Rates relief recipients' privacy notice

Who we are?

Angus Council is a local authority established under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. Its head office is located at Angus House, Orchardbank Business Park, Orchardbank, Forfar, Angus, DD8 1AN, and you can contact our data protection officer by post at this address, by email at InformationGovernance@angus.gov.uk, and by telephone on 03452 777 778.

Why may we require your personal information and what do we do with it?

In order to administer non-domestic rates bills and determine for instance eligibility for non-domestic rates reliefs, we may require personal information relevant to your non-domestic property.

We may also use your information, as required, to verify your identity, contact you by post, email or telephone and to maintain our records.

In order to increase transparency around the use of public funds for non-domestic rates relief awards, information associated with the awarding of the non-domestic rates reliefs will be published on the local authority’s website. This information may include the liability holder (company or sole trader name), non-domestic property information (including relevant property reference numbers), the date of the relief award, type of relief award, gross bill and net bill.

This information may also be analysed internally to help us improve our services.

This data sharing is in accordance with our Information Use and Privacy Policy and covered in our full privacy statement on our website. It also forms part of our requirements in line with our Records Management Plan approved in terms of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.

Legal basis for using your information

You can find more details about this on our website - Data and privacy. Processing your personal information may be necessary for the awarding of the relief. If you do not provide us with the information we have asked for then we may not be able to provide this service to you.

Who do we share your information with?

We are legally obliged to safeguard public funds so we are required to verify and check your details internally for fraud prevention. We may share this information with other public bodies (and also receive information from these other bodies) for fraud-checking purposes. We are also legally obliged to share certain data with other public bodies, such as other local authorities or Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and will do so where the law requires this. In order to meet our legal obligations and to promote openness & transparency around the use of public funds and the awarding of non-domestic rates reliefs, relief recipients should be aware that the details of all relief awards will be published on the Local Authority website.

We will also generally comply with requests for specific information from other regulatory and law enforcement bodies where this is necessary and appropriate.

Your information is also analysed internally to help us improve our services. This data sharing is in accordance with our Information Use and Privacy Policy and covered in our full privacy statement on our website. It also forms part of our requirements in line with our Records Management Plan approved in terms of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.

Your information will be shared with the Scottish Government for the purposes of analysis. This data-sharing is in accordance with our Information Use and Privacy Policy and covered in our full privacy statement on our website. It also forms part of our requirements in line with our Records Management Plan approved in terms of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011. The Scottish Government may also publish compiled lists of relief award recipients.

How long do we keep your information for?

We only keep your personal information for the minimum period amount of time necessary. Sometimes this time period is set out in the law, but in most cases it is based on the business need. We maintain a records retention and disposal schedule which sets out how long we hold different types of information for.

You can view this on our website - Records management policy - or you can request a hard copy from the contact address stated above.

Your rights under data protection law?

  • access to your information – you have the right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you.
  • correcting your information – we want to make sure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Therefore you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that you believe does not meet these standards.
  • Deletion of your information - you have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you and where:
    1. you think that we no longer need to hold the information for the purposes for which it was originally obtained
    2. you have a genuine objection to our use of your personal information – see Objecting to how we may use your information below
    3. our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations.

Objecting to how we may use your information

You have the right at any time to tell us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Restricting how we may use your information

In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold about you or we are assessing the objection you have made to our use of your information. This right might also apply if we no longer have a basis for using your personal information but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right is realistically applied will mean that we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.

Please contact us as stated above if you wish to exercise any of these rights.

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 Angus Council.

We will only use this information to process and administer your claim.

If they want any more information on how we will use their information they can visit our website - Data and privacy - or email at InformationGovernance@angus.gov.uk.

Complaints

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 the Council’s Data Protection Officer by email at InformationGovernance@angus.gov.uk or by 03452 777 778.

However, you also have the right to lodge a complaint about data protection matters with the Information Commissioner's Office, who can be contacted by post at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. By phone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745. Visit their website for more information at https://ico.org.uk/concerns