Benefits privacy notice

The Council, in its capacity of Data Controller, holds certain information about you [''personal data''] which it needs to process for the purpose of providing the following service of administering decisions about:

• Housing Benefit
• Council Tax Support
• Council Tax Benefit
• Discretionary Housing Payment
• Winter Grant Payments
• Test and Trace Applications
• The Discretionary Council Tax Rebate 2022/23.

This Notice is designed to give you information about the personal data we hold about you, how we will use it, your rights in relation to it and the safeguards that are in place to protect it.

Further information can be found at Brent corporate privacy policy

The types of data we hold, and process will typically include:

• Your name and the names of all other residents of your address, and the relationships of the other occupants to you. This includes children.
• Your address.
• Your gender and that of other residents of your address.
• The dates of birth for you and other residents in your address.
• The relationships between the residents at your address.
• The National Insurance Number of you, your partner (if any) and sometimes other residents of your address.
• Details and evidence of your income, and the income of other residents of your address.
• Details and evidence of your capital, and the capital of other residents of your address.
• Details and evidence of your rent and the rent of other members of your address.
• Details and evidence of rental deposit.
• Details of the applicant's Council Tax liability.
• Other information which is relevant to your claim(s).
• Contact information including telephone numbers and email addresses.
• Details of the applicant for Housing Benefit and/or Discretionary Housing Payments’ landlord.
• Sometimes we hold information on marital status, ethnicity, nationality, and health/ personal circumstances (including COVID19 infection or if you are a close contact of an infected person).
• Sometimes wage slips supplied to us contain details of Trades Union membership.
• Records of visits to the benefits hubs/office.
• We will hold information on your landlord, this will or may include their name, address, bank account details and contact details.
• If you have an appointee or deputy, then we will hold details of them.
• We hold many income details but for the COVID19 Winter Grant claims we hold Child Benefit details.
• We may hold details of Nationality, Immigration Status, and entry into the United Kingdom.
• We may hold details of absence from the United Kingdom including countries visited, the period of absence, and the reason for absence.
• We may hold details of absence from home including absence abroad, absence in hospital or nursing/care/residential homes, and absence abroad.
• We may hold details of student status.

We obtain some of this data directly from you and we may also obtain it from other sources.

Other sources of data typically include:

• Your landlord.
• The Department of Work and Pensions. Contact: your Jobcentre Plus Office or DWP Request for Personal Information.
• HM Revenue and Customs. Contact: Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Contact: advice.dpa@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk or write to The Data Protection Officer, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, 10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London, E14 4PU.
• HM Land Registry. Contact: dataprotection@landregistory.gov.uk or Trafalgar House, 1 Bedford Park, Croydon, CR0 2AQ
• Your appointee or representative.
• Citizens Advice give us very limited Information on Universal Credit applicants who they have assisted with budgeting or digital support.
• The NHS test and trace data system to administer support payments resulting from the COVID19 pandemic.
• The Insolvency Service, and Financial Conduct Authority registered debt advice providers, in accordance with Breathing Space Regulations and other debt relief schemes.
• We might hold data in respect of Breathing Space debt applications.

To process applications for:

• Housing Benefit
• Council Tax Support
• Discretionary Housing Payment
• Previously processed applications for Winter Grant Payments
• Test and Trace Applications
• The Discretionary Council Tax Rebate 2022/23
• Council Tax Benefit
• To change awards of Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support and Discretionary Housing Payment.
• To recover overpaid Housing Benefit and Discretionary Housing Payment.

If we intend to process your personal data for a purpose other than that for which the personal data was collected, we shall provide you details of that other purpose before we start processing your data.

One or more of the following bases can apply:

• We have obtained your freely given and specific consent and have informed you that you have the right to withdraw it at any time.
• We need it to perform a contract between the Council and yourself.
• We need it to comply with a legal obligation.
• We need to protect the vital interests of a person.
• We need it to perform a task in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority.
• We feel it is necessary for purposes of legitimate interests pursued either by us or a third party.

We will only process your sensitive personal data with your consent, unless we can lawfully process it for another reason permitted by law.

We will notify you if it is sensitive and as with non-sensitive personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent to processing at any time by letting us know.

