Privacy Policy

The Business Mill
Last updated: August 2026

The Business Mill respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.

This Privacy Notice explains how The Business Mill collects, uses, stores and protects personal information when you contact us, engage our services, work with us as part of a client organisation, visit our website or otherwise interact with the business.

1. Who We Are

The Business Mill provides finance business partnering, commercial insight, management reporting, forecasting, strategic planning and business advisory services to businesses.

For the purposes of UK data protection law, The Business Mill is the data controller for personal information that we collect and use for our own business purposes.

Contact details:

The Business Mill
Chorley, Lancashire
Email: hello@thebusinessmill.co.uk
Website: www.thebusinessmill.co.uk

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or how your information is handled, please contact us using the details above.

2. Information We May Collect

The personal information we collect will depend upon the nature of our relationship with you and may include:

• your name;
• job title and organisation;
• business email address;
• business telephone number;
• correspondence and communications with us;
• information provided when making an enquiry or engaging our services;
• information required for invoicing, accounting and administration;
• meeting notes and records relating to our work; and
• other personal information that may reasonably arise during the course of a professional business relationship.

Our work primarily concerns business and commercial information. We do not routinely require special category personal data or other sensitive personal information to provide our services.

We ask clients not to provide personal information that is unnecessary for the work being undertaken.

3. How We Collect Information

We may receive personal information:

• directly from you;
• from the organisation you work for;
• through meetings, telephone calls and email correspondence;
• through our website or business enquiries;
• through professional introductions and networking;
• from publicly available business sources; and
• in documents or information provided to us in connection with an engagement.

4. How We Use Personal Information

We may use personal information to:

• respond to enquiries;
• establish and manage client relationships;
• provide our services;
• communicate with clients, prospective clients and other business contacts;
• arrange meetings and manage engagements;
• prepare reports, analysis and recommendations;
• issue invoices and maintain financial records;
• administer and operate The Business Mill;
• maintain appropriate business and professional records;
• protect our legitimate business interests; and
• comply with legal, regulatory and tax obligations.

We will not use personal information for purposes that are incompatible with the reason it was originally collected unless permitted or required by law.

5. Our Lawful Basis for Using Personal Information

Under UK data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for processing personal information.

Depending upon the circumstances, we may rely upon:

Contract – where processing is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you.

Legitimate interests – where processing is reasonably necessary to operate The Business Mill, provide and develop our services, manage professional relationships and communicate with clients and business contacts, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.

Legal obligation – where we are required to process or retain information to comply with applicable law, including accounting and tax requirements.

Consent – where we specifically ask for your consent. Where processing relies upon consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time.

6. Business and Client Information

In providing our services, we may receive confidential financial, commercial, strategic and operational information belonging to our clients.

Information relating solely to a company or other legal entity is not personal data for the purposes of UK data protection legislation. However, we recognise that such information may be commercially sensitive and confidential.

Client information will be handled in accordance with our contractual confidentiality obligations and appropriate security measures.

Where information supplied by a client contains personal information relating to employees, customers, suppliers or other individuals, we will handle that personal information in accordance with applicable data protection requirements.

7. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell personal information.

We may share personal information with trusted third parties where reasonably necessary to operate our business or provide our services. These may include:

• accounting and bookkeeping providers;
• IT, email, cloud-storage and software providers;
• website and hosting providers;
• professional advisers, including legal advisers or accountants; and
• government, regulatory or law-enforcement authorities where disclosure is legally required.

Where third-party service providers process personal information on our behalf, we expect them to protect that information appropriately and use it only for the relevant purpose.

8. International Transfers

Some technology and service providers may store or process information outside the United Kingdom.

Where personal information is transferred internationally, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that appropriate safeguards required by UK data protection law are in place.

9. How Long We Keep Information

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including satisfying legal, accounting, tax and professional record-keeping requirements.

The appropriate retention period will depend upon the nature of the information and our relationship with you.

Information that is no longer required will be securely deleted or disposed of where reasonably practicable.

10. Keeping Information Secure

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal and confidential information against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure, loss or destruction.

Access to information is limited to those who reasonably require it for legitimate business purposes.

While reasonable measures are taken to protect information, no electronic storage or communication system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

11. Your Rights

Depending upon the circumstances, UK data protection law may give you rights in relation to your personal information, including the right to:

• request access to personal information we hold about you;
• request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information;
• request deletion of your information in certain circumstances;
• request restriction of processing in certain circumstances;
• object to certain uses of your information;
• request transfer of your information in certain circumstances; and
• withdraw consent where processing is based upon consent.

These rights are not absolute and may depend upon the circumstances and the lawful basis upon which information is being processed.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact The Business Mill using the details in Section 1.

12. Marketing Communications

Where permitted by law, we may contact existing clients or business contacts about The Business Mill's services or other information that we reasonably believe may be relevant to them.

Where consent is required for marketing communications, we will obtain it before sending them.

You can ask us to stop sending marketing communications at any time by contacting us or using any unsubscribe option provided.

13. Website Analytics and Cookies

The Business Mill website is hosted using IONOS.

IONOS SiteAnalytics is used to provide statistical information about use of the website and to support its technical optimisation.

SiteAnalytics may collect information including the website or page requested, referring website, browser type and version, operating system, device type, time of access and an anonymised IP address used to determine the approximate location of access.

IONOS states that SiteAnalytics does not use cookies and that visitor IP addresses are anonymised directly after transmission so that the information stored cannot be used to identify individual website visitors.

The Business Mill does not currently use cookies for advertising or behavioural tracking purposes.

If additional analytics, advertising or other technologies requiring consent are introduced in future, this Privacy Notice and the website's consent arrangements will be updated as appropriate.

14. Complaints

If you have concerns about how The Business Mill handles your personal information, please contact us in the first instance so that we can investigate and respond.

You also have the right to raise a concern with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator.

Further information is available from the ICO at www.ico.org.uk.

15. Changes to This Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice periodically to reflect changes to our services, business practices, technology or legal requirements.

The current version will be published on The Business Mill website with the date it was last updated.

The Business Mill
Chorley, Lancashire
hello@thebusinessmill.co.uk
www.thebusinessmill.co.uk