Membership Terms and Conditions

These Member Terms and Conditions (the Conditions) set out the basis on which PA Pool Limited, company number 05976612 (PA Pool, we or us) makes available a web based advertising forum to people who register to use the Service (a Member or you) so that they can manage their own recruitment of a personal assistant/carer or their employment or engagement as a personal assistant/carer interactively (the Service).

More details of the Service and its features, including subscription options for the paid part of the Service are set out below and at papool.co.uk (our Website).

Please read this document carefully before agreeing to these Conditions by clicking 'I Accept' button and using this Website based service.

By clicking the 'I Accept' button and registering to use the Service you are agreeing to these Conditions. We will treat your use of the Service as your agreement to these Conditions. If you do not accept these Conditions, do not click the 'I Accept' button or use this Service.

There are other terms that may apply to you such as our Privacy Policy.

Make sure that you read Conditions 2 and 12 below which set out the limits on our liability to you that apply to your use of the Service.

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 amend these terms from time to time. We will give you written notice of any changes: if you do not agree to the revised Conditions, you must stop using our Website and the Service. Every time you wish to use our Website, please check these terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time. We recommend that you print off and keep a copy of these Conditions for reference purposes.

THE SERVICE

1. The Service allows Members to manage their own recruitment of a personal assistant/carer or their employment or engagement as a personal assistant/carer interactively. The Service that PA Pool provides is not an employment agency or employment business.
2. In these Conditions, a Member who registers to use the Service to recruit and employ a PA is referred to as a PA User and a Member who uses the Website to find employment or engagement as a PA is referred to as a PA.
3. Each Member agrees that PA Pool is not involved in matching or recommending Members to other Members; nor does PA Pool give any assurances about the availability or suitability of any other Member to meet their requirements. Members agree that the Website and the Service it provides is just a forum for Members to interact so that they can communicate with a view to finding suitable PA Users or PA roles (as relevant).
4. While PA Pool tries to ensure the availability of the Service, like all website based services we cannot guarantee that the Service will always be available and that its use will be uninterrupted or error free. We may suspend or withdraw access to the Service may be suspended temporarily without notice in the case of system failure, for maintenance or repair or for other reasons beyond our control.
5. PA Pool also provides social media and digital marketing services (for example, via a Facebook Group, Twitter and email newsletters). These provide information, advice, idea and offers to Members: they are not intended as forums for job searches or recruitment and we would ask Members to respect this. Our social media administrators will remove any posts which they deem to include job searches or recruitment requests.
6. If you opt in to receiving any newsletters or other communications when you register to become a Member, you can unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe button in our emails changing your preferences in your 'My Settings' menu, or by emailing us at admin@papool.co.uk.

DISCLAIMER

1. A listing of a person on our Website does not mean that we give any assurances about the suitability of a PA User or the PA. We do not accept any responsibility or liability whatsoever for:
   1. the quality, suitability or timeliness of the PA's work; or
   2. the terms of employment or engagement of the PA User and the tax implications and any tax or similar amounts payable (eg NICs) as a result.
   It is your responsibility to ensure that the PA User or PA, their terms and conditions of employment or engagement and the outcome of their work are appropriate and meet your requirements.
2. Members understand that we are not involved in matching up Members. PA Pool has no obligation to provide a Member with any interaction with other Members and cannot give any guarantee as to the suitability of any interactions between Members themselves. Our only responsibility is to provide the facility for Members to communicate with each other through the Website.
3. We do not monitor the communications between Members. We would only be involved in communications between the parties if there was a complaint, a criminal investigation or if we believed that there was a breach of these Conditions and/or the Acceptable Use rules set out in Condition 12. In these circumstances, emails would be accessed by our web developer company, One Smart Space.

