Guidance

Funding to support local authorities with the costs of local plan delivery and Green Belt reviews: Privacy notice

Updated 16 December 2024

Applies to England

© Crown copyright 2024

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-plan-delivery-and-green-belt-reviews-expression-of-interest/funding-to-support-local-authorities-with-the-costs-of-local-plan-delivery-and-green-belt-reviews-privacy-notice

The following is to explain your rights and give you the information you are be entitled to under the Data Protection Act 2018. 

Note that this section only refers to your personal data (your name address and anything that could be used to identify you personally) not the content of your application. 

1. The identity of the data controller and contact details of our Data Protection Officer     

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)  is the data controller. The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotection@communites.gov.uk or by writing to the following address: 

Data Protection Officer
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Fry Building
2 Marsham Street 
London 
SW1P 4DF 

2. Why we are collecting your personal data   

Your personal data is being collected as an essential part of the application process, so that we can contact you regarding your application and for statistical purposes. We may also use it to contact you about related matters. 

We will collect your IP address if you complete an application online. We may use this to ensure that each person only completes an application once. We will not use this data for any other purpose. 

Sensitive types of personal data 

Please do not share special category personal data or criminal offence data if we have not asked for this unless absolutely necessary for the purposes of your application. By ‘special category personal data’, we mean information about a living individual’s: 

  • race 
  • ethnic origin 
  • political opinions 
  • religious or philosophical beliefs 
  • trade union membership 
  • genetics 
  • biometrics 
  • health (including disability-related information) 
  • sex life; or sexual orientation. 

By ‘criminal offence data’, we mean information relating to a living individual’s criminal convictions or offences or related security measures. 

The collection of your personal data is lawful under article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation as it is necessary for the performance by MHCLG of a task in the public interest/in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. Section 8(d) of the Data Protection Act 2018 states that this will include processing of personal data that is necessary for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown or a government department i.e. in this case an application for funding. 

4. With whom we will be sharing your personal data 

MHCLG may appoint a ‘data processor’, acting on behalf of the Department and under our instruction, to help analyse the applications for funding. Where we do we will ensure that the processing of your personal data remains in strict accordance with the requirements of the data protection legislation. 

MHCLG may share your name, organisation, role and contact details with other government departments or external delivery partners to facilitate the learning programme, for the purposes of tracking longer term impacts of the funding and informing the design of future policy, programmes and funding.  

5. For how long we will keep your personal data, or criteria used to determine the retention period 

Your personal data will be held for two years from the closure of the application process, unless we identify that its continued retention is unnecessary before that point. 

6. Your rights, e.g. access, rectification, erasure  

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right: 

a. to see what data we have about you 

b. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record 

c. to ask to have your data corrected if it is incorrect or incomplete 

d. to object to our use of your personal data in certain circumstances 

e. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO)  

If you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law. You can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/, or telephone 0303 123 1113. 

Please contact us at the following address if you wish to exercise the rights listed above, except the right to lodge a complaint with the ICO: dataprotection@communities.gov.uk or:  

Knowledge and Information Access Team
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government 
Fry Building 
2 Marsham Street 
London 
SW1P 4DF 

7. Your personal data will not be sent overseas 

8. Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision making  

9. Your personal data will be stored in a secure government IT system 

10. Complaints and more information  

When we ask you for information, we will keep to the law. If you are unhappy with the way the department has acted, you can make a complaint. If you are not happy with how we are using your personal data, you should first contact DataProtection@communites.gov.uk.  

If you are still not happy, or for independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing, you can contact:

The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745   

https://ico.org.uk/

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