Revenues and Benefits - how we use your personal information

Information held about you

This information collected may include:

• details about you, such as your address, telephone number, email address, National Insurance number, date of birth, household composition and income details.
• other relevant information needed to process your claim such as your landlords contact details or the amount of care you receive.
• details about the income of any non-dependants that live with you where you make a claim for Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction. (Please advise your non-dependant(s) that their data will be processed by the council)

How will we use the information we hold about you?

We will collect information about you to:

• comply with our legal obligations such as the collection of Council Tax and non-domestic business rates
• assess your application(s) for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction, free school meals and financial assessments for social care or any other any local tax, reduction, service or benefit you apply for
• allow the council to communicate and provide services appropriate to your needs such as an application for Blue Badge
• comply with other legal obligations and/or the detection of crime including fraud.
• fulfill our obligations on behalf of HM Government and the Welsh Government to process any grants, allowances or payments we are required to administer on its behalf.

Information received from HM Government and/or Welsh Government will be used to comply with our legal obligations such as the collection of Council Tax / Non-Domestic rates or undertaking financial assessments for social care or other services, benefits or reductions you may apply for.

We may check some of the information you have provided with other sources to ensure your data is accurate.

Who we will share your information with?

To administer any local tax, reduction, grant, service or benefit the council is responsible for we share information under our legal obligations and with partner organisations, including:

• other departments within the council
• government departments
• HM Revenues and Customs
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Audit Wales
• other councils where the law allows us to do so
• Department for Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) / Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

In specific circumstances, we allow limited access to our data to other departments within the council, and to the council's pension fund, where it is a statutory requirement on them to maintain accurate and up-to-date correspondence addresses for their clients.

On occasions, your information may be accessed by contracted IT support organisations in the delivery of IT support. Access by IT support will only be for such reasons as fixing any technical issues with software.

How do we process your information?

The information we collect from you is usually processed by an individual, however some Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reductions decisions may be automated when personal data provided by the Department for Work and Pensions is imported electronically into our computer systems. Any changes to your Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction will be notified to you in writing and will include a right to request a review of the decision.

How long do we keep your records?

Our retention schedule sets out how long we keep personal information for.

Further information

For further information about how Swansea Council uses your personal data, including your rights as a data subject, please see our corporate privacy notice.