MEMBERSHIP AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1. PAs and PA Users who register to use our Website as a member for free, can complete a personal profile (the Profile) and can use the search facility. However, PA Users cannot use the contact facility without a subscription to the paid part of the Service (see Condition 10 and 4.2) below. Standard PA's can receive and read messages but cannot send messages, access calendars and full ratings without a subscription to either Prime PA or Premium PA pursuant to clause 6.
2. To be eligible to register an account on our Website, you must be at least 18 years old and be resident or situated in the United Kingdom. If you are not, 18 years old, your parents or guardians must complete your registration, agree to our Conditions and manage your account on your behalf. We recommend that you look through these Conditions with them before registering. You may not create more than one account.
3. If you are unable to create an account yourself, a representative authorised by you, can set up an account on your behalf. If they do this, they will need to indicate in the Profile Section 2 > About Me > Extra Information that they are acting on your behalf.
4. If you register as a Member you agree that you are solely responsible for checking that candidates for a vacancy that you are advertising are suitable (if you are a PA User) or that a job you are applying for meets your requirements (if you are a PA).
5. Membership is personal to you and you may not transfer to any other person, without our prior written consent.
6. As long as you log onto the Website regularly, your Profile will be shown near the top of the search results as the Service shows results by reference to the most recent login information.
7. We recommend that you undertake a rigorous face to face interviews with candidates for a role, verify previous employment details and qualifications, take up character and work references, undertake a Disclosure and Barring Service check and other actions that a prudent person would consider necessary to confirm the integrity of a candidate or the person you are applying to for a job. You also agree that age, gender or ethnicity data or any other such information provided by an applicant will not be used in any employment or engagement related decision you make. We accept no responsibility or liability for the employment or engagement of any Member or other person via our Website or the Service.

USE OF THE WEBSITE BY PA USERS

1. If you register to use the Service as a PA User, with Standard membership you will be able to:
   1. complete your Profile to tell PAs what you are looking for;
   2. activate your profile status to tell PAs when you are looking to employ and update your status if you are no longer looking;
   3. give and receive full recommendations relating to PAs you have worked with;
   4. use the search facility to search PAs who have registered as members with this Website and save searches to reflect your needs;
   5. view Profiles of PAs who have registered with the Website; and
   6. shortlist potential PAs.
   7. create your shift calendar and view shift calendars of PAs
   Full details of all the benefits and features available to Standard PA User Members (including the ability to communicate with other Members) are set out at https://papool.co.uk/auth/register/user. However, to contact a PA, a Standard PA User will need to subscribe to the paid part of the Service.
2. If as a Standard PA User you wish to contact one or more PAs or read messages received from a PA you will need to subscribe to use the paid feature which allows you use the email facility which is part of the paid part of the Service. Standard PA Users can subscribe to the paid part of the Service for periods of 3 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or 1 year. Details of the subscription fees for the various periods are set out at https://papool.co.uk/auth/register/user.

USE OF THE WEBSITE AS A PA

1. If you register to use the Service as a PA you will have access to the features described in our Subscription table, depending on which subscription tier you subscribe to: https://papool.co.uk/subscriptions/plans.
2. If you are a PA and wish to have your Profile featured on the 'Emergency PA' page, you will need to subscribe to use this feature (unless you already subscribe to the Premium PA subscription where this feature is included). You can subscribe to the paid PA subscriptions for the time periods described in the PA subscription table https://papool.co.uk/subscriptions/plans.

LEVELS OF SUBSCRIPTION

1. Our current levels of PA subscription are set out in the subscription table https://papool.co.uk/subscriptions/plans. There is only one level of subscription for PA Users. Time periods and fees are set out at https://papool.co.uk/how-it-works#how-pa-pool-works-for-users.
2. When the paid subscription has expired PAs and PA Users will revert to a Standard member and therefore will no longer be able to access the enhanced Website features.
3. If your profile is on the Emergency PA page when your subscription runs out it will be removed from this page. To repost your profile on the Emergency PA page you will need to either re-subscribe to this page or re-subscribe as a Premium PA, see clause 5.2 above.

COMMERCIAL USE AND USE BY AGENCIES

1. Members may not use the Website or the Service for illegal and/or unauthorised purposes, such as collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means, sending unsolicited emails and/or unauthorised framing or linking to our Website. Any such action will be investigated, and appropriate legal action may be taken by us.
2. PA Pool is not intended to cater for agencies and does not, therefore, encourage the use of the Service by agencies. However, if any agency wishes to become a Member, they will only be accepted if registered as a PA User member and have clearly stated in their Profile - Section 2 > About Me > Extra Information - that they are operating on behalf of an agency.
3. Where an agency or other organisation registers as a Member, the person who does this agrees to the Conditions both for themselves and the agency or organisation they represent.

LOGIN DETAILS AND PASSWORDS

1. When you register as a Member, you will be asked to choose a username and password. You must keep your user name and password confidential and let us know in writing as soon as possible if someone else has accessed your account or misused your login details.
2. You are responsible for any activity on our Website arising out of any failure to keep your login details confidential and you may be held liable for any activities using your login details unless you have told us that someone else is using them as soon as you become aware of this.