Sensitive data is data revealing:

• racial or ethnic origin
• political opinions
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• trade-union membership
• genetic and biometric data
• data concerning health
• data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.

We will only keep your personal data for as long as we need to in order to fulfil the purpose[s] for which it is collected and for so long afterwards as we consider it may be required to deal with any questions or complaints about the service which we provide to you, unless we elect to retain your data for a longer period in order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Test data

We may hold some of your data in test computer systems. The purpose of these systems is to test that proposed changes to our computer systems are accurate, and to model proposed changes.

We use a company NEC on a resilience contract bases to process some data, such as change in circumstances.

The company NEC Software Solutions that provide a computer system to us, sometimes their technical staff may need to view your data.

• We share information with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) including data-matching and the Single Fraud Investigation Service. The DWP have a legal right to this data.
• We may share your data with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
• We share information with Judicial bodies including HMCTS and the Valuation Tribunal.
• We share limited data with the landlords of claimants. Some of this is done via the Landlord Portal. The landlord portal contains information for landlords to correctly allocate payments of Housing Benefit, and for the landlord to receive limited information regarding awards of Housing Benefit as required by law.
• We sometimes share information with appointees and representatives.
• We may share information with other Councils as permitted by law, or with your permission.
• External auditors.
• Decision notices are printed by an external printing company DSI
• The Royal Mail delivers post for our service.
• We may make a referral to Citizens Advice where a Universal Claimant needs assistance with budgeting or digital support.
• The Rent Service.
• It may be shared with The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
• It may be shared with the Cabinet Office in respect of the National Fraud Initiative.
• The Insolvency Service, and Financial Conduct Authority registered debt advice providers, in accordance with Breathing Space Regulations and other debt relief schemes.
• Sometimes we share data with the Home Office or Police Officers.
• Your Member of Parliament if they make an enquiry on your behalf.

We may share some of your data with other services within the London Borough of Brent. Common examples include:

• Council Tax & Debt Recovery
• Housing & Neighbourhoods
• Housing Management Property
• Housing Needs
• Adult Social Care
• Client Financial Affairs
• Complaints and Members Enquiries Team
• Elected Councillors and Members of Parliament who make an enquiry on your behalf
• Internal Audit
• Counter Fraud
• The Troubles Families & School Admissions Team
• Planning and Development Team
• Transformation Team
• The Anti-Social Behaviour, Nuisance and Crime Team
• ICT/Systems Team
• Integrated Care Partnership Team
• Regeneration & Environment Team

Each of these services (where required) has a privacy notice detailing the legal basis on which they process the data.

• The Business Improvement Delivery (BID) team. This BID team works across departments and teams with the aim of removing red tape to simplify how we work, putting our residents at the heart of everything we do, recognising what residents value about our services and focusing on getting things right first time.
• For the administration of emergency food parcels.
• The Financial Assessment Team (mostly for COVID19 Winter Grant Scheme)

We may share your data with accountants, the team administering complaints and Councillor’s enquiries, some ICT staff, and the team administering Subject Access Request.

You have a right to access and obtain a copy of the personal data that we hold about you and to ask us to correct your personal data if there are any errors or it is out of date. In some circumstances, you may also have a right to ask us to restrict processing of your data until any errors are corrected, to object to processing or to transfer or [in very limited circumstances] erase your personal data. You can obtain further information about these rights from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website or via their telephone helpline: 0303 123 1113.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact The Benefits Team (contact details below). You also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to this Privacy Notice or our processing activities with the Information Commissioner's Office, which you can do through their website or telephone helpline.

We may from time to time ask for further information from you. If you do not provide such information or ask that the personal data we already hold is deleted or restricted, this may affect the service that we provide to you.

Updates

We may update this notice periodically. Where we do this, we will inform you of the changes and the date on which the changes take effect.

Contacting us

Please contact bcspolicysubsidy@brent.gov.uk for further information.

Statutory Data Protection Officer

You may also contact our Data Protection Officer for further information:

London Borough of Brent
Stephen Skeete, Information Governance Lead
Brent Civic Centre
Engineers Way
Wembley Park
Wembley HA9 0FJ

E-mail: DPO@brent.gov.uk