policy/. See further under ‘How we may use your personal information’ section.
If you purchase goods and/or services from our site, terms and conditions of supply will apply to the provision of the goods and/or services and such terms and conditions will be provided to you.

We may make changes to these terms and our site

We may amend these terms from time to time. Every time you wish to use our site, please check these terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time.
We may update and change our site from time to time to reflect changes to our products, our users’ needs and our business priorities. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any major changes.

We may suspend or withdraw our site

Our site is made available free of charge.
We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our site for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal.
You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms of use and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.
We may suspend or withdraw your access to our site if you do not comply with any part of these Terms or any other terms or policies which may be applicable to you or any applicable law.

Your privacy and personal information

Your privacy and personal information are important to us. Any personal information that you provide to us will be dealt with in line with our privacy policy https://www.leancompetency.org/lcs-privacy-policy/.
Our privacy policy explains what personal information we collect from you, how we collect, store, use and share such information, your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint about the use of your personal information.

We may transfer this Agreement to someone else

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. We will ensure that the transfer will not affect your rights under the contract.

Site users

Our site is directed to people residing in the United Kingdom. We do not represent that content available on or through our site is appropriate or available in other locations. We may limit the availability of our site or any service or product described on our site to any person or geographic area at any time. If you choose to access our site from outside the United Kingdom, you do so at your own risk.

You must keep your account details safe

If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.
We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.
If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user identification code or password, you must promptly notify us enquiries@leancompetency.org.

Ownership, use and intellectual property rights

Our site and all intellectual property rights in it including but not limited to any content are owned by us, our licensors or both (as applicable).
Intellectual property rights mean rights such as: copyright, trademarks, domain names, design rights, database rights, patents and all other intellectual property rights of any kind whether or not they are registered or unregistered (anywhere in the world). We and our licensors reserve all of our and their rights in any intellectual property in connection with these Terms. This means for example, that we and they remain owners of them and are free to use them as we and they see fit.
Nothing in these terms grants you any legal rights in our site other than necessary to enable you to access our site. You agree to not adjust to try to circumvent or delete any notices contained on our site (including any intellectual property notices) and in particular in any digital rights or other security technology embedded or contained within our site.
Trademarks such as our logo are our trademarks and any third-party trademarks used on our site are trademarks of that third-party. Other trademarks and trade names may also be used on our site. The use of any trademarks on our site us strictly prohibited unless you have our written permission.

Do not rely on information on this site

The content on our site is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action based on the content on our site.
Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our site is accurate, complete or up to date.

We are not responsible for websites we link to

Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them.
We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources.
User-generated content is not approved by us.
This website may include information and materials uploaded by other users of the site, including the submission and contribution of articles and discussion content within forums. This information and these materials have not been verified or approved by us. The views expressed by other users on our site do not represent our views or values.

How to complain about content uploaded by other users

If you wish to complain about content uploaded by other users, please contact us on enquiries@leancompetency.org.

Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

Whether you are a consumer or a business user:
- We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.
- Different limitations and exclusions of liability will apply to liability arising as a result of the supply of any products to you, which will be set out in our Terms and conditions of supply.
If you are a business user:
- We exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it.
- We will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:
  - use of, or inability to use, our site; or
  - use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site.
In particular, we will not be liable for:
- loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
- business interruption;
- loss of anticipated savings;
- loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
- any indirect or consequential loss or damage.
If you are a consumer user:
- You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.
- If defective digital content that we have supplied, damages a device or digital content belonging to you and this is caused by our failure to use reasonable care and skill, we will either repair the damage or pay you compensation. However, we will not be liable for damage that you could have avoided by following our advice to apply an update offered to you free of charge or for damage that was caused by you failing to have in place the minimum system requirements advised by us.

