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Benefits Privacy Notices

Housing Benefit / Council Tax Reduction / Education Benefits applications

Why we need your information

As part of the Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction, Education Benefits, Discretionary Housing Payments and Self Isolation Payments application processes, Cyngor Gwynedd will be collecting personal data about you and your family.

This information collation will include such details as follows :

  1. Details about you, your address, National Insurance number, date of birth, household composition, income and savings details.
  2. We will also collate other relevant information that will be needed to process your claim such as rental information and landlord details.
  3. Contact details such as telephone numbers, email address etc will also be collected so that we are able to contact you should we need to query your information.

We will use this data to process your claim and may need to check some of the information with other sources to ensure this data is accurate.

Justification for using your Information

We are using your information because we have a duty under the following legal basis :

  1. Our legal obligation under the following legislation :- Social Security Administration Act- Housing Benefit Regulations- The Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Prescribed Requirements and Default Scheme) (Wales) Regulations- Local Government Finance Act
  2. The prevention/detection of crime, including false representation in accordance with the Fraud Act and the Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Detection of Fraud and Enforcement) (Wales) Regulations.
  3. Your own personal consent, which can be withdraw at any time by you notifying us in writing. Please be advised that where consent is withdrawn your application for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction and/or Education Benefits will no longer be processed. Consent cannot be withdrawn in cases for the prevention of crime.

The Council will use your information for automatic decision making in order to quickly and correctly deal with data received from other organisations on your behalf (e.g. DWP) and for profiling so as to risk-score your claim to find out what further action is needed with your claim before processing. This will have the following effect on you :

  1. Quicker decision making
  2. Fewer enquiries
  3. Correct first-time decisions

Sharing your information

We may share your data/information with the following organisations :

  1. Internal teams within the Council such as Council Tax, Housing Services, Customer Services.
  2. Councillors, should they be helping you with your claim.
  3. Other partner organisations such as Housing Associations, Citizens Advice Bureau and Shelter Cymru.
  4. DWP (Department for Work and Pensions): DWP and local authorities often work together and share information to provide services. You can read DWP’s Personal information Charter on the GOV UK Website
  5. Third parties where permitted or required by law to do so for the prevention and detection of fraud and the protection of public funds. These can include other local authorities and government departments or agencies carrying out their public tasks, such as the Council's Collection Agents, Employers, Department of Work and Pensions, HM Revenues and Customs, the Police in carrying out criminal investigations, and data matching via the National Fraud Initiative.
  6. On occasions, it may be necessary for your information to be accessed by our contracted IT support organisations in the delivery of IT support for both the IT infrastructure and associated systems, for the processes detailed in this privacy notice. Access by IT support will only be for such reasons as fixing any technical issues with software, and any viewing of data will be incidental.

The above lists are not exhaustive.

We will not normally share your information with organisations other than our partner organisations without your consent.

However, there may be certain circumstances where we will need to share without consent, such as when we are required to do so by law, to safeguard public safety, and in risk of harm or emergency situations.

Any information shared will be on a need-to-know basis only, with the appropriate individuals and the minimum information for the purpose.

The Council will not transfer your personal information to another country.

How long we keep your information  and your rights

The information you supply will be kept for the minimum period necessary for our purposes.

The information outlined in this notice will be kept after all action on your claim has finished and the period required by the Council for legal and audit purposes has elapsed.

Your rights

For further information about your rights and the Data Protection Officer’s contact details visit the website.