Housing and Investment Services

This Privacy Notice explains how we use any personal information provided to Sefton Council’s Housing Services Department.

What data do we collect?

name
address
address of property which service request relates to.
contact details (phone numbers, email address etc)
date of Birth
gender
ethnicity
benefit status and information
financial information
job status
advocate, carer or agent details
health, social care or other need relating to support via a housing service
disabilities
property improvement, adaptation or repair scheme detail
offending history or previous convictions

Why do we collect it?

Housing Services will collect your information for the following reasons:

For the administration of the Selective and Additional Licensing Schemes & Landlord Accreditation Scheme – if you are a Landlord operating under one or more of these schemes, we will need to hold relevant data in order to fulfil our responsibilities under the scheme.

For the administration of the Council’s social housing register on Property Pool Plus Property Pool Plus also has its own privacy notice

For the improvement of Housing Standards in the Borough under legislation enacted in the Housing Act 2004

Consultations: Individual consultations may include capturing personal data for example your name, address and email address and equality monitoring data. Where this is the case, the consultations will have their own privacy notice at the start of the consultation, explaining why the information is needed and what will happen to the information and how you can withdraw your consent.

Homelessness legislation places a general duty on authorities to ensure that advice and information about homelessness, and preventing homelessness, is available to everyone in the borough. The legislation also requires authorities to assist individuals and families who are homeless or threatened with homelessness and apply for help. The legislation places duties on housing authorities, and gives them powers, to meet these aims; but it also emphasises the need for joint working between housing authorities, social services and other statutory, voluntary and private sector partners in tackling homelessness more effectively. When we collect your information in order to support you, we are doing so in our capacity as a public authority.

What allows you to use my information?

As part of a public body the legal basis for Housing Services processing personal data includes if:

necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority, for example:

1. Housing Acts 1985, 1988, 1996, and 2004,
2. Homelessness Act 2002, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985,
3. Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002,
4. Housing and Planning Act 2016,
5. Homelessness Reduction Act 2017,
6. Children Acts 1989 and 2004,
7. Equality Act 2010,
8. Human Rights Act 1998
9. Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 and
10. Any associated regulations, statutory guidance and codes of guidance

necessary for the performance of a contract e.g. Tenancy Agreements
necessary for compliance with a legal obligation e.g. Health and Safety Legislation
you expressly consented

Whilst the majority of information provided to Sefton Council is mandatory due to compliance with a legal and statutory obligation, some of it is provided to us on a voluntary basis.

To comply with current Data Protection Legislation we will inform you whether you are required by law to provide certain information to us; if you do have a choice to provide information that is not mandatory, your explicit consent will be requested.

You have the right to withdraw your consent if this is applicable to processing your data.

Do I have to provide this information and what will happen if I don't?

If you have approached Housing Services or one of our commissioned services (Property Pool Plus or Housing Options Service) you will need to provide information in order for your query or application to be progressed.

Some of our functions are statutory – this means we have to do them even without consent. If you do not provide the information we require, we will still fulfil our statutory duties but we will be unable to offer you additional services.

Should you withdraw your consent we will inform you which statutory duties we have to perform, if we are able to provide you with our full support and service, and/or which services are thereafter no longer available to you.

Sources of data

Personal information about you relating to you and your household may also be gathered from other sources such as:

private sector landlords,
housing associations,
hostel accommodation providers
other council departments
lettings agents,
mortgage lending companies,
friends and relatives, you and your household may have been living with,
health services, children, family and adult services, education services,
Department of Work and Pensions, Housing Benefit and Council Tax services, Job Centre Plus, Ministry of Defence,
the Police, prisons, probation and youth offending services, secure training units, employers,
Citizens Advice and voluntary sector organisations.

We may collect information from other sources depending upon your circumstances.

How do we use data?