Uploading content to our site

Wherever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to our site or to contact other users on our site, you must comply with these terms of use.
You warrant that you will not upload any content which is unlawful, false, misleading, defamatory, libellous, pornographic, violent in nature, racist, homophobic or otherwise promotes hatred, nor will you upload any content or any pattern of content which constitutes harassment, or which might otherwise bring us or our business into disrepute.
You also warrant that you will not upload any content or use our site in any way that is unlawful, fraudulent, malicious or which is designed to harass, intimidate, bully or defame any other user.
You agree that you will be liable to us and that you will indemnify us for any breach of the warranties set out above.
If any aspect of the site enables you to communicate with other users, you warrant that you will use such features responsibly and not engage in any communication which is unlawful or offensive. You acknowledge that all communications which may feature on our site represent the personal opinions of other users and that they are not necessarily reflective of our views or endorsed by us in anyway. You agree that we will not be liable for those views or opinions or for any consequences of the expression of those views or opinions.
Any content you upload to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. You retain all of your ownership rights in your content, but you are required to grant us and other users of our site a limited licence to use, store and copy that content and to distribute and make it available to third parties and other users.
We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.
You are solely responsible for securing and backing up your content.
We are not responsible for any disputes between users of our site, nor for any arrangements which they may enter into between themselves using it. Such arrangements are private transactions for which we accept no responsibility.

We are not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them

We do not guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.
You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our site. You should use your own virus protection software.
You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored, or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities, and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.

Rules about linking to our site

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.
You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.
You must not establish a link to our site in any website that is not owned by you.
Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our site other than the home page.
If you wish to link to or make any use of content on our site other than that set out above, please contact enquiries@leancompetency.org.

Rights of third parties

No one other than a party to these Terms has any right to enforce any of these Terms.

Which country’s laws apply to any disputes?

We will try to resolve any disputes quickly and efficiently, if you are unhappy with us, please contact us as soon as possible.
We will try to resolve all disputes through good faith discussions with you, however, if a dispute cannot be resolved the following provisions apply:
If you are a consumer, please note that these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English and Welsh law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except that if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.
If you are a business, these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English and Welsh law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Participation in the LCS Community Platform

As a registered user of our website, you may have access to community features, including but not limited to:

Group forums or discussions
Commenting on blog posts or articles
Direct messaging (if enabled)
Posting or sharing templates, resources, and media
Participating in community challenges, events, or mentorship programs

By engaging in the LCS Community Platform, you agree to:

Use respectful, inclusive, and professional language.
Avoid content that is discriminatory, harassing, or offensive.
Refrain from promoting commercial products or services unless explicitly permitted by LCS.
Respect intellectual property—only post content that you have the rights to share.
Avoid spam, repetitive posts, or misuse of messaging features.

Moderation and Enforcement

We reserve the right to monitor, edit, or remove content that violates these terms or our values. This includes—but is not limited to—removing content, suspending access, or permanently banning users who violate our community standards.

If you encounter behaviour or content that violates these principles, please contact us at enquiries@leancompetency.org with details.

Use of User-Generated Content

By posting or submitting content on the LCS platform, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, store, publish, and distribute that content for community or promotional purposes, unless otherwise agreed in writing.

and Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purpose of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there to be a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

If required, we will be entitled to hold personal data for longer periods in order to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations.

We are required to keep the information we collect as set out in Policy for a period of [NUMBER] years.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your personal data, see ‘Your Legal Rights’ below for further information.

Where we anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Cookies & How We Use Them

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small file placed on your device. It enables our website to identify your device as you view different pages on our website.

Cookies allow websites and applications to store your preferences in order to present content, options or functions that are specific to you. They also enable us to see information like how many people use the website and what pages they tend to visit. The information allows us to provide you with a good experience when you access the website, allows us to improve our website and allows us to compile statistical reports on website visitors and activity.

How we use cookies

Our website may use cookies to:

analyse our web traffic using an analytics package. Aggregated usage data helps us improve the website structure, design, content and functions;
identify whether you are signed in to our website and collect standard Internet log information. A cookie allows us to check whether you are signed in to the site;
test content on our website. For example, 50% of our users might see one piece of content, the other 50% a different piece of content;
store information about your preferences. The website can then present you with information you will find more relevant and interesting;
to recognise when you return to our website. We may show your relevant content or provide functionality you used previously.

Cookies do not provide us with access to your computer or any information about you.

Controlling cookies

You can use your web browser’s cookie settings to determine how our website uses cookies. If you do not want our website to store cookies on your computer or device, you should set your web browser to refuse cookies.

However, please note that doing this may affect how our website functions. Some pages and services may become unavailable to you.

