Data Controller
Scottish Borders Council is a local authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Our head office is located at Newtown St Boswells, Melrose TD6 0SA. You can contact us on 0300 100 1800 or CustomerAdvice@scotborders.gov.uk.
Data Protection Officer
Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted using the contact details for us as set out above or by email at dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk
How we will use your information
We will use your information to ensure the services we provide under the Scheme of Assistance, in relation to supporting owners and tenants with property repairs, maintenance, improvement and adaptation, are delivered effectively and in accordance with our statutory obligations, where relevant. These services include:
- Provision of advice and support on organising property repairs and maintenance.
- Provision of advice and support on adapting properties to meet the needs of disabled occupants.
- Processing of Missing Share Scheme applications.
- Processing of private sector grant applications, including in relation to disabled adaptations.
- Any other action necessary to ensure essential repairs are carried out e.g. enforcement activities.
We are collecting and using your information with your consent and in the performance of a public task. These public tasks include, but are not limited to, duties set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006. In particular, section 72 of the Act requires local authorities to develop and deliver a Scheme of Assistance to support homeowners and private sector tenants in repairing, improving and adapting their homes, including adaptations required to meet the needs of disabled occupants. Our Section 72 Statement sets out the advice, information and assistance available through the Scheme of Assistance.
In addition, section 50 of the Act provides the statutory basis for the our Missing Share Scheme.
The personal information we collect may include your name, address, contact details and property ownership information. In certain circumstances, such as applications for disabled adaptations grant assistance, we may also require your date of birth, financial information (where a financial assessment is required) and, where relevant, information relating to your health or disability.
Without the information required, we may be unable to deliver the relevant service.
We collect information directly from you in a variety of ways, including through paper and online application forms, and when you contact us by telephone, email, letter, in person, or during site visits.
Information relating to your case will generally be retained for five years following the last action on the case. Where financial assistance is secured against a property, information may be retained for a longer period in accordance with the our records retention schedule and legal obligations.
Who we may share your information with
Your details will be accessed only by our staff who require this information in order to deliver the services described above and any related services. This may include staff within the our Legal Services, Social Work, Environmental Health, and Planning and Building Standards teams. Where any part of the service is delivered in partnership with an external agency, agent, contractor, surveyor, or other authorised third party, your details may be shared with them. This may include sharing information with Borders Care and Repair. All third parties are required to handle your information securely and use it only for the purposes agreed with ourselves.
We are 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.
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.
In general, we do not transfer personal data outside either the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA) and on the rare occasions when it does so we will inform you. We will only transfer data outside the UK and the EEA when it is satisfied that the party which will handle the data and the country it is processing it in will provide adequate safeguards for personal privacy.
Decision-Making
We do not use profiling or automated decision-making processes. Some processes are semi-automated (such as anti-fraud data matching) but a human decision maker will always be involved before any decision is reached in relation to you
Third Party Information
If you have provided anyone else's details to us, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to ourselves. We will only use this information as part of the assessment of your need for services and to contact them in connection with delivery of any such services. If they want any more information on how we will use their information they can visit our web site at http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/privacystatement or by email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk
Your rights
For information on the rights you have over your personal data, please visit our website http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/DPYourRights or if you would like a hard copy of this information, please contact us using the contact details provided above.
How to raise a complaint
We aim to directly resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information. If your complaint is about how we have handled your personal information, you can contact the our Data Protection Officer by email at dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk or by telephone on 0300 100 1800.
However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint about data protection matters with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), who can be contacted by post at:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
You can contact the ICO by phone on 0303 123 1113 or visit their website for more information at- https://ico.org.uk/concerns
If your complaint is not about a data protection matter you can find details on how to make a complaint on our website at http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/complaints.