HomePoint Herefordshire

 

This page tells you how the Housing Solutions and Home Point Service uses your personal information.

Summary

This is the privacy notice for the Housing Solutions and Home Point Service. We will use your details to provide you with the service which you or someone else has asked us to provide. We will also use your personal details for purposes of crime prevention and crime detection and/or when required by law and will share it with other public bodies for that purpose.

Herefordshire Council is the Data Controller under data protection law and will use the information you provide in relation to your Affordable Rented Housing Application and/or homelessness application to assess your housing need and/or a provision of temporary accommodation. This is in accordance with the council’s housing allocations policy and its statutory duty to investigate homelessness or threat of homelessness.

The legal basis for processing this data is:

• Our legal obligations under Government Legislation Parts 6 and 7 of the Housing Act 1996 (as amended) and the associated statutory codes of guidance and statutory instruments
   
• That it is necessary to protect your vital interests if any safeguarding action is required to keep you or others safe
   
• That it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest

 In general your data will be retained for 7 years, however in exceptional circumstances it will be retained whilst relevant to your application.

 Your information will be shared with the relevant partners of the Housing Solutions and Home Point Service and other agencies as appropriate for safeguarding purposes and in order to provide you with the service as mentioned above.

 You have a number of rights under data protection law, including the right to request the information we hold on you. You also have a right to make a complaint about our handling of your personal data to the Information Commissioner’s Office https://ico.org.uk/

Full Version

The organisation which is using your personal details is the County of Herefordshire District Council, a unitary authority having its head office at Plough Lane, Hereford, HR4 0LE ("the Council", "we" "us" or “the Housing Solutions and Home Point Service”). The Council is the data controller of this personal data for purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner under Notification No. Z5305750

The Council has an approved Data Protection Act 2018 Policy which sets out the high level principles we keep to in using people's personal data. This privacy statement describes how we presently translate those principles into practice in terms of what we will and will not do with the information we hold. It sets out the general approach we take, in each case with additional information relating to particular areas of our activity.

General approach

In most cases, by providing us with your details in order to apply for housing or obtain help and assistance in finding accommodation, we will process these details under our legal obligations in order to provide that service to you. Except as set out in this privacy statement, we will not use your personal details for any other purpose. For some regulatory activity carried out by the Council or the Housing Solutions and Home Point Service, your application may require to be published and potentially discussed in open committee.

The main exception to the rule that we will not use your details for other purposes relates to the prevention of fraud. We are under a legal obligation to safeguard public funds and so in all cases we reserve the right to check the information you have provided for accuracy, in order to detect fraud. This may involve data matching exercises where we compare different sets of data which we hold for unusual matches or discrepancies; this may also include matching council data with external data sources.

We may also share your information for the same purposes with other public organisations, including neighbouring councils that handle public funds, and with the Police.

By law we are obliged to provide information to certain other public bodies such as the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenues and Customs, courts, tribunals, hearings and other formal bodies dealing with legal processes, and various external regulatory bodies. We also have an obligation to assist in the prevention of crime and we will therefore generally supply specific information which we are asked to provide to the police or other crime detection agencies, provided we are satisfied that the request is connected to an investigation and that disclosure would be lawful and proportionate.

We work closely with the Home Point Partnership, which broadly speaking provide housing allocation services, and also with the Private Rented sector. Information will be shared with the relevant partners, who may contact you.  

Sharing Information - The main organisations we share information with are as follows:

• Herefordshire Police and other criminal investigation agencies
• External regulators
• DLUHC – Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
• DWP – Department of Work and Pensions
• HMRC – Her Majesties Revenue and Customs.
• Social care providers
• Central Government
• Local Government Ombudsman
• The Home Point Partnership, which includes: Bromford Group, Platform (formerly Fortis Living), Stonewater, Guinness Hermitage,  Sanctuary Housing, Connexus, 2Rivers Housing, Citizen (formerly Kemble/WM Housing)  
• Registered Social Landlords
• Supported Housing providers
• Private Rented Sector providers
   

VENNTURE

Following the Corona Virus outbreak earlier in 2020, Herefordshire Council, together with Vennture and a number of local support agencies, have established Project BRAVE to assist those who are street sleeping in Herefordshire into housing. Where necessary it will be required that we share information to enable applications to progress and for Vennture and other agencies to assist you into housing