Introduction

The Commissioning Support Programme has been established by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in conjunction with the Department of Health to establish a self-sustaining community of practice. This website, http://www.commissioningsupport.org.uk/ and its online resources are designed to help commissioners develop and share best practice and to help Children’s Trusts plan, design and implement services more effectively. Above all, the Commissioning Support Programme is about helping Children’s Trusts deliver better outcomes for children, young people and their families

About the terms

Access to and use of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk both within the UK and internationally is provided by the Commissioning Support Programme on behalf of the children's services commissioners’ community of practice on the following terms:

1. By using www.commissioningsupport.org.uk you agree to be bound by these terms, which shall take effect immediately on your first use of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk. If you do not agree to be bound by all of the following terms please do not access, use and/or contribute to www.commissioningsupport.org.uk.

2. The Commissioning Support Programme may change these terms from time to time and so you should check these terms regularly. Your continued use of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk will be deemed acceptance of the updated or amended terms. If you do not agree to the changes, you should cease using this website. If there is any conflict between these terms and specific special interest group terms appearing elsewhere on www.commissioningsupport.org.uk then the latter shall prevail.

Use of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk.

3. You agree to use www.commissioningsupport.org.uk only for lawful purposes and in a way that does not infringe the rights of, restrict or inhibit anyone else's use and enjoyment of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk. Prohibited behaviour includes harassing or causing distress or inconvenience to any person, transmitting obscene or offensive content or disrupting the normal flow of dialogue within www.commissioningsupport.org.uk.

Intellectual Property

4. All copyright, trade marks, design rights, patents and other intellectual property rights (registered and unregistered) in and on www.commissioningsupport.org.uk and all content (including all applications) located on the site shall remain vested in the Commissioning Support Programme or its licensors (which includes other users) and linked partners. You may not republish, reverse engineer, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use www.commissioningsupport.org.uk content in any way without written permission from the Commissioning Support Programme. Any other use of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk content requires the prior written permission of the Commissioning Support Programme.

5. The names, images and logos identifying the Commissioning Support Programme, or third parties and their products and services are subject to copyright, design rights and trade marks of the Commissioning Support Programme and/or third parties. Nothing contained in these terms shall be construed as conferring any licence or right to use any trade mark, design right or copyright of the Commissioning Support Programme or any other third party.

Contributions to www.commissioningsupport.org.uk.

6. By sharing any contribution (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) with the www.commissioningsupport.org.uk you agree to grant to the Commissioning Support Programme, free of charge, permission to use the material in any way it wants (including modifying and adapting it for operational and editorial reasons).

7. Copyright in your contribution will remain with you and this permission is not exclusive, so you can continue to use the material in any way including allowing others to use it.

8. In order that the Commissioning Support Programme can use your contribution, you confirm that your contribution is your own original work, is not defamatory and does not infringe any UK laws, that you have the right to give the Commissioning Support Programme permission to use it for the purposes specified above, and that you have the consent of anyone who is identifiable in your contribution or the consent of their parent / guardian if they are under 16.

9. The Commissioning Support Programme may need to contact you for administrative or verification purposes in relation to your contribution, or in relation to particular projects. For full details of when and how we may contact you please see the Commissioning Support Programme’s Privacy Policy plus any local terms where applicable.

11. If you do not want to grant the Commissioning Support Programme the permission set out above on these terms, please do not submit or share your contribution to or with www.commissioningsupport.org.uk.

If you have any questions about contributing content to the Commissioning Support Programme, please see our FAQs or contact the Community Support Desk.

12. In order to participate in and contribute to selected www.commissioningsupport.org.uk communities you may be required to register with www.commissioningsupport.org.uk. Any personal information supplied to www.commissioningsupport.org.uk as part of this registration process and/or any other interaction with www.commissioningsupport.org.uk will be collected, stored and used in accordance with the Commissioning Support Programme Privacy Policy.

13. You agree to use www.commissioningsupport.org.uk communities (including your profile, special interest groups, discussion forums, message boards) in accordance with the following Community Rules. These apply across all www.commissioningsupport.org.uk community sites and services. You should, however, be aware of any local variations to any community rules, i.e. within special interest groups (SIGs)

(i) About the content you generate:

We encourage your content to be of interest and to add value to your community, and that you ensure you use the relevant key words on your profile to enable search to be optimised.

We encourage you to use this as a platform to help build your network and join/create groups based around special interests and/or projects

Contributions must be civil and tasteful. Report any content that is not in accordance with these rules.

No disruptive, offensive or abusive behaviour: contributions must be constructive and polite, not mean-spirited or contributed with the intention of malice.

No unlawful or objectionable content: unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material will result in your account being removed.

No spamming (excessive manipulation to influence search engine rankings) or off-topic material.

No advertising or promoting.

Contributions containing languages other than English may be removed unless allowed in the relevant special interest group.

No inappropriate (e.g. vulgar, offensive etc) user names.

