Council Tax Support and Housing Benefit

Why we need your information and how we use it

The information we collect and the information we receive from the Department for Work and Pensions is required for the calculation of entitlement to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support.

We will use the information in order to administer Housing Benefit under the Housing Benefits Regulations 2006, and other supporting regulations, and to administer Council Tax support under Section 13A and Schedule 1a of the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

We sometimes need information about people other than the person who has applied for benefit to enable us to work out how much Housing Benefit, and in some cases Council Tax Support, is payable, for example income details of other adults who live in the same household.

The categories of information that we collect, process, hold and share include:

• personal information (such as name, addresses, dates of birth, national insurance numbers for you and certain persons in your household)
• personal circumstances (such as relationships with others in the household, disabilities, certain medical details, whether you or any members of your household are a carer or being cared for, whether you or any members of your household are students, or persons from abroad)
• financial information (such as all income and capital details, whether you receive any maintenance, grants, loans or benefits)
• housing details (such as the type of accommodation you live in, rent paid, landlord details and whether your rent is up to date) and
• contact details (such as telephone numbers, email addresses to be able to contact you in relation to your claim)

How long will we keep your information for?

Your information is retained in accordance with the Council’s retention and disposal schedule.  We will not keep your information for longer than is necessary and in most cases this means we will remove data which is older than 6 years.

Who your information may be shared with?

Information may be shared with other departments within the council who have a legal basis for accessing the information.  For example the Regulation 6 of the Council Tax (administration and enforcement) regulations 1992 allows the use of any information obtained by the authority to carry out functions relating to the collection and enforcement of Council Tax.

By law we must give out some information if we are asked to – for example by the Department for Work and Pensions or His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

We will also share information with the National Fraud Initiative for the purposes of preventing or detecting fraud.  This information will be provided to the cabinet office and cross matched with information provided by other authorities.

We will also use the information for the purposes of performing any of statutory enforcement duties.  We will make any disclosures required by law and may also share information with other bodies responsible for detecting and preventing fraud or auditing and administering public funds.

If you get Housing Benefit paid direct to a landlord we will provide them with details of payment dates and amounts that will be paid to them.  If you are a private tenant we will usually have to provide details of the rent you pay to the Valuation Office Agency.

How we process your information

Information provided using our on-line forms may be subject to automated processing. The information you provide is not transferred overseas.