Who we are
We are Local Authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Our headquarters are at Newtown St Boswells, Melrose, TD6 0SA.
You can contact our Customer Advice and& Support Service by:
- email: CustomerAdvice@scotborders.gov.uk
- phone: 0300 100 1800
Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted using the contact details above or by emailing dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk
How we will use your information
The personal information we hold about you may be collected by:
- online form
- phone
- a member of our staff
We will use your information to make a decision on your eligibility for a Crisis Grant or a Community Care Grant. We are entitled to collect and use this information under the terms of The Welfare Funds (Scotland) Act 2015.
We process personal data that can be used to identify you, such as your:
- name
- address
- date of birth
- National Insurance number
- phone number
- email address
We do not collect any special category data as standard, however there may be instances where Criminal Offence data is processed.
Processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the Data Controller or of the Data Subject in the field of employment and social security and social protection law.
The data is processed as part of our statutory duty to provide occasional financial or other assistance to individuals for the purposes of meeting, or helping to meet, an immediate short term need, as defined in section two of the Welfare Fund (Scotland) Act 2015. This includes individuals who have been, or otherwise might be in prison.
We may also use the information you provide to determine if you are eligible for any other Financial Assistance.
Who we may share your information with
Your information will be accessed by our staff who need to do so in order to provide the service described above. 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. Personal data provided for applications for services administered and/or provided by us may be shared with, or obtained from the following organisations (in addition to any other disclosure required by a Court of Law or in response to a valid request by, normally, a law enforcement agency):
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
- HMRC
- Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
- NHS
- Scottish Government
- other Local Authorities
Where there is a requirement for translation and interpreting services we may share your data with any of the following as appropriate:
- Language Line
- Alpha Translating and Interpreting Services LTD
- Scottish Borders Interpreter Agency
- Contact Scotland - BSL
- Royal Blind - Scottish Braille Press
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 we do so we will inform you.
We will only transfer data outside the UK and the EEA when we are 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.
Information you have given us about other people
If you have provided anyone else's details on this form, please make sure that you have told them that you have given their information to us. We will only use this information to contact those people to assess your own entitlement to this service. If they want any more information on how we will use their data they can view our privacy statement or email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk
How long do we keep your information for?
Whether your claim is successful or unsuccessful, the information you have provided will be retained for seven years after your case has been closed.
Your rights
You have the right to request access to any personal data held about you by us. You can also request that we restrict the use of your information or even object to any further processing. You can do this by contacting the Data Protection Officer. We will respond to your request within 30 calendar days.
For more information on your rights see our website or if you would like a hard copy of this information, contact us.
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 our Data Protection Officer by:
- email: dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk
- phone: 0300 100 1800
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: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
- phone: 0303 123 1113
- website
If your complaint is not about a data protection matter you can find details on how to make a complaint.