URLs (web site addresses) can only be posted if allowed under any relevant special interest group

Deliberate misuse of the complaints facility is not permitted. If you persist in doing this your account may be suspended.

(ii) Your Commissioning Support Programme Account:

If you use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting a community or annoying other users your account(s) may be suspended.

All accounts must be registered with a valid email address that you access regularly so that moderation emails can be sent to you. Accounts registered with someone else's email address, or with temporary email addresses may be closed without notice. We may require users to re-validate their account if we believe they have been using an invalid email address.

The Commissioning Support Programme reserves the right to close accounts if any user is seen to be using proxy or dynamic IPs (Internet Protocol addresses) in order to attempt to hide the use of multiple Commissioning Support Programme accounts, or if an non UK user pretends to be a UK user, or disrupts any of our services in any way.

(iii) Safety:                                           

We advise that you never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example: home telephone number, home address or email address or any other details that would allow you to be personally identified) in any Commissioning Support Programme community.

(iv) Legal requirements:

You may not submit or share any defamatory or illegal material of any nature in www.commissioningsupport.org.uk communities. This includes text, graphics, video, programs or audio. Contributing material to a www.commissioningsupport.org.uk community with the intention of committing or promoting an illegal act is strictly prohibited.

You agree to submit to or share with www.commissioningsupport.org.uk communities only contributions which are your own original work. You must not violate, plagiarise, or infringe the rights of the Commissioning Support Programme or third parties including copyright, trade mark, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, personal or proprietary rights.

(v) If you're under 16:

Please get a parent's or guardian's permission before taking part in any www.commissioningsupport.org.uk community. Never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example, school, telephone number, your full name, home address or email address).

(vi) If you breach these Community Rules:

If you fail to abide by these Community Rules (and/or any variations in relevant special interest groups) when taking part in a www.commissioningsupport.org.uk community, you will be sent an email which informs you why your contribution has been refused or edited. This email will also include a warning that continuing to break the rules may result in action being taken against your account or accounts.

This action may include any content posted by you being checked before allowed to go on the site or a suspension or closure of your access to any or all of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk community areas.

If you submit or share offensive or inappropriate content to or with any www.commissioningsupport.org.uk communities or anywhere else on www.commissioningsupport.org.uk or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on www.commissioningsupport.org.uk, and the Commissioning Support Programme considers such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, the Commissioning Support Programme may use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop any further such infringements. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school or email provider about the infringement(s).

The Commissioning Support Programme reserves the right to delete any contribution, or take action against any Commissioning Support Programme account, at any time, for any reason.

Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

14. The majority of content posted in www.commissioningsupport.org.uk communities is created by members of the Children’s Trusts, Providers, Researchers and academics. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the Commissioning Support Programme. The Commissioning Support Programme is not responsible for any content posted by members of the public on www.commissioningsupport.org.uk or for the availability or content of any third party sites that are accessible through www.commissioningsupport.org.uk. Any links to third party websites from www.commissioningsupport.org.uk do not amount to any endorsement of that site by the Commissioning Support Programme and any use of that site by you is at your own risk.

15. www.commissioningsupport.org.uk content, including the information, names, images, pictures, logos and icons regarding or relating to the Commissioning Support Programme, its products and services (or to third party products and services), is provided "AS IS" and on an "AS AVAILABLE" basis. To the extent permitted by law, the Commissioning Support Programme excludes all representations and warranties (whether express or implied by law), including the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy. The Commissioning Support Programme does not guarantee the timeliness, completeness or performance of the website or any of the content. While we try to ensure that all content provided by the Commissioning Support Programme is correct at the time of publication no responsibility is accepted by or on behalf of the Commissioning Support Programme for any errors, omissions or inaccurate content on the website.

16. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes the Commissioning Support Programme’s liability for death or personal injury caused by its proven negligence. Subject to the previous sentence, the Commissioning Support Programme shall not be liable for any of the following losses or damage (whether such damage or losses were foreseen, foreseeable, known or otherwise): (a) loss of data; (b) loss of revenue or anticipated profits; (c) loss of business; (d) loss of opportunity; (e) loss of goodwill or injury to reputation; (f) losses suffered by third parties; or (g) any indirect, consequential, special or exemplary damages arising from the use of www.commissioningsupport.org.uk regardless of the form of action.

17. The Commissioning Support Programme do not warrant that functions available on www.commissioningsupport.org.uk will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected[b1] . However, neither the commissioningsupport.org.uk nor the server can guarantee that this website and all its contents are free of viruses or bugs  You acknowledge that it is your responsibility to implement sufficient procedures and virus checks (including anti-virus and other security checks) to satisfy your particular requirements for the accuracy of data input and output.

General

18. If any of these terms are determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any state or country in which these terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent and within the jurisdiction in which that term is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed and deleted from these terms and the remaining terms shall survive and continue to be binding and enforceable.

19. The failure or delay of the Commissioning Support Programme to exercise or enforce any right in these terms does not waive the Commissioning Support Programme’s right to enforce that right.

20. These terms shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales which shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes.