Privacy notices - Housing Options Service; Homelessness Service; Emergency / Temporary Housing

When you contact us about your housing options, homelessness and or threatened homelessness we will ask you for your personal details and the personal details for your household.

We will use your information to determine if you are entitled to receive assistance under the terms of the homelessness legislation; entitled to temporary homeless accommodation and/or assistance to prevent your homelessness. 

This includes using your personal data to:

• to assess your situation;
• to contact you about your situation and the information you have provided;
• to request you to provide documents to prove your homelessness or threatened homelessness and your situation;
• to contact third parties with your personal information to request further personal information about you; and
• refer you to third parties and / or other agencies that may be able to help you

In addition, we may use your information for the following purposes:

• To help support applications to the Scottish Welfare Fund
• To help establish eligibility for benefits including Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction
• To meet legal duties to assess housing support needs and ensure that services are provided. These services are provided by a range of partner agencies and services involved in Housing Support
• To give you support to manage or maintain your tenancy and uphold your tenancy agreement and / or resolve any tenancy issues or breaches;
• To establish eligibility to receive assistance through a Deposit Guarantee scheme.
•  To help identify people who may be affected by welfare reform changes (Universal Credit)
• To share and obtain relevant information about your application with partner agencies who are providing your household with support.

Your information may also be shared and analysed internally in order to provide management information, inform service delivery reform and similar purposes to meet our duty to achieve best value and continuous service improvement.

If you do not provide us with the information we have asked for then we will not be able to provide this service to you.

The Council is entitled to collect and use this information under its statutory duty to provide this service to you in accordance with:

• the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 Part II (as amended by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001
• Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001
• Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003
• Housing Scotland Act 2010

• View personal data
• Change personal data
• Delete personal data
• Restrict processing of personal data

Find out more about your rights

Organisations and individuals who hold information relevant to your assessment or who can help prevent your homelessness and explore your housing options.  The third parties and / or other agencies which we may contact for further information about your household, or refer you to for further support will depend on your personal situation, but may include:

• your landlord or former landlords or lenders to obtain information about your tenancy or mortgage
• your parents or relatives
• your parents/guardian if under 18 years old to confirm circumstances
• spouse/partner or other household members
• other Highland Council services: adult and children social work; criminal justice services
• commissioned external services e.g. housing support providers
• support organisations such as Citizens Advice and Highland Council Welfare Support
• Mediation, conflict resolution or counselling service
• Employers (to ascertain a local connection)
• Other Local Authorities
• Registered Social Landlords
• NHS Highland or other NHS Health Board
• GP / GP Medical Practice
• Scottish Prison Services
• Home Office
• Police
• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
• your emergency contact (when there are concerns about your welfare)

This list is not exhaustive, and we may need to use your data to refer you to other third parties and / or other relevant agencies.

The Council is legally obliged to safeguard public funds so details will be checked internally for fraud prevention and verification purposes and may be shared with other public bodies for the same purpose.

The information you have provided will be retained for the current financial year plus five more years.

The Council do not use profiling or automated decision-making processes.

The data controller is The Highland Council

Data Protection Officer
Highland Council Headquarters
Glenurquhart Road
Inverness
IV3 5NX
01463 702029   

dpo@highland.gov.uk

If you are unhappy with the way we have processed your personal information you can contact the Information Commissioner:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/