Income maximisation service privacy note

Find out how Stirling Council uses personal data by checking the Council’s website at the following address:

https://www.stirling.gov.uk/privacy-statement/

Our website contains a Register of Data Processing which lists all the different ways
in which the Council uses personal data.

This Privacy Notice provides more information about just one of those processes.

The Council has a Data Protection Officer to make sure it is complying with data protection laws.

They can be contacted at:

Data Protection Officer
Stirling Council
Old Viewforth
14-20 Pitt Terrace
Stirling
FK8 2ET

Email: dataprotection@stirling.gov.uk
Telephone: 01786 404040

The Income Maximisation service aims to help Stirling Council tenants to achieve their maximum possible entitlement to welfare benefits.

The Income Maximisation team will collect personal data to advise on benefit entitlement, to assist in the completion of benefit applications, to assist in challenging decisions made by the statutory benefit authorities, and to act on a tenant’s behalf (e.g. at a tribunal case). 

With a tenant’s permission, we will only share this data with other agencies if we believe that to do so is necessary for the purpose of helping the tenant(s) to secure their benefit entitlement.

Name, address, contact number, email address, national insurance number, date of birth.

UK GDPR Article 6(1)(a) the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes. By completing the authorisation mandate form the tenant will have given their consent for us to use personal data to investigate their benefit entitlement.

Authorisation mandate form.

Electronic records are kept in a password protected folder on the housing directory.  Paper records are kept within a secure cabinet.

For the duration of the tenancy.

Agencies such as the Department for Work and Pensions, Inland Revenue, Local Authority, past or present employers, energy providers, bank or building societies or any other government department, with regard to matters relating to the provision of benefit, pensions, Housing Benefit, Council Tax, Council Tax Reduction, Discretionary Housing Payment, the Scottish Welfare Fund, savings or wages to which the tenant may be entitled or have received, and any subsequent applications for reconsideration or appeal, if necessary.  

We are legally obliged to safeguard public funds, so we are required to verify and check tenant’s details internally for fraud prevention. This is covered in our Fraud Privacy Statement.

We may share this information with other public bodies (and also receive information from these other bodies) from fraud checking purposes. 

We are also legally obliged to share certain data with other public bodies, such as DWP, HMRC & Police and will do so where the law requires this. 

We will also generally comply with requests from specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate. 

Tenant’s information is also analysed internally to help us improve our service. 

You have the following rights under data protection laws. If you have a request under any of these rights, you can make a subject access request.

Access to your information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. This is known as a subject access request and is free of charge.  We must respond within one month, although this can be extended to three months if the information is complex.

Correcting your information

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Therefore you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.

Deleting your information

You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:

• you think that we no longer need to hold the information for the purposes for which it was originally obtained
• we are using that information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent - see the 'withdrawing consent to using your information' section below.  Please note that in general we do not rely on consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information
• you have a genuine objection to our use of your personal information - see 'objecting to how we may use your information' below
• our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.

Objecting to how we may use your information

You have the right at any time to tell us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, profiling or research purposes. 

Restricting how we may use your information 

In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information.  This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold about you or we are assessing the objection you have made to our use of your information. 

This right might also apply if we no longer have a basis for using your personal information - but you don't want us to delete the data.  Where this right is realistically applied will mean that we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Withdrawing consent to use your information

Where we use your personal information with your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given.

Your request to transfer your data

If we are processing your personal information with your consent or as part of a contract with you, and it is held in an accessible and machine-readable format, you have a right to ask us to transmit it to another organisation. This is known as the right to data portability.

Our profiling or automated decision-making processes

We make some use of automated decision-making processes but very little use of profiling.  Where these techniques are used, this will be explained in the specific privacy statements relating to those functions, together with a description of the reason involved in any automated decision-making.

If you want to complain about or comment on how we have processed your personal information, you should email dataprotection@stirling.gov.uk

If you are still unhappy with how the council handled your complaint, you can contact the UK Information Commissioner's Office at:

The Information Commissioner,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF

Phone: 0303 123 1113

You can find further information on the Information Commissioners Office website.