As a result of the coronavirus outbreak most MVDC staff will be working from home. If you are not used to working from home, please find below top tips from a health and safety perspective, from the legal team on GDPR considerations and from ICT (including technical guidance).

Health and Safety Top Tips

• ·Your workstation should be set up to allow space to sit down and get up without difficulty as well as allowing for changes in posture whilst working.
• Your screen should be centrally positioned to your body and an arm’s length away. The top of the display should be at eye height – you can raise the height by placing your laptop on a box/book. Glare and reflections on your screen should be avoided wherever possible.
• Use an adjustable chair if you have one as this will give you the best potential for sitting comfortably. If you are using a non-adjustable chair, try using a cushion to raise your height and a cushion/pillow/rolled up towel to support your back.
• When you are sitting down to work, your forearms should be level with the desk and your hips should be higher than your knees. You can use a large book, tin or box as a foot support to achieve the correct posture. Take home any equipment that you use in the office such as wrist rests which you think would be of help.
• Your laptop has an integral mouse, but for prolonged usage it is best practice to use a separate mouse if you have one available. You can use any USB mouse or keyboard you have at home. When using a mouse your arms should be relaxed by your body and your wrists and arms in a neutral position.
• Remember to take regular breaks from your display screen equipment (DSE) by performing another task not involving DSE work (e.g. reading, calls, thinking).
• Make sure you change your posture as often as practicable and try not to sit forward in a hunched up position. Sitting upright will reduce stress on your head and neck. Pushing the laptop back a little can help in this situation. The worse your position the more you need to move to keep yourself healthy and productive.

GDPR Top Tips

1. If there is a life or death situation, processing personal data is always permitted, including special category personal data. If in doubt, and time is of the essence, continue with the processing and inform Legal afterwards.
2. If you need to mention service users in the context of Covid 19 in connection with MVDC’s functions then this is likely to be permitted BUT keep it to the minimum reasonably required for the purpose.
3. It may be appropriate for you to share the identities of staff who have caught or are being tested for Covid 19 where you are their line manager. Remember this is special category data and treat it accordingly. Do not process tittle tattle about Covid 19. Remember about data subject rights and freedom of information rights
4. How you process personal data electronically, including by sending e mails, should remain largely unchanged. When sending confidential attachments, please use Office 365 because of its increased security.
5. Don’t forget to use bcc where appropriate; eg, when sending group e mails if these include external persons.
6. Think about starting new e mail chains, rather than reply to all or forwarding.
7. Consider if you need to process personal data at all, particularly where you are in danger of being overlooked/ overheard. Anonymise your e mail so it refers to a situation/ general question if possible. If you need to name someone, use the minimum amount of personal data possible, – avoid opinions, use initials rather than a full name if this is reasonable.
8. When working from home please use an appropriate room to work from, consider if you should position your laptop so the screen faces away from windows and where in the room to position yourself.
9. Remember that if you are using the 8×8 App on your phone your call may still be recorded. Think about where you can go to minimise the risk of you being overheard by third parties, particularly when in public places, when making confidential calls.
10. Remember to transport your laptop to and from work so it is protected, – eg, covered up in the boot of your car. If you are catching public transport, it is essential that you are not overhead or overlooked.
11. Remain mindful of the risks of processing personal data held in paper format. Consider what information we need to take home, how it will be transported (use a locked case if possible), and also how it will be stored at home (ideally in a lockable cabinet and always separate work from non work papers and separate your different work files – consider separate named paper folders/ plastic wallets for each matter).
12. Think about how you can ensure the integrity of paper documents when at home. Use lockable drawers to store hard copy data if possible. Do not leave hard copy data open to viewing, eg through a window, and do not leave windows and doors open.
13. Report breaches to Tom.Penlington@molevalley.gov.uk and Mark.Russell@molevalley.gov.uk and follow up with a phone call to Legal to ensure the matter is being considered.

If in doubt about any processing please contact a member of the Legal team (01306 879100).