MEMBER PROFILES

1. You are solely responsible for the information in your Profile, which must be specific and related to your current needs relating to your employment or engagement of a PA (if you are a PA User) or your employment or engagement as a personal assistant/carer (if you are a PA). By using the Service you agree to keep your personal Profile on our Website up to date.
2. All information that you supply as on the Website must be specific, true, accurate, current and not misleading.
3. All Profiles are subject to our approval. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to reject or remove the Profile of a Member at any time if, in our reasonable opinion it fails to conform with applicable laws and regulations, these Conditions, our policies or the public interest. Any profile containing a URL link or personal contact details which is submitted on our Website will be suspended until such information is removed.
4. We may also, at our discretion, change the status of a Profile to show that a Member is no longer looking for work if that person has not used the Services for a period of 6 months or more (calculated by reference to the date on which they first last logged in).
5. Please note that In accordance with our Privacy Policy, we will delete accounts and Profiles of Members who have not logged on to the Service for a period of 24 months. We will email you before we do this and send you two further reminders. If we do not hear from you, within 14 days of the final reminder we will remove your Profile from the Service. We will only retain a copy of any of your personal data if we need to do this for accounting, legal or regulatory purposes.

SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES AND PAYMENT

1. If you want to use the paid features of the Service (the Paid Services) as a PA or PA User, you must pay the subscription fees for the use of the Paid Services during the relevant period. We will then send you an acknowledgement of your order. The contract between you and us for the Paid Services is effective when you receive an order acknowledgement.
2. The fees for the Paid Services will be as set out on our Website from time to time. All amounts stated in these Conditions or on our Website are inclusive of VAT, if applicable.
3. We use Stripe for online subscription transactions. Stripe is a quick and secure way to accept credit card and debit card payments online. Details of the Stripe Terms and Conditions can be found at https://stripe.com/gb/legal. Our Website's integration with Stripe means card payments can be processed via their secure servers. More details about the technical details of Stripe's secure infrastructure can be found at https://stripe.com/docs/security.
4. We reserve the right to change the fees and features for the Paid Services offered from time to time by posting new fees on our Website but will give subscribing members reasonable notice of any changes. Any change will not affect existing subscriptions: any increase in fees will only be effective at the end of the current subscription period.
5. Subscription payments for the use of the Paid Services are non-refundable. If you dispute any payment made to us, you must contact us immediately at admin@papool.co.uk and provide full details of your claim.
6. In the event of termination of your membership for any reason, including but not limited to a breach of these Conditions, you will not be entitled to a refund of any subscription fees.

ACCEPTABLE USE

1. As a Member you agree not to use the Service or our Website in a way that:
   1. is illegal, unlawful, harmful, abusing, threatening or in a way which otherwise harms or interferes with the rights of another person or their use of the Service; or
   2. causes or may cause damage to the Service or our Website or adversely affect other Members or uses of the Website; or
   3. uses or collects data provided by other Members or users in a way that they would object to; or
   4. will transmit or transfer any viruses, trojans, worms or any other malicious programs which may harm or destroy any computer hardware or software or any other equipment.
2. The above list is not intended to be exhaustive. We reserve the right to remove (with or without notice) any content and suspend or terminate (with or without notice) the account of any Member or user of our Website who in our sole judgment is in breach of these Conditions.
3. We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.
4. You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.
5. Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged.
6. You must not use any part of the content on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a license to do so from us or our licensors.
7. If you become aware of any unlawful material or activity on our Website or any material or activity that breaches these Conditions, please let us know as soon as possible by emailing us at admin@papool.co.uk.

LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS OF LIABILITY

1. Nothing in these Conditions, shall exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or for any matter for which liability cannot be excluded or limited as a matter of law.
2. To the extent that our Website and the information and Services on the Website are provided free of charge, we will not be liable for any loss or damage you suffer nor, will we be liable to you for any matters which are beyond our reasonable control.
3. We shall not be liable to you for any loss of profits, loss of business, loss or corruption of data or information or any indirect or consequential loss suffered or incurred by you as a result of you using the Service and/or our Website.
4. Our total liability to you for use of the Service, if you use the Paid Service, will be the total subscription fees you have paid to us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to a claim occurs.

