Introduction

These terms and conditions shall govern your use of the My Choice web application and the services on the My Choice website.

My Choice is operated by Swansea Council, whose registered office is at Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road, Swansea, SA1 3SN (‘City and County of Swansea’, ‘Swansea Council’, ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’).

Please read these terms and conditions (the “Terms”) before using My Choice. These Terms apply to the use of the My Choice website (‘My Choice’, ‘this website’) and any associated service:

• https://mychoice.swansea.education/

Should you wish to contact us with regard to these terms and conditions, you may do so by:

• e-mailing us at education@swansea.gov.uk, or
• writing to us at Stakeholder Engagement, Education, City and County of Swansea, Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road, SA1 3SN.

By using this website, and in consideration of Swansea Council allowing you access to it, you accept and agree to be bound by these terms and conditions (‘Terms’, ‘Terms of Use’). From time to time we may modify these Terms, so please continue to review them whenever accessing or using the website. You may only use this website if you agree to these terms and conditions and by continuing to use this website you are agreeing to these terms and conditions.

If you disagree with these terms and conditions or any part of these terms and conditions, you must not use the My Choice website.

If you are acting in the course of your employment by or representing another legal entity, you personally warrant and represent to us that you have the authority to accept these terms and conditions on behalf of that entity, and you undertake to abide by these terms and conditions insofar as they are applicable to you as an individual user.

The My Choice website and services are designed for the education sector in the United Kingdom. You must not use our website or services except in the course of personal use, educational projects, or academic research. In particular, you must not use our website to enhance your commercial business offerings.

Consent to use of Website

These provisions apply to use of those areas of the My Choice website available to non-authenticated visitors and to the use of the additional areas of the website available only to logged in users and users of our services.

You may:

• view pages from our website and submit forms on our website using a web browser;
• download pages from our website for caching in a web browser;
• make requests to, and retrieve information from our Application Programming Interface (“API”); and
• subject to the other provisions of these terms and conditions.
• Except for personal use, educational projects, and academic research, you must not download any material from our website or save any such material to your computer.

You must not:

• republish material from our website (including republication on another website);
• sell, rent or sub-license material from our website or services;
• exploit material from our website or services for a commercial purpose; or
• redistribute material from our website,
• unless expressly permitted by these terms and conditions.

We reserve the right to restrict access to areas of our website and services, at our discretion; you must not circumvent or bypass, or attempt to circumvent or bypass, any access restriction measures on our website or services.

Except to the extent required by applicable law, you must not reverse engineer, or attempt to reverse engineer, the software elements of the My Choice website or related services.

No Reliance

While Swansea Council has endeavoured to ensure the material accuracy of the information available on the My Choice website, Swansea Council does not guarantee or give any warranty as to the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of any information or material on the My Choice website.

As individual Post-16 providers are responsible for the upkeep of available courses, open evenings, and other information, Swansea Council cannot accept responsibility if such information is out of date or inaccurate.

My Choice is intended to allow young adults to apply for Post-16 education with Post-16 providers across Swansea Council (‘educational institutes’, ‘providers’, ‘Post-16 providers’). The website and services are designed to help applicants apply for suitable courses and their chosen Post-16 providers, as well as enable Post-16 providers to manage the received applications.

Swansea Council disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on resources, information, or materials, by any provider or visitor to the My Choice website and related services.

We advise you to verify the accuracy of any information before relying on it.

We do not warrant or represent:

• the completeness or accuracy of the information published on our website;
• that the material on the website is up to date; or
• that the website or any service on the website will remain available.

The software that we use to provide our website and services is complex. You acknowledge that complex software is never wholly free from bugs, and we give no warranty that our software will be wholly free from such bugs.

We reserve the right to discontinue or alter any or all of our website or services, and to stop publishing our website, at any time in our sole discretion without notice or explanation; and save to the extent expressly provided otherwise in these terms and conditions, you will not be entitled to any compensation or other payment upon the discontinuance or alteration of any website services, or if we stop publishing the website.

Authorised Users

Parts of the My Choice website and services are restricted to authorised users. Unless you are an authorised user, you have no right to access those parts of the website or services. Any access gained by you may constitute a criminal offence pursuant to the Computer Misuse Act.

Should you access restricted parts of the site by accident, please e-mail us at education@swansea.gov.uk.

Authorised users may include employees working at educational institutes in Swansea Council, as well as employees of Swansea Council’s Education department.

Intellectual Property

My Choice, including (but not limited to) text, content, software, videos, graphics, photographs, illustrations, artwork, photographs, names, logos, trade marks and other material (‘Content’) is protected by copyrights, database, rights in designs, trade marks and/or other intellectual property rights.

Content includes both content owned or controlled by Swansea Council and content owned or controlled by third parties and licensed to Swansea Council.

All individual elements making up My Choice are copyright works. You agree to abide by all additional copyright notices or restrictions contained in My Choice and these terms and conditions.

You may not use any of Swansea Council’s trade marks or trade names without Swansea Council’s consent and you acknowledge that you have no ownership rights in and to any of those names and marks. You agree to notify Swansea Council in writing promptly upon becoming aware of any unauthorised access to or use of My Choice by any party or of any claim that My Choice or any of the Content infringes any copyright, trade mark, or other contractual, statutory or common law rights of any party.

The My Choice logo and brand design belongs to Swansea Council and must not be used without prior consent from the Education department. The logo is available in different formats and sizes if required and where consent has been granted.

We make use of open source and public domain artwork to improve the look and feel of My Choice. We are grateful to the producers of these items and respect their efforts by providing links below:

• Bootstrap 4,
• Argon Design System for Bootstrap 4 by Creative Tim,
• Matrix Template for Bootstrap 4 by WrapPixel,
• Font Awesome,
• Nucleo Icons,
• Material Design Icons,
• Streamline Lab – Vector Illustrations by Webalys, and
• Google Fonts by Google.

External Links to/from My Choice

Web sites or pages to which My Choice is linked are for information only and have not been reviewed by Swansea Council.

Swansea Council has no responsibility for the content of the web sites or pages linked or linking to or from My Choice (including related services), and Swansea Council accepts no responsibility or liability for any losses or penalties whatsoever that may be incurred as a result of your clicking through to linked web sites or services.

License Rights

Access to the My Choice website and services is provided on a temporary basis and you acknowledge that you acquire no rights or licences in or to My Choice and/or the Content other than the limited right to use My Choice in accordance with these Terms and to download on the terms set out in these terms and conditions.

If you are provided with a username, passphrase, or other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential and you must not disclose it to any third party. We have the right to disable any username or passphrase if in our opinion you have failed to comply with any of the Terms.

Other than as set out in this section (or provided by applicable law) you may not copy, decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, distribute, make available, adapt, upload, or in any other way exploit any part of My Choice.

You may only print copies of My Choice web pages for personal reference or educational purposes, and provided always that such printed copies are only used for personal use or at educational institutes located within the City and County of Swansea; and

You retain on such printed copy all copyright notices and shall remain bound by the terms of such wording and notices.

Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, you may link to My Choice royalty-free, provided always that any link to My Choice which is restricted to the general public and is only accessible by authorised users, does not make that part of My Choice accessible to any person who is not an authorised user. By linking to any restricted parts of My Choice you warrant that only authorised users will be able to access that part of My Choice.

We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission at any time and without notice.

My Choice and the information contained therein may not be used to construct a database of any kind without prior consent, nor may My Choice be stored (in its entirety or in any part) in databases for access by you or any third party or to distribute.

Permissions

If you would like information about obtaining Swansea Council’s permission to use any of the Content or to insert deep links on your web site to the web pages available on My Choice other than as permitted by these Terms, please e-mail education@swansea.gov.uk.

A contract under these terms and conditions is for our benefit and your benefit, and is not intended to benefit any third party.

Viruses, Hacking, and Other Offences You must not misuse My Choice by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to My Choice or the server on which it is stored and you must not attack My Choice by way of a denial of service attack or distributed denial of service attack.

Swansea Council will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial of service attack arising following your use of My Choice.

No Warranty

My Choice, the Content, and related services are provided “as is” excluding any warranties and conditions of any kind, either express or implied, to the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable law including (but not limited to) fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement of proprietary or third party rights. Swansea Council further accepts no responsibility or liability for functions contained on My Choice and makes no warranties that My Choice will operate uninterrupted or error-free or that defects will be corrected.

