Housing Services and Housing Asset Services privacy notice

Housing Services are the landlord for over 12,000 Council houses in East Ayrshire. Core housing services include activities relating to:

• estate and tenancy management
• income maximisation
• allocations and voids management
• investigation of antisocial behaviour complaints
• tenant participation

The service is also responsible for the:

• management of the Private Landlord Registration Scheme
• delivery and review of the Local Housing Strategy
• development of the Strategic Housing Investment Plan
• strategic local programme which incorporates the new Council House Building Programme

Housing Asset Services is responsible for the effective provision of:

• gas installation and servicing
• gas repairs and maintenance
• response repairs and planned maintenance by appointment
• out-of-hours emergency repairs
• cyclical maintenance
• void works
• dampness and infestation management
• housing improvement programmes
• aids and adaptations
• housing stock condition surveys
• scheme of assistance
• private sector housing grant
• property factoring
• National Home Energy Ratings (NHER) surveys

All personal information is held and processed by East Ayrshire Council in accordance with the Data Protection law.

For information on the role of the Data Controller, Data Protection Officer and contact details for the Council, please refer to our Privacy Statement.

We will collect personal information about you or your household composition (partner or dependants), such as:

• your name
• address
• telephone number
• email address
• National Insurance number
• date of birth
• details about your household composition, such as, income, allowances, including those of your partner or any dependants
• other relevant information needed to process an application, such as your landlord details

We will use this information to process a housing application or to provide housing repairs and maintenance, and housing improvement programme. We will check some of the information with other sources to ensure the information provided is accurate.

If this information is not provided it may affect our ability to process an application or provide a service.

We will also use tenants’ contact details to send out an annual tenants satisfaction survey.

The lawful basis for processing personal data are set out in Data Protection legislation. In this case the lawful basis for processing individuals’ data are:

1. Legal obligation – the processing is necessary for the Council to comply with the law.
2. Public task – the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.
3. Contract – the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract.

The information is required by the Council in order to carry out its duties under the Local Government Scotland Act 2003 and associated Regulations including:

• Housing (Scotland) Act 2001
• The Homelessness Etc. (Scotland) Act 2003
• The Scottish Secure Tenancies (Abandoned Property) Order 2002
• Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004
• Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011

Data protection legislation defines Special Category Data as data relating to processing of personal data regarding:

• racial or ethnic origin
• political opinions
• religious or philosophical beliefs
• or trade union membership and the
• processing of:
  • genetic data
  • biometric data
  • data concerning health 
  • data concerning a person’s sex life or sexual orientation

We have a requirement to process some types of Special Category Data and in particular:

• racial or ethnic origin information for monitoring purposes
• health information to support housing applications or to assist in housing maintenance or improvements such as providing aids or adaptations to a property

Lawful basis for processing Special Category Data

The processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest. This is on the basis of Union or Member State law which shall be proportionate to:

• the aim pursued
• respect the essence of the right to data protection
• provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject

To enable us to provide these services we may share information under our legal obligations with partner organisations, including:

• The Department for Work and Pensions and other Government departments
• Health & Social Care Organisations such as NHS Ayrshire & Arran and East Ayrshire Health & Social Care Partnership
• Public Health Scotland
• Police Scotland and other criminal investigation agencies
• External contractors (such as specialist service providers)
• Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
• First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber)
• Registered social landlords
• Housing Associations
• Utility Companies
• The (UK) Information Commissioner
• External Regulators
• Scottish Government

We will also make any disclosures required by law and may also share information with other bodies responsible for:

• detecting or preventing fraud, or
• auditing and administering public funds

National fraud initiative

The Council is required by law to participate in the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching exercises and information may be provided to the Cabinet Office for NFI purposes and will be used for cross-system and cross-authority comparison for the prevention and detection of fraud.

We will only keep your information for the minimum period necessary.

After this time, information is deleted/destroyed in accordance with our Council approved Retention Schedule (PDF 814 KB) which explains how long we keep information for.

It is important that we hold accurate and up-to-date information.

If any details have changed, or change in the future, then individuals should ensure that they inform Housing Services or Housing Asset Services as soon as possible so that they can update their records.

Under data protection legislation, individuals have the right to request access to information about them that the Council holds.

Individuals also have the right to:

• object to processing of personal data that is likely to cause, or is causing damage or distress
• prevent processing for the purpose of direct marketing
• object to decisions being taken by automated means
• in certain circumstances, have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed
• in certain circumstances, transfer their data to another organisation (data portability)

How to contact us

Individuals can contact us:

• regarding their data protection rights and the processing of their data
• if they have a concern about the way the Council is collecting or using their personal data

They should raise their concern with our Data Protection Officer in the first instance. Contact details can be found on our Privacy Statement.