We administer the billing, collection and enforcement of council tax and any reductions or discounts you are entitled to. Processing activity In order to provide the service, it is necessary for us to collect and hold personal information about you. The information collected and held will vary and depend on the nature of the service. In general terms, we process personal information relating to:
- administration
- billing
- payment(s)
- recovery
- discounts
- exemptions
- data matching
- general correspondence between you and us on matters related to the administration, billing, collection and enforcement of Council Tax
- investigating and if applicable, prosecuting for fraudulent activity
Information requirements
Our processing activities may include:
- full name
- address including postcode
- date of birth
- telephone number
- email address
- move in date
- move out date
- forwarding address(es)
- local authority(s) details (where you have been identified as living)
- council tax number
- council tax band
- health information
- employer details
- income details
- expenditure details
- financial details
- Power of Attorney details
- additional occupants’ details
- liability order(s)
- our on-line payment system (for the recording of your payment only)
Do you have to provide your information?
Without the information we may charge you the incorrect rate of council tax and you may not receive the benefits, reductions or discounts from council tax which you are entitled to. If we ask you to provide specific information in order to assess the correct amount of council tax payable and you do not provide this information, we may prosecute you. Deliberately providing false information in order to avoid or reduce council tax is also a crime.
Lawful bases
Our lawful bases for processing your personal information are:
- our legal obligation(s) under the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (as amended) (to levy and collect council tax)
- our legal obligation(s) for the administration of the council tax reduction scheme under S13A and Schedule 1A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992
- our legal obligation(s) for the administration of council tax under the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 (as amended)
- our legal obligation(s) under the Social Security Administration Act 1992
- our legal obligation(s) under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007
- our legal obligation(s) for the administration of council tax under the Local Government Finance Act 2012
- where needed for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest (under the above legislation)
- the exercise of official authority vested in us under the Serious Crime Act 2007 (where needed to disclose information to prevent fraud)
- where needed to carry out a taks in the public interest, or in the exercise of official authority. (Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR and section 8(c) Data Protection Act 2018) in service to section 45A Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA 2007) – ONS data sharing
- where processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest
- (Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR and section 10(3) & Schedule 1, para.6(2)(a) Data Protection Act 2018) justified by section 45A SRSA 2007 – ONS data sharing
- processing of data relating to criminal convictions and offences (Article 10 UK GDPR and section 10(5) & Schedule 1, para.6(2)(a) of the Data protection Act 2018) justified by section 45A SRSA 200 – ONS data sharing
Note that we may process your personal information on more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information. Reasons for processing
Some of the information that is collected and shared is classified as
- special category personal data e.g. health and ethnicity related information
- criminal convictions and offences (including alleged offences)
This is processed for reasons of substantial public interest under the laws that apply to us (see above) where this helps to meet our broader social obligations such as where it is necessary for us to fulfil our legal obligations and regulatory requirements. We have a Data Protection Policy that sets out how this information will be handled.
Data sharing
Some information we hold may come from third party sources, such as the Department of Work and Pensions and the Electoral Registration Officer.
HM Revenue and Customs may also provide information they hold about you. This may be for determining an application for council tax reduction, reviewing or appealing a determination, preventing or detecting fraud or error in connection with a council tax reduction. Or as a result of an attempt to obtain council tax reduction fraudulently.
We may share your information with for example:
- council department(s)
- other local authorities
- Cabinet Office (as part of the National Fraud Initiative)
- National Audit Office
- Police
- credit reference agencies
- health and social care organisations
Sharing your information with the Office for National Statistics: an ONS feasibility study in 2017 identified the benefits of using Council Tax Data to help meet its transformation goals. As the required data is beyond what is collected centrally by any government department, ONS is therefore acquiring council tax data from every local authority in Great Britain. Our lawful bases for sharing your information with the ONS is as set out above.
We have a legal obligation to share information with the Valuation Office Agency and we share with and use enforcement agents during the course of enforcing council tax liability orders.
If you have given us your permission in writing, some of your information may be shared with:
- a named friend or family member
- support worker or other individual authorised by you to act on your behalf
We subscribe to a tracing system called LoCTA which allows us to search a subset of all subscribing local authorities’ revenues systems to trace individuals who have an outstanding council tax debt and to prevent duplicate council tax claims.
We may share information with Kent County Council to deliver the local tracing partnership. We may be asked for contact details (limited to address, phone and email information). See the Kent County Council’s Kent Local Tracing Partnership Privacy Notice.
We may also rely on a number of exemptions, which allow us to share information without needing to comply with all the rights and obligations under the Data protection Act 2018. Please refer to the Kent and Medway Information Agreement (hosted by Dartford Borough Council) for further details on our sharing arrangements.
We may process your personal information on more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your information.
Retention period
We keep your personal information for the minimum period necessary.
The information in this Privacy Notice will be kept after council tax liability has ended, after any recovery and enforcement action is completed, and the period required by us for legal and audit purposes has expired. Unless exceptional circumstances require longer retention eg: a pending court case. All information will be held securely and disposed of confidentially.
Anonymisation
Your personal information may be converted ('anonymised') into statistical or aggregated data in such a way that ensures that you cannot be identified from it. Anonymised data cannot, by definition, be linked back to you as an individual and may be used to conduct research and analysis, including the preparation of statistics for use in our reports.
Changes to this Privacy Notice
We review this Privacy Notice regularly and will place updates on our website. Please refer to our Corporate Privacy Notice for further details of how we process your personal information and for details on your additional rights.