Privacy Notices - Swindon Emergency Assistance Fund Privacy Notice

You need to be aware of this notice if you are requesting assistance from the Council’s Emergency Assistance Fund.

This page explains how your information will be held and processed by the Council. You can also find out about the General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Act 2018 and your rights on our website.
It is our statutory obligation to inform you how we use your information to process a claim when applying for the Swindon Emergency Assistance Fund. Data collected under the scheme may be shared internally with other Council departments, with other councils and various other external agencies and organisations.

A Privacy Notice is a statement issued by an organisation, which explains how personal data about individuals is collected, used and shared.

Swindon Borough Council will be the Data Controller for the personal information you provide to us. We will ensure that the data given to us is processed in line with the Data Protection Act.

Please note that not providing some of your personal data requested may lead to you being unable to use services provided by the Emergency Assistance Team.

Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information you provide or in conjunction with any other information in the data controller’s possession or likely to come into possession of. Such information includes your name and contact details.

We will ask for and hold the following information:

• Name
• Address
• Telephone number and email address
• Date of birth
• National Insurance Number
• Details of income, benefits and outgoings
• Household composition
• Details of any disabilities, disability benefits and additional costs of living caused by disability
• Equality information for monitoring purposes age and  ethnicity – to monitor if our service is reaching all members of the community

We use a computer database to process and store information. The database is held safely in an appropriately secure environment. Only authorised officers have access to the database. Swindon Borough Council complies with its obligations under the GDPR by:

• keeping personal data up to date
• securely storing and destroying data
• not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data
• protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure
• ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data

The information is held in order to help assess eligibility to the Emergency Assistance Fund and it is updated to show if applications are successful or unsuccessful. Successful applications records are updated with the assistance provided such as; food vouchers, food bank vouchers, gas, electric, white goods, furniture, clothes etc. Storing the application allows us to review claims, answer any complaints and is an Audit requirement.

We collect and use the information under Article 6 (lawful processing), and Article 9 (special categories of data), of the GDPR Act:

Article 6 of GDPR
Public task: the processing is necessary for the local authority to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law in terms of Health and Social Care Provision.

Article 9 (2) of GDPR
Special categories of data: Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, on the basis of 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.

Adhering to the current data protection legislation and the Council's data sharing protocols.

For the purposes of processing and validating your claim, the safeguarding of children and the prevention of fraud we may share personal information (name, National insurance number, address, contact number, household income) internally within the Council and with other agencies or organisations such as: Central Government Department for Works and Pensions (DWP), The Police, The Employment Service, Rent Service and HM Revenue & Customs. We may also check with the providers of specialist hostels for homeless people and other Councils.

We are under a duty to protect public funds and may pass information you have provided as part of this application to bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds to prevent or detect benefit fraud (or any other crime) and support national fraud initiatives (this will include your information being used in data matching exercises from time to time). For information, please see the Government website or contact the Council's Internal Audit section at: Swindon Borough Council, Civic Offices, Euclid Street, Swindon SN1 2JH.
 

We will maintain the reliability, accuracy, completeness and currency of personal data in our databases and to protect the privacy and security of our databases. We keep your personal data only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected.

Our servers and databases are protected by industry standard security technology.
The employees who have access to personal data have been trained to handle such data properly and in accordance with latest regulations.
 

We will keep and use your personal information in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018. We only share the data where there is a Legal requirement to do so. Your personal information will be held for 6 financial years plus current year, unless there are any outstanding matters after this date.

Under the Data Protection Act, you can see your own personal information. If you would like to know more about this, please see our website www.swindon.gov.uk for details or contact the Data Protection Officer at Swindon Borough Council, Civic Offices, Euclid Street, Swindon, SN1  2JH.

In the event that you wish to complain about the way that your personal data has been handled by Swindon Borough Council, you should write to the Data Protection Officer and clearly outline your case. Your complaint will then be investigated in accordance with our customer complaint procedure.

If you remain dissatisfied with the way your personal data has been handled, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ICO.org.uk

You are under no statutory obligation to provide personal data to Swindon Borough Council during the application process, however, if you do not provide all the data we request we may not be able to process an application for assistance.

A yearly audit will take place on personal data to ensure that we remain legally compliant in accordance with current data protection legislation.

You are viewing the Privacy Notice for Swindon Emergency Assistance Fund.

Read the main Privacy Notice