Swansea Council does not warrant that My Choice is compatible with your computer equipment or that My Choice or its server is free of errors. You should ensure that you have installed up to date virus checking software prior to any internet session and Swansea Council is not liable for any damage you may suffer as a result of such destructive features that may infect your computer or data due to your use of My Choice or your downloading any Content from it.

Swansea Council shall not be held responsible for Content provided by third parties. Swansea Council is also not responsible for the reliability or continued availability of the telephone lines and equipment you use to access My Choice.

Limitation of Liability

You hereby indemnify us, and undertake to keep us indemnified, against any and all losses, damages, costs, liabilities and expenses (including without limitation legal expenses and any amounts paid by us to a third party in settlement of a claim or dispute) incurred or suffered by us and arising directly or indirectly out of:

• a breach by you of any provision of these terms and conditions; or
• any misuse by you of our website or services.

You acknowledge that your use of My Choice, related services, and the Content, is at your own risk. If you are dissatisfied with My Choice, the Terms or any of the Content your sole remedy is to discontinue use of My Choice. Save in respect of fraud and of personal injury or death to the extent it results from Swansea Council’s negligence, in no event will Swansea Council be liable to you or any third party for any direct, special, indirect, consequential or incidental damages, exemplary or lost profits, or any other damages of any kind whether based in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, even if Swansea Council has been advised of the possibility thereof. Applicable law may not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so this limitation or exclusion may not apply to you. If your use of material in My Choice results in the need for servicing, repair or connection of equipment, software or data, you assume all costs thereof.

Under no circumstances will Swansea Council, or any of the Post-16 providers in Swansea be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any Content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content posted, e-mailed, transmitted or otherwise made available via My Choice.

Local Laws and Regulations

My Choice is not directed at any person outside the United Kingdom. If you are located outside the United Kingdom you should not access the My Choice website or related services.

My Choice is only intended to be used by people within the United Kingdom. Access outside of the United Kingdom to My Choice may not always be possible, may be restricted, and is not guaranteed.

Swansea Council does not represent that either the My Choice website or the Content are appropriate for use or permitted by local laws in all jurisdictions. Those who access My Choice do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with applicable local laws or regulations; legal advice should be sought in cases of doubt.

These terms of use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by the laws of England and Wales as applied in Wales.

The courts of England and Wales sitting in Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim that arises out of or in connection with these terms.

Termination and Severability

Swansea Council may terminate these Terms with or without cause at any time.

To the extent that any provision in these Terms is held to be void or unlawful, these Terms will apply as if such term had no effect and the remaining provisions of these Terms shall continue to apply.

Changes to My Choice

At any time, the My Choice website may contain material which is out of date. While Swansea Council has no obligation to do so, you accept that Swansea Council and the Post-16 providers who provide the Content have the right to change the content or technical specifications of any aspect of My Choice at any time at Swansea Council’s sole discretion. You further accept that such changes may result in your being unable to access the My Choice website and related services.

Waiver

No waiver by Swansea Council of any breach of any obligation arising under these Terms shall constitute a waiver of any other breach and no failure to exercise or partial exercise by Swansea Council of any remedy shall constitute a waiver of the right subsequently to exercise that or any other remedy.

Privacy Policy and Data Processing Agreement

In addition to the Terms contained herein, access to My Choice infers agreement with and compliance to our Privacy Policy.

In addition to the Terms contained herein, and to our Privacy Policy, Post-16 providers in the City and County of Swansea using My Choice must have agreed and signed a Data Processing Agreement.

It is the responsibility of each individual Post-16 provider to manage the applications, open evenings, and available courses for their educational institution; Swansea Council cannot be held responsible if a Post-16 provider fails in it’s duties.

Accessibility Statement

We have tried to make My Choice accessible to as many people as possible.

If you have any comments about the accessibility of My Choice, please help us make the site even more accessible by emailing your suggestions to education@swansea.gov.uk.

Miscellaneous

Swansea Council shall have no liability for any breach of these Terms caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control.

A person who is not a party to these Terms shall have no right under the Contract (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of these Terms.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

The Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales as applied in Wales and the parties irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales sitting in Cardiff, to settle any dispute or claim that arises out of or in connection with the Terms or its subject matter (included any non-contractual disputes or claims).