Basis for collecting, processing and sharing personal data

Sefton Council collects your personal data in order to fulfil a number of tasks and functions, in this case to provide statutory housing services and to share this data with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (to fulfil our duties to reduce homelessness).

We collect and use this information under the following bases:

Article 6(1)(c) of the UK GDPR gives the Council a lawful basis for collecting and using personal data in order to comply with its legal obligations. For example, collecting information regarding housing standards, homeless applications and assessments made to the local authority.

Article 6(1)(e) of the UK GDPR gives the Council a lawful basis for collecting and using personal data in order to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.

Article 6(3) of the GDPR: the basis for the processing is laid down in law. The Council relies on its powers under the Housing Act 1996 and Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 in order to process your personal data.

Section 8(c) of the Data Protection Act 2018: personal data that is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of the controller’s official authority includes processing of personal data that is necessary for (c) the exercise of a function conferred on a person by an enactment or rule of law

Further to this, Housing Options services collect and use special category data such as race, ethnic origin, your health and information about criminal offences and convictions. This is because the Council has duties under the Housing Act 1996 and Homeless Reduction Act 2017 to establish whether you are a person in ‘Priority Need’ as part of assessing your eligibility for assistance which will mean we ask you about your health needs and offending history, amongst other things.

Ethnicity information is recorded to enable production of statutory governmental statistics.

The Council relies on Article 9 (2)(g) of the UK GDPR: processing of special category personal data is ‘necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, on the basis of domestic 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’.

Article 10 of the UK GDPR: ‘Processing of personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences or related security measures based on Article 6(1) shall be carried out only under the control of official authority or when the processing is authorised by domestic law providing for appropriate safeguards for the rights and freedoms of data subjects. Any comprehensive register of criminal convictions shall be kept only under the control of official authority’.

Section 10 and Schedule 1, Part 2, paragraph 6 of the DPA: the processing of special category personal data and criminal offence data is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest and necessary for the purpose of ‘the exercise of a function conferred on a person by an enactment or rule of law’ or ‘the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a government department.’

How do we keep data secure and who do we share it with?

Information will be kept safe, secure and confidential and handled with care in accordance with the law. We may share your information with the following organisations:

Social services and related agencies
NHS medical professionals
Police, or probation services
Your doctor or associated doctor's surgery staff
Housing Associations
Prospective landlords
Other departments within Sefton Borough Council
Citizens' Advice

Appropriate Policy Document (APD)

Additionally, there is a requirement for an Appropriate Policy Document (APD) to be in place when processing special category (SC) and criminal offence (CO) data under certain specified conditions.

Sefton’s APDs include:

Information Sharing Code of Practice for the PSH Intelligence and Enforcement Team and Sefton Council Housing Standards Team
‘Merseyside Police and Private Sector Housing Information Sharing Agreement -Sefton’

Retention – How long do we keep your information?

We will keep your information for the duration of our work with you and up to 6 years following completion of our work.

Where can I find further information?

Sefton Council is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office (Registration number- Z6451588).

Further details can be found via the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Your data rights

Right to be informed

This Privacy notice is a way of informing you of how your personal data is used under data protection legislation.

Data subject rights

You have the right to:

access your personal data (via a subject access request)
object to processing of personal data that is likely to cause, or is causing, damage or distress
prevent processing for the purpose of direct marketing
object to decisions being taken by automated means
in certain circumstances, have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed and
right to data portability in certain circumstances
The right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority (the Information Commissioner’s Office)

Further information

If you would like further information about this privacy notice, please contact the Housing Options team at the following address:

Housing.Strategy@sefton.gov.uk or call us on 0345 140 0845

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance. If we have been unable to help with your enquiry or you are unhappy about the way we have handled your personal data, you can contact the Information Commissioner at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ who regulates data handling and can provides more information on the rights available to you.

Sefton’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at:

- Telephone: 0345 140 0845
- E-mail information@sefton.gov.uk

Your right to make a complaint

You can find details about how you can make a complaint here.