Data Protection privacy notice - Housing benefit/council tax support and discretionary awards - Privacy policy

Braintree District Council is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This notice is provided
to clarify what information the council needs for the purpose of assessing and processing your claim for
Housing Benefit or Council Tax support (or both) and discretionary awards. It is necessary for the council
to gather, collect, store and process personal information relating to individuals to assess the eligibility of
your claim. We will only collect the personal data from you we need in order to provide this service to you.
The council puts measures in place to protect the privacy of individuals throughout this process.
For the purposes of data protection, Braintree District Council is the data controller for the personal
information you provide. All personal information is held and processed by Braintree District Council in
accordance with Data Protection legislation.

The council will process some or all of the following personal data where necessary to assess and
process your claim and to perform its tasks:
Names, aliases, photographs.
Contact details such as telephone numbers, addresses and email addresses.
Gender, age, marital status, nationality, immigration status, current employment status, national
insurance number, family composition and dependants.
Financial information relating to income, benefits, savings, investments and financial identifiers
such as bank account numbers including those of your partner or persons living with you.
Other relevant information needed to assess your situation, such as your landlord details.
The personal data we process will include sensitive or other special categories of personal data
such as mental and physical health, medication/treatment received.

The lawful bases for processing your personal data are as follows:
Compliance with legal obligations – information is required by the council in line with the Local
Government Finance Act 1992, Housing Benefits Regulations 2006 and the Council Tax
Reduction Schemes (Default Scheme)(England Regulations 2012).
Public Task - personal information is required to fulfil our functions as a local authority to provide
you with Housing Benefit advice and support/Council Tax advice and support.
Where you have provided your explicit consent to allow us to process your personal data

It is important that we hold accurate and up to date information about you in order to assess your needs
and deliver appropriate services. If any of your details change please tell us as soon as possible so that
we can update your records. It is an offence to give false statements, withhold any information or fail to
disclose any changes in circumstances.
We will not make any decisions about you based on automated processing or send/store your data abroad.

To assess and process your claim for Housing Benefit or Council Tax support (or both), we may get
information from third parties or be required to share your personal information with other departments
within the Council, other local authorities, police, NHS, landlords, voluntary services or organisations
which provide you with help or support, government departments such as the Department for Work and
Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. We will check some of the information you have
provided with third parties to ensure the information you have provided is accurate.
DATA PROTECTION
PRIVACY NOTICE -
HOUSING BENEFIT/COUNCIL TAX SUPPORT
AND DISCRETIONARY AWARDS
Where we need to disclose sensitive information such as medical details to a third party, we will do so
once we have obtained your explicit consent, or where we are legally required to. We may disclose
information when necessary to prevent risk of harm to an individual.
We may also share information with bodies that are responsible for auditing or administering public
funds, including the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office requires councils to participate in data matching
exercises to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud.
We will not disclose any information to other organisations unless we have a legal duty to release
information for the purposes of preventing and detecting fraud or crime.
If you fall behind with your rent or council tax payments our housing or council tax staff may need to
read your application so that they can help you.

For further details on how we maintain the security of your information, your rights to access the
information we hold on you, including correcting or removing your information, please refer to our
‘Privacy’ page on our website which can be found at www.braintree.gov.uk/privacy. Alternatively you
can contact our Data Protection Officer, Ian Hunt on 01376 552525 or email DPO@braintree.gov.uk.
You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) if you are
unhappy with the way in which we have processed your personal information. Further details can be
found on our ‘Privacy’ page on our website at www.braintree.gov.uk/privacy.

The council will only retain your data for as long as necessary. We will retain your information for a
period of seven years after all action on your claim has finished. After this time, your information will
be securely destroyed. Full details of how long the Council retains information for can be found in our
retention policy published on our website.