Housing Benefit and Local Council Tax Support privacy notice

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

Information collected

• Name (also name of partner and children, if applicable)
• Date of birth (also date of birth of partner & children, if applicable)
• Nationality
• Income details (wages, self-employed income/expenditure, state benefits, other non-earned income) for customer, partner and non-dependents, as applicable
• Savings details for customer, partner and non-dependents, as applicable
• Address (including date took up/ended residence)
• Email address
• Telephone number (landline/mobile)
• Information on customer’s student status
• Name of customer’s landlord (if claiming Housing Benefit)
• Customer’s rent account reference (if a CBC tenant)
• Customer’s rent (if claiming Housing Benefit)
• Housing Benefit entitlement (if claiming Housing Benefit)
• Council Tax liability (including Council Tax account reference, if claiming Council Tax Support)
• Council Tax Support entitlement (if claiming Council Tax Support)
• Reason claim rejected (if circumstances obviously prevent entitlement)
• Amount of any outstanding Housing Benefit overpayment

Agencies we might share your information with

• Department for Work & Pensions (including Pensions Service)
• His Majesty's Revenues & Customs
• Police
• Valuation Office Agency (for rent officer referrals)
• Transunion (for scoring new claims under Risk Based Verification). For further details about Transunion and the information it holds for go to Call Credit.
• Vigilant (Essex County Council)
• Other Local Authorities (we can be contacted by any local authority in the country to recover an overpayment on their behalf or to talk about a claim)
• National Fraud Initiative run by the Cabinet Office
• National Health Service Fraud
• MHCLH (Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government)
• Collection Agents
• Other CBC Departments including Revenues, Overpayment recovery, Elections, Planning, ICT, Colchester Borough Homes, Private Sector Housing, Housing Options and Environmental Health
• Landlords (we might need to contact your landlord to confirm your tenancy details, rental charge or rent arrears)

The purpose and lawful basis for processing

The lawful basis for the processing of your personal data is legal obligation.

Colchester City Council requires the above details to be able to administer the Housing Benefit scheme under regulations brought into being by Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. Your information is stored securely in Capita Revenues and Benefits, our preferred IT Revenues and Benefits software management system.

Length of time we keep your information

We have records relating to housing benefit and local council tax support dating back to 01/01/1991 and we keep these records for 40 years from the date a claim is closed. However, you do have the right to contact us and ask for your information to be removed where there is no obligation or statutory requirement for it to be kept. You can exercise this right by contacting benefits@colchester.gov.uk.

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 reviewed" date on this notice. We encourage you to periodically review this notice and to be informed of how we are protecting your information.