Guidance

Supported accommodation review research study: privacy notice

Updated 17 April 2024

Applies to England

1. The data controller

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) is the “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for determining what personal information we collect about you and use, why and how (the ‘purpose and manner’).

2. Why we are collecting the data

When we ask for your personal information, we promise only to ask for what we need, and to make sure you know why we need it. If it includes contact details, we will also tell you anything else that we may use it to contact you about and whether you can say no. If you do then say yes to us contacting you about other things, you can withdraw your agreement at any time.

In this instance we have commissioned Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University to undertake surveys of supported housing commissioning teams and housing benefit teams in local authorities, and also to undertake a survey of the providers of supported housing.

The aims of the study are to establish:

1. What is the size and composition of the supported housing sector? This will explore the current size of the sector measured by units of accommodation and schemes as well as how these break down by ownership type, building characteristics and service delivery characteristics.
2. What are the costs of provision? Including how costs of existing schemes are broken down by rental, service charge and care and support components for the different types of provision. It will also consider the cost of developing new schemes (by type and location) and the barriers and examples of best practice in developing new schemes.
3. What is the current and future demand for supported housing and how does this compare to supply? This is to be considered both as understood by local authorities and modelled projections broken down by client groups, scheme types and the preferences of existing or prospective residents.
4. Exploration of the interaction between local commissioners and supported housing providers, but also health and care organisations where relevant. In addition, a qualitative exploration of the interaction between supported housing providers and local authority departments responsible for housing benefit claim assessments/ decisions.
5. How can monitoring be improved?Consideration of how central government could systematically collect data to monitor the size, cost and demand of the supported housing sector whilst making best use of existing local and national data systems.

3. Why we are legally allowed to process your data

The reasons that we can use to collect or use your personal information are set out in law. Most of the time, the lawful basis for us processing your personal information under data protection legislation will be because it is necessary for our work as a public body (the processing is necessary for the performance of a task in the public interest - (Article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation).

When we collect and use your personal information under any other lawful basis, we will let you know which part of data protection law we are using.

In this instance, we will only be recording names and contact details in order to help us accurately report the findings of the surveys, and to facilitate any follow ups if participants agree to assisting with later stages of the study. All findings will be anonymised in any disseminated reports, and if we wanted to attribute any findings to a specific local body or individual we would not do so without their prior agreement.

4. Sharing your data

Personal data collected during this study would not be shared with any other body outside DLUHC and the CRESR research team that is undertaking the research study.

We will be sharing findings of the study with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which is a co-funder of the study, the department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly Government, but all results will be anonymised beforehand and no personal data will be shared with these bodies.

5. Keeping your data

We will only keep your personal information as long as we continue to have a lawful basis to do so. This will usually mean that it is still necessary for our work as a public body. This will be decided by our ongoing business need and any laws or government policies that affect how long we keep it. We have a “retention schedule” that sets out how long we will keep different types of information for:

• If you only take part in the first questionnaire we will securely destroy your data by March 2026;
• If you take part in the further research we will securely destroy your data by March 2028.

6. Your rights

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have rights that affect what happens to it. Generally, you have the right to:

(a) know that we are using your personal data

(b) see what data we have about you

(c) ask to have your data corrected, and to ask how we check the information we hold is accurate

(d) ask to have your data deleted where the processing is no longer necessary for the purposes stated in this privacy notice

(e) object to the processing of your personal data

(f) complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (see below)

7. Sending data overseas

We will not usually send your data overseas. If for some reason we do, such as storing data on computer servers that are not in the UK, we will ensure that all necessary safeguards are in place.

8. Automated decision making

We will not use your data for any automated decision making.

9. Storage, security and data management

Your personal data will be stored securely and will be protected to make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn’t.

You can ask us for details of our instructions to staff on how to collect, use and delete your personal data.

What we ask of you

So that we can keep your personal information reliable and up to date, please:

• give us accurate information
• tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes, such as a new address

Complaints and more information

When we ask you for information, we will keep to the law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 and any new legislation coming into force.

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 information, you should first contact dataprotection@levellingup.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: 030 3123 1113

Website: https://ico.org.uk/