Luton Borough Council

Revenues and Benefits

We're committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services. We have a data protection officer who makes sure we respect your rights and follow the law.

If you have any concerns or questions about how we look after your personal information, please contact us at [email protected].

Personal data

Common to all services

Name, address, contact details
Correspondence (emails, letters, supporting documents)
Conversations (recorded and typed notes of telephone conversations)
Case notes
Bank account details if applicable

Council Tax and Business Rates

Dates of occupancy
Tenancy agreement and landlord details
Agent details if applicable
Business accounts and trading information (Business Rates only)
Medical information only when required to support specific Council Tax exemptions and
Reductions

Sundry debts

Services provided
Payments made and outstanding

Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction, Discretionary Housing Payment and Council Tax disregards, discounts and reductions

Date of birth, gender
National Insurance number
Financial information (income, savings, assets and where necessary, expenditure)
Benefits you're in receipt of
Details of others living in your household
- Sometimes we need information about people other than the person who has applied for a benefit or service to work out what that person is entitled to. For example, where a person makes a claim for Housing Benefit/Council Tax Reduction, we need information about other people who live in the same household to work out how much the person will be paid
Landlord name, address and contact
Medical information only when required to support your claim in specific circumstances

Free School Meals

Child's name, address, date of birth and school

If you choose to pay by direct debit, we will also collect some financial information from you.

Purpose for using it

Revenues and Benefits uses your personal data to:

administer and enforce your council tax account in line with the Local Government Finance Act 1992
administer and enforce your business rate account in line with the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and 2012
administer housing benefit under the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 and associated regulations
help us collect debts owed to the council
assist in the recovery of Housing Benefit overpayments
applications and payments for Housing Benefit, Discretionary Housing Payment and Local Welfare Provision
applications for Council tax Reduction
entitlement to free school meals for your children
personalise your use of the council’s website and communicate information advice and guidance
communicate with council tax and business rate payers information about their entitlement to grants, exceptions and discounts
protect public funds we administer, we may use information held about you for all lawful purposes, including and not limited to:
- the prevention and detection of fraud
- matching council tax data with electoral registration records
- protecting public funds in investigating misuse of public money

Lawful basis

We collect and use this information under powers given to local authorities (councils). Under the General Data Protection Regulations, the following categories of lawfulness apply.

Personal data

6(1)(b) Contract: processing is necessary for a contract you have with the individual, or because they have asked you to take specific steps before entering into a contract.
- Sundry Debts
6(1)(c) Legal Obligation: processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation
- Sharing with government departments and the police
6(1)(e) Public Task: processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller
- Council Tax, Council Tax Reduction, Business Rates, Business Improvement Districts, Housing Benefits, Discretionary Housing Benefits, Free School Meals

Special Category data

9(2)(b) Social Security: processing is necessary for carrying out obligations under employment, social security or social protection law, or a collective agreement
- Housing Benefits

Who we share it with

Revenues and Benefits may share your personal data with the following organisations:

Citizen’s Advice Luton
Luton Irish Forum
Luton Law Centre
Luton Rights
Policy in Practice
police and probation services
county and magistrates courts
District Valuer
credit reference agencies
fraud services
estate, letting agents and landlords
solicitors
government departments
housing associations
financial institutions including banks and debt recovery agencies
registry trust
Equifax
Equity
Penham Excel
Landlords - if your Housing Benefit is paid directly to your landlord, we may discuss payment details (amounts and dates) with them as we have to provide this information
Business Improvement District company

Valuation Office Agency

Research and statistics - sometimes we may use the information you have provided us for research and statistics to help us better deliver services and share this with our partners. This may also involve sharing information we hold about you with government departments who lawfully request it. In most cases we remove any personal information that may identify you as an individual or household and only use and share anonymous statistics.

There are occasions however when government departments require your personal information and we will ensure only a minimal amount is shared for a specific purpose.

Why we share it with them

Your information may be shared:

to detect or prevent crime
for enforcement action
for credit reference checks
to enable delivery of your services and/or to meet our legal obligations

Any automated decision making or profiling

Council Tax billing
When you submit an online form to update your Council Tax information, our system may process this automatically and determine a new bill. if you disagree with the outcome you can appeal as standard.

Housing Benefit
Some claim assessments are automated based on the information the claimant has provided to us directly or from other Central Government departments. All applicants are offered a right of appeal as standard.

Income collection
If you have not kept up with payments or have not made an acceptable arrangement to pay, our system will automatically escalate your account and you will be issued with a reminder notice.

If payment or an acceptable arrangement has still not been made for Council Tax and Business Rates, the system will automatically escalate to court proceedings. The enforcement process will occur once a court liability order has been obtained.

If you disagree with the outcome, you can appeal to have it reviewed by a person in the normal way by responding to the notices. If the case has progressed to court proceedings you may only be able to address this in court.

Transfer of data to another country

We do not send any information we collect about you outside the United Kingdom.

Retention period

We have a record retention schedule which details how long we keep different types of records and what we do with them when we no longer need them.

Exercising your rights

You have the right to ask us to amend or delete your data as well transfer or limit its use. You also have the right to request a review of an automated decision where you think this is wrong.

Each request will be considered individually. Where we are required to keep your data by law we may be unable to action your request. In all circumstances we will explain our decision making in writing to you.

Please see our main privacy statement using the orange button below If you want more information on how:

we keep your data safe
to request a change to the records we hold
to make a complaint

Read our main privacy policy