Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding (EBSS AF) - How we use your personal information

We take your privacy seriously and will only keep and use your personal information for reasons that the law requires or allows. We are a data controller for the personal information we hold about you in relation to the administration of this government scheme.

In order to comply with data protection legislation, we want to be sure you understand how we use this information.

The EBSS Alternative Funding is a one-off £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households who have not received the main EBSS payment automatically to help with their energy bills between 1 October 2022 and 31 March 2023, but are still facing increased energy costs.

Individuals will need to apply for the EBSS Alternative Funding via a Gov.UK portal.

Local authorities will be responsible for distributing support payments to eligible applicants.

Your data

We will process the following personal data:

your name, where you live, date of birth, postcode and address, including when using the address lookup function
your email and phone number when you have provided them
bank account details to help us identify you and facilitate payment
questions or feedback you leave, including your email address if you contact us
evidence of power of attorney or other legal evidence to act on the applicant's behalf

Special category data will not be expressly requested in connection with applications for the scheme, but it is possible that co-incident collection and sharing of special category data could occur as a result of information provided by applicants (or third party individuals acting on your behalf) in connection with the applications, including, but not limited to, information relating to the ethnic origin of applicants or data concerning applicant's health or age.

Purpose

The purposes for which your data will be used are:

To proceed with delivery of the service, also known as the Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) Alternative Funding in Great Britain, previously referred to as the Energy Bills Support Scheme Discretionary Funding, to ensure support to around 1% of households that will not receive £400 automatically through EBSS. This includes monitoring the reach of the scheme across regions and vulnerable groups.
To conduct financial checks on payments including for assurance and the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences including fraud.
To allow BEIS to evaluate the scheme to understand its impact and to inform future government policy.

Legal basis of processing

We are able to do this because legislation provides a legal basis for processing your personal data. The EBSS Alternative Funding is underpinned by the Energy Prices Act 2022. That Act allows for the government to issue support for energy costs (section 13) and enables government to empower delivery partners to provide the support to recipients (section 15).

The Act, and subsequent regulations, also provides for delivery of the funding through local authorities in Great Britain as Local Welfare Provision.

The Energy Prices (Designated Domestic Energy Price Reduction Schemes for Great Britain and Designated Bodies) Regulations 2022 (also in force) extends this designation to all district councils in England.

Processing of your data is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller, such as the exercise of a function of a local authority, the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department; the exercise of a function conferred on a person by an enactment; the exercise of a function of either House of Parliament; or the administration of justice. In this case, to ensure support this coming winter to around 1% of households that will not receive £400 through EBSS automatically.

The Council will process and store your data only within the European Economic Area.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Council are the independent data controllers for your data - BEIS’ privacy notice.

Data Sharing

We may share your information with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

We have a data sharing agreement with BEIS so that we can share your personal data with them to deliver this service. The sharing of the data between local authorities and BEIS is for the purpose of administration, delivery, reporting, monitoring, evaluation and fraud prevention necessary within the scheme. This may also include an assessment of your liability for council tax on the property you have stated as your sole and main residence on the application.

Retention

We will only keep your personal data for as long as required to support the delivery, evaluation and scrutiny of the service. BEIS have indicated that data relating to this scheme will be retained for a period of 7 years.

Special category data

As referenced under sub-section “Your data” above, special category data will not be expressly requested in connection with applications for the scheme, but it is possible that co-incident collection and sharing of special category data could occur as a result of information provided by applicants (or third party individuals acting on your behalf) in connection with the applications, including, but not limited to, information relating to the ethnic origin of applicants or data concerning applicant's health or age.

To the extent that special category data is collected, it will be processed under Article 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR - Substantial Public Interest. More particularly in the context of the exercise of governmental functions, preventing or detecting unlawful acts, regulatory requirements relating to unlawful acts and dishonesty, and preventing fraud, as set out in Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the DPA. In particular, this processing is necessary for the administration, delivery, reporting, monitoring, evaluation of the scheme, as well as in connection with fraud prevention, and pre and post payment assurance and financial management activities to be undertaken in connection with the scheme.

Your rights

Data protection law provides you with certain rights, however, not all of these rights will be available to you in all situations, particularly where we process your information as part of one of our statutory duties. Where we are under a legal duty to use data for a particular purpose you will not have the right to prevent it being used in that way.

A full list of the rights you may have, under data protection law, is given in the 'Your Rights' section on Data Protection - Privacy Notices.

For specific enquiries regarding personal data which we process you can contact the Data Protection Officer on dpo@staffordbc.gov.uk or at Civic Centre, Riverside, Stafford ST16 3AQ.

If you wish to complain about how your personal information has been handled by us then please contact the Data Protection Officer in the first instance using the details above. If you are not satisfied you can submit a formal complaint to the Council.

Finally you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, Tel: 0303 123 1113 or you can visit their website at ico.org.uk.

You can also find details of how we handle your personal information by visiting Data Protection - Privacy Notices.

For any general enquiries you can contact the council by phone on 01785 619000, by email info@staffordbc.gov.uk or by writing to us at Stafford Borough Council, Civic Centre, Riverside, Stafford ST16 3AQ.