Council Tax Energy Rebate Privacy Notice

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council
Mount Pleasant Road
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Kent
TN1 1RS

Email: dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

Telephone: 01892 526121

Where the Council holds live direct debit instructions for you, the personal information we process has been provided to us directly by you for Council Tax payments. This information will be used if you are eligible, and your bank details have been verified.

Where the Council does not hold live direct debit details instructions for you, we will contact you to collect the personal information directly from you.

Information will be collected using different methods including by phone, letter, email, face-to-face, online forms, electronic transfer of information from central government departments mainly the DWP and HMRC .

To provide this rebate, we may need to process some personal data, including:

• Your name
• Date of birth
• Correspondence address, including postcode
• Property address and postcode
• Council Tax bands and property references
• Council Tax account references
• Direct Debit details where held including sort code and account number
• Bank account details where opted for payment into a personal bank account and
• Emails addresses and phone numbers

The processing of your personal information is necessary subject to GDPR Article 6(1)(e): – for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

Furthermore, we have a legal obligation. We are required under the Council Tax (Demand Notices and Reduction Schemes) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 to assist in the operation of the Government in providing a £150 one off energy bill rebate for most households in Council Tax bands A-D and the Discretionary Fund for Bands E-H.

This privacy notice tells you how Tunbridge Wells Borough Council uses your personal information to fulfil the Government’s request to administer an Energy Rebate Scheme. This involves the Council giving qualifying people £150.00 as a contribution towards fuel costs delivered through a Council Tax rebate payment. It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy information such as our Council Tax privacy notice, so that you are aware of how and why we are using your information.

• To enable the Council to determine entitlement to the Energy Rebate Scheme and award the £150 to eligible applicants under both the mandatory and discretionary scheme.
• For associated monitoring and evaluation of the £150 Energy Rebate Scheme.
• To prevent mistaken and fraudulent claims for the £150 Energy Rebate.

The information may be shared with the following:

• Other departments within Tunbridge Wells Borough Council
• Police
• National Fraud Initiative
• Relevant government departments for research and evaluation purposes as well as for prevention and detection of fraud and/or other criminal activities and for suspension and/or recovery of the grant where necessary
• Local authorities - please refer to the Kent & Medway Information Sharing Agreement for further details on our sharing arrangements with other local authorities and public bodies in Kent and Medway for the delivery of our local services.
• Other Government Departments including but not limited to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for research and evaluation and monitoring purposes

We may use the information you have provided for the prevention and detection of fraud. We may also share this information with other bodies responsible for public funds or for auditing them for these purposes. We will also share and receive information from the government’s Spotlight Counter Fraud Checking tool, to check the validity of your application.

The Government’s spotlight tool integrates with Experian for the purposes of validating your personal and banking information. However. this will not affect your credit rating.

We will never share your information with third parties unless the law allows us to do so.

• Access – you can request copies of any of your personal information that is held by the Council.
• Rectification – you can ask us to correct any incorrect information.
• Deletion – you can ask us to delete your personal information. The Council can refuse to delete information if we have a lawful reason to keep this.
• Portability – you can ask us to transfer your personal data to different services or to you.
• Right to object or restrict processing – you have the right to object to how your data is being used and how it is going to be used in the future.

Right to prevent automatic decisions – you have to challenge a decision that affects you that has been made automatically without human intervention, for example an online form with an instant decision.

We will only keep your information for as long as is permitted by law and to provide you with the necessary services. In line with council’s retention policy, we will retain your data for 7 years. We may also anonymise some personal data you provide to us to ensure that you cannot be identified and use this data to allow the Council to effectively target and plan the provision of services.

We are strongly committed to data security and will take reasonable and appropriate steps to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or corruption. We have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard the information you provide to us.

The Council does not share your information with countries outside of the UK without ensuring that sufficient safeguards are in place that are equivalent to the UK Data Protection legislation or the UK GDPR. For this purpose, we do not share your information outside the UK.

We want to ensure any information we hold is accurate. You can help us by promptly informing us of any changes to the information we hold about you.

There are restrictions on automated decisions based solely on automated means without any human involvement, including restrictions on profiling. Your data will not be subject to automated decision making or profiling for this purpose.

If you are accessing online services and are aged 13 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Cookies are small text files which identify your computer to our servers. They are used to improve the user experience. View what cookies we use and how you can manage them at privacy and cookies webpage.

If you would like to make a complaint regarding the use of your personal data you can email Dataprotection@tunbridgewells.gov.uk

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at:

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,

Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national

rate number

Alternatively, visit https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.