ICT Top Tips and Technical Guidance

The majority of MVDC, and much of the UK, is currently ‘Working from Home’. This is placing a huge additional demand on both MVDC and UK technology – 8 times the usual number of MVDC colleagues are working from home, whilst on a wider basis leading technical organisations such as Microsoft have reduced the rate of data transfer for applications such as Teams to cope with this unprecedented national (and international) demand. Many of you will also be sharing your internet connectivity with others in the household – if others are e.g. streaming video then your own response times may well be affected.       

ICT are confident that we can continue to support our all colleagues; please take 5 minutes to read these ten tips (including an important security alert) which will help you, and help ICT to help you.

ICT Service Desk

(Please use this link to the Service Desk portal on Molly to log requests – emails to individual team members will not be actioned) or by email or call x3888.

1. Application response times will be slower than when in MVDC offices (particularly for APAS and DMS). Response time / performance can also be affected by what’s between your home router and where you are working – the further away (and the more intervening walls and floors), the more likely that you will experience performance issues. You are most likely to see this on video, and to a lesser extent on voice, calls, but it can affect any application that you are using. As previously commented, others using the same internet connection (again, particularly for streaming video) can also impact the response times you experience. This BBC News website article identifies more factors which could affect performance.
2. Laptops may not log on to MVDC systems instantaneously. Please turn on your laptop before you actually need it, allow five minutes before you login in, and once you have logged in, wait for everything to connect (e.g. connection to your H: and S: drives – these can take up to 15 minutes to connect).
3. Where possible, when using 8×8 or Teams – particularly for video or voice conferences – please do so directly from e.g. a smartphone rather than through their MVDC laptop. Either method connects through your local Wi-Fi, but using a MVDC laptop also routes it from your Wi-Fi into, and places additional demand on, the MVDC infrastructure.
4. Teams is the default meetings, messaging and video conferencing application in MVDC (and attached to this email is a Microsoft guide to using Teams). Please don’t use other applications like WebEx, Zoom, or others.      
5. When using Teams for conferences, please have voice conferences unless there is an actual need for video (e.g. for screen sharing), as video uses more network capacity.
6. If you need to use video in Teams but others can’t see you, please make sure that the camera (top centre of the laptop) is open (slid to the right – you will see the camera lens). If it’s not please slide it to the right, using the tip of a ballpoint bend in the small indentation at the right of the slider). Some laptops may need technical changes for ‘no sound’ (please log a call with the Service Desk), but this should sort most cases where you can’t be seen.
7. Teams Meetings can be used for conferences with external parties by including their email address in the meeting invitation. Within Teams, click on the Calendar option on the left side bar and select New Meeting (top right). Add anyone to the meeting, either external or internal.
8. ICT have increased the time period between password resets while so many colleagues are working remotely, but if you are prompted to change your password please do so without delay and make particularly certain that you know what your new password is – it is much harder for ICT to support you if you are at home and your account is locked compared with when you are (and ICT) are in the office.  
9. Please continue to raise requests for ICT support via the ServiceDesk portal on Molly or by email to servicedesk@molevalley.gov.uk (you might want to note this email address in case e.g. your problem is that you are locked out of your MVDC account and you need to mail from a non-MVDC email – in which case please also provide a telephone number we can call you on so that we can verify your identity). Extension 3888 is also available, but please use this only if you have no other means of contacting the ServiceDesk. Please do not contact directly individual members of the team – your request will not be actioned.            
10. Although there is much goodwill in the current situation, unfortunately there has also been a huge increase in criminal activity, with much of it Coronavirus themed – phishing emails, fake websites, scam telephone calls (e.g. claiming to be from the NHS), etc. Please be additionally vigilant at this time, especially as many of you will be working in unusual ways, and in some teams, for extended hours. It only takes one ‘off-guard’ moment to be caught out, and it could see MVDC’s technology compromised just when we are all relying on it to work from home to maintain our services to Mole Valley residents and provide additional support to them as well.  

8×8 Mobile App – Quick User Guide
8×8 Mobile App – How to install
Laptop Guidance – working from home
Laptop Guidance – proxy settings background information

HP Laptop and Speaker Set up

Teams – Quick start guide

Teams – Communicating with others