Disabled Facilities Grant and Home Improvement Agency - Privacy notice

Who we are and what we do

The council is a data controller under the Data Protection Legislation as we collect and process personal information about you in order to provide services and meet our statutory and regulatory obligations.

This notice explains why we ask for your personal information, how that information will be used and how you can access your records.

Data Protection Officer (DPO)
West Oxfordshire District Council
Council Offices, Witney, OX18 1PB
Email: data.protection@westoxon.gov.uk
Tel: 01993 861194

Why we need your information and how we use it

We are required by law to carry out a financial assessment on applicants for Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG) / Home Improvement Agency (HIA) unless in receipt of specified benefits. Our case officer will carry out this assessment on behalf of West Oxfordshire District Council.

We have a statutory obligation to provide this service in accordance with the following legislations, the list is not exhaustive:

Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996
Regulatory Reform (Housing Assistance) (England and Wales) Order 2002
The Housing Renewal Grants (England) Regulations 2009

What type of information is collected from you

In order to administer our services we collect the following information from you:

Name
Addresses
Contact telephone numbers
Contact email addresses
National insurance number
Medical condition
Employment details
Self-employment details, ie. profit and loss accounts
Pay slips
Bank accounts
Pension details
Benefit entitlement
Proof of property ownership, i.e. land registry details
Landlord contact details

We will only ask for personal information that is appropriate to enable us to deliver our services. In some cases, you can refuse to provide your details if you deem a request to be inappropriate. However, you should note that this may impact on our ability to assess your application.

Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)

We may share some information with other organisations including:

The occupational therapist(s) assigned to your application (but not the financial information).
The NHS and social care services
Contractors carrying out adaptation works (basic contact information only).
To check your current benefits or apply for additional benefits but not without your consent.
If we make a Personal Home Improvement Loan application on your behalf.

How long we keep your information (retention period)

Your application and all relevant information will be kept for a period of 7 years if you have no contribution to the grant or no local land charge has been registered on your property or 10 years if you have a contribution to your grant or a local land charge has been registered on your property. Local land charges apply to home owners only.

For Personal Home Improvement Loans, your application and all relevant information will be kept for the duration of the loan and until final repayment is made.

For minor works and handyman, Your records will be kept for 12 months.

How we protect your Information

We will not transfer your personal data outside the EU without your consent.

We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security in order to protect personal data from loss, misuse, or unauthorised alteration or destruction.

Please note however that where you are transmitting information to us over the internet this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

For any payments which we take from you online we will use a recognised online secure payment system. We will notify you promptly in the event of any breach of your personal data which might expose you to serious risk.

Your rights

You have rights under the Data Protection Legislations:

To access your personal data
To be provided with information about how your personal data is processed
To have your personal data corrected
To have your personal data erased in certain circumstances
To object to or restrict how your personal data is processed
To have your personal data transferred to yourself or to another business in certain circumstances
You have the right to be told if we have made a mistake whilst processing your data and we will self report breaches to the Commissioner

How you can access, update or correct your information

The Data Protection Legislation allows you to find out what information is held about you, on paper and computer records. This is known as ‘right of subject access’ and applies to your (NAME) Services data along with all other personal records. To find out more see our data protection page.

If you wish to see a copy of your records you should contact the Data Protection Officer. You are entitled to receive a copy of our records free of charge, within a month.

In certain circumstances access to your records may be limited, for example, if the records you have asked for contain information relating to another person.

The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. We are working to make our record keeping more efficient. In the meantime, if you change your address or email address, or if any of your circumstances change or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, email us or write to us at:

HIA/DFG Service
West Oxfordshire District Council
Council Offices
Witney, OX28 1PB
Tel: 01993 861 000
Email: hia@westoxon.gov.uk

Further information

If you would like to know more about how we use your information, or if for any reason you do not wish to have your information used, email data.protection@westoxon.gov.uk.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner.

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice from time to time by publishing a new version here on our website.