Unless you have changed your browser to refuse cookies, our website will issue cookies when you visit it.

To learn more about cookies and how they are used, visit All About Cookies.

Controlling Information About You

When you fill in a form or provide your details on our website, you will see one or more tick boxes allowing you to opt-in to receive marketing communications from us by email.

If we have collected your contact data when we sign you up as a customer we will send you emails about our other products and services provided that you did not opt out of receiving such emails at the time we signed you up as a customer.

If you have agreed that we can use your information for marketing purposes, you can change your mind easily, via one of these methods:

sign in to our website and change your opt-in settings.
send an email to membership@leancompetency.org.
write to us at: Lean Competency Services Ltd. 5 Clive Crescent, Penarth, CF64 1AT, UK
click on the unsubscribe link at the foot of the LCS e-newsletter or practitioner member messages.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for any other reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with this privacy policy, where this is required or permitted by law.

Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in ‘How We Use This Data’ set out above:

MailChimp, to deliver our regular e-newsletters and practitioner membership updates. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletters.
Insightly, who provide a customer relationship management system to store customer information and manage its sales processes, customer relationships and specific customer projects. Access is password controlled and restricted to authorised LCS staff and associates.
ClassMarker, to provide an online testing platform for accreditation purposes.
EventBrite, to organise and market conferences which we participate in hosting.
Newwave Design, who manage and maintain our website.
We may share your personal data with third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.
We may share your personal data with professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers and HM Revenue & Customers, regulators and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International Transfers

We may transfer your personal data to external third parties that are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA), their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

Wherever we transfer your personal data outside of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

we will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.
where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe;
where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

Security

We will always hold your information securely.

To prevent unauthorised disclosure or access to your information, we have implemented strong physical and electronic security safeguards. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

The site uses the following plugins for security and performance: Sucuri Security – a security plugin that monitors live traffic and protects login areas Wordfence – a security plugin that monitors live traffic, secures website files and scans files for any malicious changes WP Optimise – a speed and performance plugin that automatically clears up un-necessary database entries such as ‘spam comments on posts’ and ‘excessive change histories / revisions’ WP Super Cache – currently turned off. When on, it stores optimised versions of pages to display to visitors. This improves page load times.

Your Legal Rights

In certain circumstances individuals who are the subject of personal data held by LCS have rights under data protection laws in relation to the personal data processed by LCS. If you wish to exercise any of your legal rights, you should put your request in writing to us (using our contact details provided in this privacy policy) giving us enough information to identify you and respond to your request.

You have the right to:

Request access to personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”) including asking what information the company holds about you and why and how to gain access to it.
Request correction of the personal data we hold about you. If any of the information you have provided changes, or if you become aware of any inaccuracies in such information, please let us know in writing giving us enough information to deal with the change or correction. We may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of personal data we hold about you (the ‘right of erasure’) in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. This right of erasure is not available in all circumstances, for example where we need to retain the personal data for legal compliance purposes. If this is the case, we will let you know.
Object to processing of personal data, in certain circumstance, where we are relying on legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. If you make this request, we shall stop processing your personal data unless we can demonstrate sufficient and compelling legitimate grounds for continuing the processing which override your own interests. If, as a result of your circumstances, you do not have the right to object to such processing then we will let you know.
Request restriction of processing of personal data, for example where the personal data is inaccurate or where you have objected to the processing (as detailed above).
Right to withdraw consent where you have given consent (if applicable).

We may need to request specific information from you to help us to confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who does not have the right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask for further information in relation to your request to speed up your response.

We ask that requests from individuals should be made by email, addressed to the data controller at admin@leancompetency.org or via the Subject Access Request Form. You can however make a subject access request in other formats by submitting this subject access request to the email address or postal address noted above.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally, it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated. You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would however appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Links from Our Site

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you.

We have no control of websites outside the leancompetency.org and leanenterprise.org.uk domains.

If you provide information to a website to which we link, we are not responsible for its protection and privacy. Always be wary when submitting data to websites and read the data protection and privacy policies of every website you visit fully.

Information Commissioner’s Office Registration

Lean Competency Services Ltd is registered with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office under registration reference: ZA282892.

Its registration expiry date is 28 September 2024. Registration Certificate 2023 to 2024