Crisis payments privacy notice

The London Borough of Waltham Forest Benefits department is part of the Revenues and Benefits Service. They are responsible for processing and paying Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support, Housing Payments, Free School Meals and Crisis Payments under the Crisis and Resilience Fund.  They also deal with recovering overpayments of Housing Benefit

Address:

Revenues and Benefits Service
London Borough of Waltham Forest
PO Box 856
London
E17 9PN

This privacy notice only relates to Crisis Payments.

In order to decide whether to make a crisis payment and, if so, the amount of that payment, we collect information about you, your partner, your children and other adults who live in your household.

We may collect and process the following personal information:

Personal details

• name
• date of birth
• address
• telephone number
• email address

The Council operates the Crisis and Resilience Fund to provide assistance to people who are experiencing, or are at risk of entering, financial crisis or who are experiencing a financial shock. We process information where this is necessary to administer the scheme, assess applications, make decisions about support and meet related statutory, audit, fraud prevention and welfare administration responsibilities.

We use your personal information to:

• assess your eligibility for a Crisis Payment
• verify the information you provide
• determine the level of support to be awarded
• prevent fraud, error and duplicate applications
• make payments or arrange support
• safeguard vulnerable residents
• monitor demand for the scheme
• undertake audits and quality assurance
• report management information to the DWP as required by the Fund

We may use the information for the following reasons:

• to find out if you are liable, if appropriate, for Council Tax at your address.

The information held by the council as part of your Crisis Payment application can be shared with and used by other council services to:

• tell you about help and assistance which may be available from other parts of the Council
• help decide whether you qualify for help 
• help identify and support people who are at risk of becoming homeless

The lawful basis for processing under Article 6 UK GDPR is that it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Council. We do not rely on consent for the core administration of Crisis Payments. Where any optional calculator or analytics tool is used, the privacy information for that tool should explain what information is collected, whether use is optional and the lawful basis relied on. The legal gateways for sharing and using benefits administrative data may include the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and the Social Security (Information-sharing in relation to Welfare Services etc.) Regulations 2012. These provisions allow local authorities to hold, use and, where appropriate, share benefits administrative data for specific purposes set out in the legislation, such as council tax reduction, welfare services and preventing homelessness.

Other legal gateways for sharing and using data are as follows:

• Section 72 of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 and the Social Security (Claims and Information) Regulations 1999 allow local authorities to use benefits data to support people into work or training
• Paragraph 18 of Schedule 2 to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 allows local authorities to use data collected under other legislation to fulfil their responsibilities to set and collect council tax
• Local authorities also have a general power of competence under Section 1 of the Localism Act 2011

Under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, we must have a lawful basis for collecting and using personal information. Article 6 UK GDPR sets out the lawful bases for processing personal information, and the Data Protection Act 2018 provides supplementary provisions, including conditions for some types of sensitive information.

The lawful basis on which we rely in order to use the information which we collect about you for the purposes set out in this notice is:

Article 6 UK GDPR

• Article 6(1)(e): processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Council.

Special Category Information

Where we process information relating to health, disability, ethnicity or other special category data, we rely on one or more of the following, where applicable:

• Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR: processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, together with an appropriate condition in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018; and/or
•  Article 9(2)(b) UK GDPR: processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out obligations or exercising specific rights in the field of social security or social protection law, where this applies.

Where we rely on a substantial public interest condition, this will be supported by the relevant condition in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Council’s appropriate policy document, where required.

For more details on the Lawful Basis, see the ICO guidance.  

 

We will only share personal information where there is a lawful basis to do so.

Your information may be shared with:

• the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
• other departments within the Council
• government departments
• housing providers
• fraud prevention and audit bodies
• social care services;
• voluntary and community organisations delivering support on behalf of the Council;
• external auditors and regulators.
• some information sharing may take place under statutory powers that permit the disclosure and certain information for welfare administration purposes, including relevant provisions of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999.

We will not keep your information longer than is necessary. We will retain your information for six years after the last decision on your claim or, if later, the date the last award was made. If a claim has an outstanding overpayment, we will retain your information for six years after full repayment of the overpayment.

Our Data Protection Officer

Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes. You can contact him by email at data.protectionofficer@walthamforest.gov.uk

Protecting your information

Read the how we use and protect your personal data section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Your information choice and rights

Read the your rights to your personal data section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Complaints and contact details

These are included in the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Information Commissioner’s Office

If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)