Council Tax, Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support and Discretionary Awards privacy notice

Our core data protection obligations and commitments are set out in the Council’s primary privacy notice.

This notice provides additional privacy information for:

  • Members of the public

It describes how we collect, use and share personal information about you:

  • in relation to Council Tax and Housing Benefits;
  • the types of personal information we need to process, including information the law describes as ‘special’ because of its sensitivity.

Purpose(s)

We collect, or obtain your personal information for the following purpose(s):

  • To collect council tax under the Local Government Finance Act 1992
  • To take payments for council tax
  • For the purposes of administering and maintaining claims for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and Council Tax Support, Local Welfare assistance and Discretionary awards.
  • To process and grant statutory and discretionary reductions, discounts and reliefs as applicable
  • To process changes in circumstances
  • To protect public funds by detecting and preventing fraud

Categories of personal data

In order to carry out these purposes we collect and obtain:

  • Basic details about you such as name, address, telephone number, email address and date of birth.
  • Household circumstances
  • Bank details
  • Your credit/debit card details for processing payments only
  • Ownership and tenancy details
  • Income and expenditure details
  • Employer details
  • National Insurance number
  • Contact we have had with you, such as any correspondence and complaints
  • Earned income, benefits and allowances
  • Bank accounts
  • Savings
  • Investments
  • Property ownership
  • Rent paid
  • Tenancy agreements
  • Landlord details
  • Immigration details
  • Phone numbers
  • Email addresses and any other information deemed necessary such as statement of accounts for self-employed people

Legal basis for processing

The legal basis for processing your personal information is:

  • You, or your legal representative, have given consent
  • Performing or exercising obligations under law e.g. Local Government Finance Act 1992
  • Housing Benefit under Section 131 (1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and associated Regulations.
  • Council Tax Benefit under Section 139 (1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and associated Regulations
  • Council Tax Support scheme under S13A and schedule 1a of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and associated Regulations
  • Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations 2001 (the DFA regulations)
  • Processing is necessary for compliance with a Legal Obligation (Article 6.1(c) of UK GDPR

Consequences if information is not provided

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to process your requests – for example process refunds, applications for discounts or other reductions that you might be entitled to.

Information sharing / recipients

We may share personal information about you with the following types of organisations:

  • Other departments or teams within the Council in order to provide our services e.g., housing standards and business rates.

  • Third parties when required to do so by law e.g. Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs, Department for Work and Pensions, Police, other local authorities and National Fraud Initiative.

  • Any agencies where you have given consent for them to deal with us on your behalf (e.g. Citizens Advice Bureau).

  • Agencies working on behalf of the council such as enforcement agents.

    We will not normally share your information with organisations other than our partner organisations; however, there may be certain circumstances where we would share without consent such as where we are required to do so by law. In this case only the minimum information for the purpose will be shared.

Automated decisions

The administration of Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support, Council Tax Benefit and Discretionary awards does involve the automated verification of data held against income details provided by DWP.

Trafford residents have the right to query how their assessment has been calculated and ask for the decision to be reviewed by a human. Residents can withdraw their consent to this automated decision making by notifying the Council and requiring human intervention. This may delay their application being processed.

Data retention / criteria

We will only keep your personal information for as long as the law specifies or where the law does not specify this, for the length of time determined by our business requirements. This is usually the current financial year plus six years.

Rights of individuals

Information about:

  • exercising your rights
  • contacting our Data Protection Officer
  • raising a concern with us, or
  • making a complaint to the Information Commissioner is accessible in our guide on exercising your rights, found on the Council’s data protection internet page

If you wish to complain to the Information Commissioner the contact details are:

Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF

Updates (notice)

We may update or revise this privacy notice at any time so please refer to the version published on our website for the most up to date details.