Revenues and benefits privacy notice

The personal information you provide will only be used by Ashfield District Council (the “Data Controller”) in accordance with all applicable data protection and privacy legislation in force from time to time in the UK including the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 (“Data Protection Legislation”). The Council has a lawful basis for collecting, processing, and holding information about you for this purpose to comply with our legal obligation, public task, contract obligations, and with your explicit consent.

Why do we need to collect this data?

Ashfield District Council Revenues and Benefits service collects personal data for the purpose of processing applications for Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction and Discretionary Housing Payments.

We are required to collect this information under this legislation:

• Social Security Administration Act 1992
• Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992
• Housing Benefit Regulations 2006
• Local Government Finance Act 1992
• Local Government Finance Act 2012
• The Fraud Act 2006

In using your data, Ashfield District Council will process, store and delete your data in accordance with this Privacy Notice as well as our main Privacy Notice.

• link: Ashfield District Council main privacy notice

What data will we collect?

Your personal data collected may include:

• your name
• address
• telephone number
• email address
• date of birth
• National Insurance number
• gender
• information and income details of those in your household
• bank accounts, savings, investments and property ownership of those in your household
• rent paid, landlord details of those in your household
• health (physical and mental)
• disability
• vulnerability
• proof of identity
• ethnicity
• safeguarding information
• immigration details of those in your household

How will we use your data?

The Department for Work and Pensions provides the data about you and that is required for the calculation of your Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction claim, an application for a Discretionary Housing Payment award as required by the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and the Welfare Reform Act 2012.

Ashfield District Council use the data in order to administer Housing Benefit under the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 and other associated regulations.

Ashfield District Council use the data in order to administer a Discretionary Housing Payment under the Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations 2001.

Ashfield District Council use the data in order to administer our Council Tax Reduction scheme under S13A and Schedule 1a of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and associated regulations.  

Information provided to the Revenues and Benefits service may also be used to assess liability for Council Tax or to assist in recovery of unpaid Council Tax or Housing Benefit Overpayments.

We may also use information to identify and support people who are at risk of becoming homeless or help families who may benefit from the Councils Housing Options Service.

Cloned live data may be used for testing new systems to verify functionality before transitioning to full use but only where absolutely necessary. Live testing will only be used where testing the validity of data cannot be replicated with test data. All live test data is protected to the same standard as our live data and operational systems to comply with data protection legislation.

Who will we share your personal data with?

Statutory Duties - Ashfield District Council has a number of statutory duties including duties to disclose information to the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenues and Customs.

In addition, the council is required by law to engage with the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) and as such Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction data may be provided to the Cabinet Office for NFI purposes for the prevention and detection of fraud. 

Ashfield District Council will also use the information for the purpose of performing any of our statutory enforcement duties. Where information is shared to a third party the Council will ensure that it is done so in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.

If your Housing Benefit is paid direct to a landlord, we will contact them with your consent to give details about payment dates and amounts to them. This consent can be withdrawn at any time. 

We may also share your data with third parties contracted by Ashfield District Council who provide services directly related to the processing of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction such as providers of IT software and services under specific contracts. Ashfield District Council’s Revenues and Benefits section will only share your data with other departments within the council or externally where there is a legal basis to do so.

Further information

Further information can be found on Ashfield District Council's main privacy notice.

• link: Ashfield District Council main privacy notice

Do you have a complaint?

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled by us, you can raise this with the data controller. In this instance, the data controller is the Data Protection Officer who can be contacted by:

• email: dpo@ashfield.gov.uk

If you remain dissatisfied you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

• address:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF

• telephone: 03031231113
• website: www.ico.org.uk 
• email: casework@ico.org.uk