YOUR PERSONAL DATA

1. In these Conditions, Data Protection Legislation means the Data Protection Act 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679) and any national implementing laws and regulations, as amended or updated from time to time, in the UK. The terms defined in the Data Protection Legislation shall have the meanings in this Condition unless the context otherwise requires. The provisions of this Condition 12 and PA Pool's Data Privacy Policy that can be found at https://papool.co.uk/privacy are in addition to, and does not relieve, remove or replace, our obligations under the Data Protection Legislation.
2. We will comply with applicable requirements of the Data Protection Legislation. Your attention is specifically drawn to PA Pool's Data Privacy Policy https://papool.co.uk/privacy, which is incorporated into these Conditions. Our Privacy Policy gives further information about how PA Pool will use your personal data (including any special category data, previously referred to as sensitive personal information).
3. When registering as a Member you do not have to provide any information other than that which is necessary to register as a Member, that is username, password and an email address (which will only be visible to PA Pool's administrator). When completing a Profile, you do not have to provide any information other than that which is necessary to create a Profile, that is first name, last name and postcode address (which will only be visible to PA Pool's administrator). However, if you include more optional data (including data which is special category data/sensitive personal information) in your profile you may find it easier and more effective in finding a suitable PA or PA User who matches your requirements. In addition, if you are a PA completing a Profile, we will require you to verify your identity using a third party Identity Verification Service.
4. We agree that we will only process personal data in order to provide the Services and any additional services (such as the provision of newsletters) if you agree to this in registering to use the Service. We will process your personal data only in accordance with your instructions, except as required by law. In order to provide the Service via our Website, your details may be disclosed to contracted third party suppliers as set out in our Privacy Policy (as updated from time to time). If you do not consent to use of your personal data as necessary to provide the Services via the Website by the third party suppliers as set out in our Privacy Policy, you should stop using our Website and the Services.
5. We agree to ensure that all our personnel who have access to and/or process personal data are obliged to keep it confidential.
6. In order to protect Members' personal data, PA Pool agrees that it has in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data, appropriate to the harm that might result from the unauthorised or unlawful processing or accidental loss, destruction or damage and the nature of the data to be protected, having regard to the state of technological development and the cost of implementing any measures.
7. Where PA Pool transfers personal data outside the European Economic Area as stated in the Privacy Policy, it shall ensure that the following conditions are fulfilled:
   1. that there are appropriate safeguards in place in relation to the transfer;
   2. that you have enforceable rights and effective legal remedies;
   3. that the person processing your personal data on our behalf complies with its obligations under the Data Protection Legislation by providing an adequate level of protection to any personal data that is transferred; and
   4. that the person processing your personal data on our behalf complies with the reasonable instructions notified to it in advance by us with respect to the processing of your personal data.
8. We will notify you without undue delay if we become aware of a data breach which affects your personal data.
9. You have a right to know what personal data we hold about you, and to see how that data is collected, stored, and processed and we will provide you with details of this upon request. We will also delete your personal data on your request or 24 months after you cease to use the Service, unless we are required to keep any such personal data by applicable law and/or for compliance purposes.

TERMINATION OF MEMBERSHIP

1. If you breach these Conditions (as amended from time to time) or we receive any complaint about your conduct or you act in a manner which we reasonably feel to be inappropriate, we may:
   1. send you one or more formal warnings or temporarily suspend your membership (for example, while we investigate any compliant); or
   2. terminate your membership and block your account (for example, if there has been a serious complaint against a member or there is an investigation into a member's conduct, and will keep a record of the relevant email address so that it cannot be re-used).
   3. terminate your membership and delete your account.
2. If we terminate your membership and delete your account, we will still be entitled to retain any of your personal data, that is necessary for us to retain for legal, accounting or regulatory purposes.
3. You may terminate your membership at any time by giving us notice in writing that you wish to terminate your membership to admin@papool.co.uk. Please note that you will not be entitled to any refund.

OTHER IMPORTANT TERMS

1. Any delay or failure by us to enforce any Condition on any occasion, will not affect or limit our ability to do so on another occasion.
2. Each of these Conditions operates separately. If any court or other relevant authority decides that any of them are unlawful, the remaining Conditions will continue in full force and effect.
3. These Conditions, together with our subscription table https://papool.co.uk/subscriptions/plans and our Privacy Policy https://papool.co.uk/privacy for the entire agreement between you and us in relation to your use of our Website and the Services (including Paid Services) and override any previous terms.
4. These Conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction.

OUR CONTACT DETAILS

1. If you want to contact us about the Website or the Services you can contact us by email to admin@papool.co.uk or any other email address published on our Website for this purpose or by writing to us at our registered office at 3 Pilkington Manor, High Street, Berkhamsted, Herts, HP4 2BY.

Dated: 20^th December 2023.