Homeless and Housing Options

The following information provides details on how we may collect use and where appropriate share personal information in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR). It should be read in conjunction with the Council’s privacy notice document.
 

Why we collect personal data

The Council’s Homeless and Housing Options Team is a service within Scarborough Borough Council. We provide a range of services to anyone in housing need within the Borough. We undertake statutory functions for the Borough Council including the prevention of homelessness and the provision of accommodation to homelessness people.

When you contact us about your housing options, homelessness, threatened homelessness or the Housing Register, we will ask you for your personal details and the personal details for your household.

Should you contact Scarborough Borough Council about your housing options, homelessness or threatened homelessness the personal data provided by you will be used:

• to assess your situation;
• to contact you about your situation and the information you have provided;
• to request you to provide documents to prove your homelessness or threatened homelessness and your situation;
• to contact third parties with your personal information to request further personal information about you; and
• refer you to third parties and / or other agencies that may be able to help you

Any personal data collected through the process will be processed in accordance with the UK Data Protection Legislation.

What personal data we collect

The personal data we collect:

• We hold names, dates of birth, and information about your previous housing circumstances to assess housing applications and help prevent fraud.
• We hold contact details for you so we can communicate with you.
• We record information about your needs and requirements to ensure our services are accessible; that we take account of any support needs in our dealings with you; and to improve our communications with you.

In order to provide a service to you we may also collect:

• Financial information
• Family details
• Convictions
• Equality data

Generally, the information we hold will have been provided by you (on application or enquiry forms or when we communicate with you), but we may also hold information provided by third parties where this is relevant to your housing circumstances (e.g. from social workers and health professionals, doctors and occupational therapists).

We may monitor and record electronic communications (website, email and phone conversations) for a number of reasons such as:

• staff training
• records of conversations
• the detection, investigation and prevention of crime

We will inform you if your call is being recorded or monitored. 

Emails that we send to you or you send to us, may be retained as a record of contact and your email address stored for future use in accordance with our retention periods. If we need to email sensitive or confidential information to you, we may perform checks to verify the correct email address and may take additional security measures.

See our Data Protection Policy for details on how we define personal and non-personal data.

How we use your personal data

We'll only use your personal data in accordance with data protection legislation, and for the purposes stated in this privacy notice.

We may use your information to:

• Assess the Council’s housing duties towards you under the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017
• To assist you to access suitable housing with housing providers.
• To assist you to access support services.
• To assist with the planning of new services and reviewing current ones

The processing of your information is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation primarily under the Housing Act 1996, and 2004, the Homelessness Act 2002, the Localism Act 2011 and the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 to which we are subject. 

We take your privacy seriously and will only use your personal information to provide services you have requested from us. We follow the principles of Data Protection Act 2018, as well as respecting people’s rights to confidentiality and privacy.

Personal data can include information supplied to us such as:

• asking people to fill in their names, addresses and health information on an official form, either online or in paper form;

Personal information which you supply to us and information about other household members may be used in a number of ways, for example:

• to make housing decisions
• for fraud prevention
• for audit and debt collection
• for statistical analysis

When you provide information about household members we assume that you do so with their full knowledge and consent.

We'll:

• only ask for what is necessary for the purposes of dealing with your request for assistance
• protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn’t
• ensure you know if you have a choice about giving us personal data
• only share your personal data with other Scarborough Borough Council departments or with external partners, agencies and contractors involved in delivering services on our behalf
• make sure we don’t keep it for longer than is necessary
• delete or destroy it securely when we no longer have a need to keep it

We ask that you:

• give us accurate information
• tell us as soon as possible of any changes
• tell us as soon as possible if you notice mistakes in the information we hold about you

From time to time, we may conduct or ask you to take part in a survey to get your feedback, comments and opinions to help us improve our services.

Who we share your personal data with

In order to provide the best possible service we often need to work jointly with third party organisations. These organisations may have access to your personal data in order to complete their work and assist the Council in its duties. If we use a third party organisation it will always ensure it has an agreement that the third party keeps your data secure.

There are also times where we may be required to pass your data to other organisations. This would be to assist in the prevention of homelessness, provision of temporary accommodation and for assistance in finding alternative accommodation. We will only share your personal data where this is a requirement to ensure a bespoke service is offered to you. Data will also be shared with third party organisations for the prevention of crime and to safeguard children and adults at risk.

Your data may therefore be shared with other Local Authorities, housing providers and landlords, specialist support services, North Yorkshire Police, adult social care, children’s social care, probation services and Community Rehabilitation Service, Youth Offending team, Prison Service, hospitals, mental health services and GP services.

Any information we use in presentations or reports will be anonymised and will not identify any individuals. For example a report on the outcome of applications for housing will not feature any of your personal data.

We do not disclose or share sensitive or confidential information without your explicit consent except where disclosure is required by law, or where we have good reason to believe that failing to do so, would put you or someone else at risk.

We may be required or permitted, under data protection legislation, to disclose your personal data without your explicit consent, for example if we have a legal obligation to do so, such as for:

• law enforcement
• fraud investigations
• regulation and licensing
• criminal prosecutions
• court proceedings

We must protect public funds and may use personal data and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, collect taxes and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. To do this, your personal data may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, including the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs, the Police and other local authorities.

Our legal basis for collecting and sharing personal data

Lawful basis for processing personal data under Article 6 UK GDPR

The processing is necessary for this reason:

• Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject;
• Processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person;
• 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 controller;

Additional conditions for processing special category data under Article 9(2) UK GDPR

Special category personal data may be processed if:

Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, on the basis of Union or Member State law which shall be proportionate to the aim pursued, respect the essence of the right to data protection and provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject;

How long we keep your personal data

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.  We will keep your personal data for in accordance with our retention schedules.  We will delete or destroy your personal data securely.

At the end of the retention period, we may pass any relevant information to the Archives where it is required or appropriate to do so.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations.

Data held	Retention period
Housing Assessment data	6 years
Homelessness Applications	6 years
Housing Applications	6 years
Bond/rent in advance applications	6 years
MARAC minutes and Agendas	6 years
MAPPA minutes and Agendas	6 years

 

Further processing of personal data

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Notice, then we'll provide you with a new notice.

The new notice will:

• explain this new use before we start the processing
• set out the relevant purposes and processing conditions

Where and whenever necessary, we'll seek your consent to the new processing, if we start to use your personal data for a purpose not mentioned in this Privacy Notice.

See our Data Protection Policy for details about the further processing of personal data.

Personal data from online payments

The personal data you give to us when using our online payment system will only be used for the recording of your payment. We'll ensure that it is used for no other purpose and is not disclosed to a third party such as other companies or individuals, unless required to do so by law for the prevention of crime and the detection of fraud.

We'll hold it securely and only for as long as is needed. It will then be deleted in line with our Retention and Disposal Policy and Procedures.

See our Data Protection Policy for details on how we process your personal data in connection with online payments.

Your rights relating to your personal data

When we collect your personal data we'll tell you how we are going to use it. Where we process your personal data, you have a number of rights under data protection law.

Find information about your rights on our UK GDPR page.

Further information

If you have any questions, want to exercise your rights, or if you have a complaint about how your information has been used, please contact us at dataprotection@scarborough.gov.uk or on 01723 232323 or write to:

Data Protection Officer
Scarborough Borough Council
Town Hall
St Nicholas Street
Scarborough
North Yorkshire
YO11 2HG