Debt and benefit privacy notice

This privacy notice is designed to help you understand how we use personal information when delivering our Welfare Services including Debt Advice, Benefit Advice, Employment Support, Housing Support, Digital Support, support in Emergencies and financial assistance. It includes the services covered, the information we will use to deliver the services, who we will share it with, and how long we will keep it.

What personal information do we hold?

We use personal information for everyone who lives in the household (including partners, children and other adults who live with the family). The personal information we use includes

name
address
telephone number
email
date of birth
family information
National Insurance number.

We also use the following special category personal information:

race
health
financial information.

We also use information about criminal convictions and offences as we need to know if the claimant has been found guilty of fraud, or admitted fraud after a caution, or agreed to pay an administrative penalty when working out the maximum weekly deductions from Housing Benefit because of an overpayment.

We get most of this information from you, but in certain circumstances we may receive some of the information from:-

Central Government Agencies
Other Local Authorities
Health and social care provider
Police and probation services
Members of the public (referrer)
Commissioned partners
Family members
Housing Teams
Landlords
Food Banks
GP Wellbeing Service

How do we use your personal information?

We use your personal data for the following reasons:

Working out and awarding your Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support, Discretionary Housing Payment, and Discretionary Council Tax Payment, Discretionary Support Funds.
working out Council Tax liability, discounts and exemptions;
to meet our obligations under housing legislation, for example licensing private rented properties;
undertaking checks where a child is missing education;
collecting debts owed to us;
for crime prevention or detection of fraud, including the use of data-matching initiatives designed to protect public funds;
to ensure safe systems of work for staff visiting / meeting with customers in their homes / at the Customer Service Centre;
to monitor our performance and prepare statistics;
for consultation purposes, in connection with the administration of Council Tax and Benefits (as required under Schedule 1A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992.)
in accordance with law enforcement purposes, as set out in Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 ('the 2018 Act').

Who we share your information with?

Your personal data is shared securely where it is both necessary and appropriate to do so. We share your personal data with the following:

The claimant (you);
Where we have permission to share information, the family, associates or representatives of the person whose personal data we are processing;
healthcare, social and welfare organisations;
debt collection and tracing agencies;
ombudsman and regulatory authorities;
courts and tribunals;
housing associations and landlords;
voluntary and charitable organisations;
data processors;
regulatory bodies;
local and central government;
law enforcement and prosecuting authorities

We also use data processors to support activities, for example by providing the systems we need or delivering services on our behalf.

These include:

CapitaPay 360 for taking payments
Gov.UK Notify to contact you about a service
Qwest services to handle your enquiry, log your call when you contact our contact centre
Firmstep our case management system for logging your contact with us when you contact our contact centre
Ascendant Solutions Limited
Transunion

Who is the Data Controller for this processing?

Cheshire West and Chester Council

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with fraud prevention agencies who will use it to prevent fraud and money-laundering and also in some circumstances to verify your identity. If fraud is detected, you could be refused certain services, finance, or employment.

What is the legal basis for our use of your personal information?

The information below shows the legal basis we are relying on to use your personal or special category (sensitive) personal information. You can see a list of the full legal conditions that the Council may rely on by reviewing the information in our privacy policy.

When we deliver a service to you that is in the public interest, is part of our public functions and powers that are set out in law, or we are legally required to do so, the legislation we rely on can be accessed by reviewing the information in the legislation section on the Cheshire West and Chester website.

Personal information

When you access our service, the legal basis we rely on for using your personal information to exercise our tasks in the public interest

Special category (sensitive) personal information

Our legal basis for using your special category information are for reasons of substantial public interest, and to analyse or archive your information to comply with UK legislation

When we rely on reasons of substantial public interest, we do so in order to

meet a statutory obligation,
to ensure the equality of opportunity or treatment,
to prevent or detect unlawful acts,
to prevent fraud
to support individuals with a particular disability or medical condition

The legislation we rely on when using your personal information to meet our legal obligations or public tasks includes but is not limited to:

Welfare Reform Act 2012
Social Security Admin Act 1992
Housing Benefit Regulations 2006
Council Tax Reduction Regulations 2012
Local Government Finance Act 1992

Will my personal information be accessible outside the UK?

In order to safeguard your personal information and ensure you have the same rights as you would if your personal information was processed in the UK the following safeguards are in place

Your information is securely stored on servers within the UK

How long will we keep your personal information?

We will only use your personal information whilst delivering the service to you and to deal with any questions or complaints that we may receive about this unless the law requires us to keep it for a longer period. In practice, this means that your personal information may be retained for the relevant period listed below dependant on our involvement with you:

7 years from the date we stopped providing the service to you

If we need to use your information for research or reports, your information will be anonymised and any information taken from notes (hand written or typed) during any consultation sessions will be securely destroyed. The information will continue to be used in a summarised and anonymised form in any research reports or papers that are published. The anonymised information in the papers may be of historic interest and may be held in public archives indefinitely

Your rights

The UK GDPR provides you with a several rights to control what personal information is used by us and how it is used by us.

Further guidance about these rights can be accessed from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website

If you are not happy about the way your personal data is being used, or you require further information about how we process your personal data, you can contact Council’s Data Protection Team:-

Online: Contact the DPO
By post: Data Protection Officer, The Portal, Wellington Road, Ellesmere Port, CH65 0BA
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office using the following details:
Website: Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
Instant Message: Live Chat
By post: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113