Governance Toolkit — Fair-Use Policy

1.Purpose

The Governance Toolkit is provided free of charge by RDT Systems Limited (trading as Choice Voting) to support governance administration in UK schools, academy trusts, and educational organisations.

This Fair-Use Policy exists to ensure the Toolkit remains available, performant, and sustainable for all users. It sets out the boundaries of acceptable use so that no individual user or organisation compromises the service for others.

2.Who this policy applies to

This policy applies to all users of the Governance Toolkit, whether accessing it through an individual account or as part of a multi-academy trust or other group.

3.Intended use

The Toolkit is designed for governance administration in educational settings. Intended use includes:

• Managing governance records for one school or one trust
• Tracking governor skills, terms of office, training, attendance, and compliance
• Recording and managing meeting minutes and agendas
• Running DBS and safeguarding compliance checks for governors
• Generating welcome packs, visit reports, and board self-evaluations
• Using the election checklist and quorum calculator for governance elections

4.Fair-use expectations

We expect usage to remain within reasonable boundaries for a school or trust governance function. As a general guide:

• Accounts: One account per school, or one account per trust where a trust-level view is appropriate. Creating multiple accounts for the same school or trust to circumvent any limits is not permitted.
• Data volume: The Toolkit is designed for governance data. This typically means records for up to 20 governors per school, plus associated meeting, training, and compliance records. We do not impose a hard data cap, but usage that is significantly out of proportion with normal governance administration may be reviewed.
• Automated access: The Toolkit is designed for interactive use by governance professionals. Automated scraping, data harvesting, bot access, or programmatic use of the Toolkit (including through APIs not provided by us) is not permitted.
• Commercial use: The Toolkit is for direct governance administration by schools and trusts. Using the Toolkit to provide a commercial service to third parties, or reselling access, is not permitted.
• Storage: Uploaded files (if applicable) should be governance-related documents only. The Toolkit is not a general-purpose file storage service.

5.Multi-academy trusts

Multi-academy trusts (MATs) are welcome to use the Toolkit for governance across their schools. We recognise that a MAT with 30 schools will naturally use more of the service than a single maintained school, and our fair-use expectations account for this.

If you are a large MAT (more than 50 schools) and are unsure whether your intended usage falls within fair use, please contact us at [email protected] before onboarding. We are happy to discuss your needs.

6.What happens if usage exceeds fair use

We take a proportionate approach. If we believe usage has exceeded fair use, we will:

• Contact you by email to discuss the usage and understand the context
• Give you a reasonable period (at least 14 days) to bring usage within fair-use expectations
• Work with you to find a solution, which may include a tailored arrangement for larger organisations

We will not suspend or terminate an account for exceeding fair use without first contacting you and giving you an opportunity to respond. Immediate suspension without notice is reserved for cases of clear abuse, such as automated scraping or malicious activity.

7.Abuse

The following activities are considered abuse and may result in immediate suspension:

• Automated scraping or data harvesting
• Attempting to access another organisation's data
• Using the Toolkit to store or distribute malicious content
• Deliberately attempting to overload or disrupt the service
• Creating accounts using false information for purposes other than governance administration

8.Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you via the email address on your account. The current version of this policy is always available on the Governance Toolkit website.

9.Contact

If you have questions about this policy or are unsure whether your intended use falls within fair use, contact us at [email protected].