Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) Alternative Funding privacy notice

This Privacy Notice should be read in conjunction with Colchester City Council’s Privacy Policy.

Please note this service has now ceased. We will only keep your personal data for as long as required to support the delivery, evaluation and scrutiny of the service.  This data will be securely deleted no later than 7 years after collection in line with our retention schedule. 

This Privacy Notice concerns the processing of personal collected for the ‘Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding’ scheme (EBSS). The EBSS Alternative Funding scheme is for households who did not receive the original EBSS payment automatically, such as those without their own electricity supply or those without a direct relationship with the electricity supplier.

Applications are jointly administered by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Colchester City Council. Find further details on the scheme.

Information collected

BEIS is responsible for the initial application stages of the scheme. This will include running a centralised eligibility checker and application process and conducting initial eligibility checks. BEIS will then share approved applications with Colchester City Council.

• The following information will be collected:
• Personal details such as name, address, date of birth, telephone number and email address (and your agent where you nominate someone else to complete this application on your behalf)
• Bank account details to identify and to facilitate payment
• Document uploaded as proof of address

We will use your personal data in order to:

• Confirm your identity
• Facilitate payment
• Prevent, detect and investigate errors and fraud.

Agencies we might share your information with

Information about your application may be shared with other Colchester City Council service areas and Essex County Council for the prevention and detection of fraud.

We will also share your personal data with BEIS during the processing of your application. The sharing of the data between local authorities and BEIS is for the purpose of administration, delivery, reporting, monitoring, evaluation and fraud prevention necessary within the scheme. BEIS may contact you for research purposes regarding the grant. The Government may share your information for the purposes of counter fraud activity and debt recovery with other government departments, agencies and/or local authorities.

The purpose and lawful basis for processing

The lawful basis for the processing of your personal data is on the bases of legal obligation and that it is necessary for the performance of a public task.

Colchester City Council requires the above information in order to process your application. We only request the minimum amount of information and ensure that is it stored securely.

Length of time we keep your information

We will only keep your personal data for as long as required to support the delivery, evaluation and scrutiny of the service. This data will be securely deleted no later than 7 years after collection in line with our retention schedule.

How we protect and store your personal data

We take the confidentiality of personal information very seriously and use recognised security and access controls to protect your information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or corruption. We have procedures and processes in place to ensure that your personal information is managed appropriately.

Your information may be held outside of the UK. Where this is the case, we ensure that additional measures are in place to protect your data and to ensure that we continue to comply with data protection requirements.

Updates to this privacy notice

We will continually review and update this privacy notice to reflect changes in our processes and procedures, as well as to comply with changes in the law. When such changes occur, we will revise the 'last updated' date on this notice. We encourage you to periodically review this notice and to be informed of how we are protecting your information.