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Council Housing - Housing Solutions Service

Who are we and what do we do

We are the Housing Solutions Service. We are part of the Housing, Environment and Healthy Communities directorate at Gateshead Council.

The Housing Solutions Service delivers the Council's statutory homelessness and housing advice function, which includes several Homeless Prevention Pathways - for Offenders (HOST), Mental Health, Hospital Discharge, Migration, and the Rough Sleeper Pathway.  The service also manages homeless temporary accommodation and referrals into supported housing and support services.

The service is person centered, and works in partnership with other statutory, non-statutory and community and voluntary services to support the prevention and relief of homelessness in Gateshead.

This privacy notice provides specific information about how this service processes your personal data and is an addition to the information contained in our Corporate Privacy notice.

What type of information is collected about you

  • Name, address (or last address if you are rough sleeping), date of birth and contact number
  • National insurance number
  • Rent arrears
  • Financial information, including income, benefits and expenditure
  • Protected characteristics as per H-CLIC specification

Information collected by the housing solutions service often relates to your support requirements and includes the following: -

  • You are a victim of or fleeing domestic abuse
  • You have a history of mental health problems
  • You have a physical ill health/disability
  • You are at risk / experienced sexual exploitation
  • Alcohol or drug dependency
  • Offending history
  • History of rough sleeping
  • Served in the armed forces
  • Information to confirm your eligibility which may include your immigration status

We will also collect information relating to any criminal activities.

How we collect information about you

Generally, the information we hold will have been collected as part of our homelessness investigations, and on our referral forms. This will include information provided by third parties where this is relevant to your housing circumstances (for example from the police, probation service, health professionals and doctors).

Upon visiting our website, cookies are used to collect information about website usage. 

You can see more information on how we collection web usage information on our cookies page.

Why we need your information

The Housing Solutions Service needs your information to undertake its statutory duties in relation to Homelessness as set out in Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996. This includes assessing homelessness applications and providing a response to homelessness in Gateshead as set out in the Statutory Code of Guidance.

The housing solutions service contributes to the Council's vision of preventing and ending homelessness in all forms in Gateshead.

We need your information to meet the four main aims outlined in the Homeless and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2022-27:

  • Make homelessness a rare occurrence.
  • Where homelessness occurs, there will be positive outcomes for people.
  • No-one sleeping rough or in unsuitable accommodation.
  • Homelessness is a one-off occurrence.

We also need your information to: -

  • Work in partnership with other agencies in response to/manage ASB complaints as part of any homelessness application.
  • Support making applications for housing via Gateshead Home Choice, the Council's Housing Register, in line with Councils Allocations and Lettings Policy.
  • Manage referrals and cases as part of a multi-agency panel or approach e.g. MAPPA, MARAC, MATAC MASH, IOM etc.

Our lawful basis for processing your information is (Article 6 GDPR):

  • Consent
  • Performance of a contract to which data subject is party
  • Legal obligation to which the data controller is subject
  • Task in the public interest or in exercise of official duty

Legislation which sets out many of the tasks the service is required to undertake includes:

  • Housing Act 1996 and 2004
  • Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 (HRA 2017)
  • Homelessness Act 2002
  • Homelessness (Priority Need for Accommodation) (England) Order 2002
  • Equality Act 2010

For special category data which is more sensitive our lawful basis is (Article 9 GDPR):

  • Your explicit consent 
  • For reasons of substantial interest (with basis in law)  
  • Safeguarding of children and individuals at risk
  • For reasons of public interest

Who your information can be shared with

When sharing information, we will comply with all aspects of the Data Protection Act 2018 / the GDPR. Where necessary or required, we may share your personal information with: 

  • Police when carrying out vetting checks as part of a housing application.
  • Probation Service if you are an ex-offender and we are managing a referral.
  • Health Authority if we are managing a discharge from hospital.
  • Public Authorities required by law to make a Duty to Refer (DTR).
  • Local GPs so we can make a decision and appropriately discharge our duties.
  • Other housing providers if you are being referred to supported housing accommodation.
  • Housing, support, and welfare services external to the Council.
  • Other local authorities if we are looking to refer you to accommodation that is outside of Gateshead, or where your local connection is to another local authority.
  • Hotels, B&B's, serviced apartments, and hostels if you are placed into temporary accommodation.
  • An advocate who is acting on your behalf, for example Citizens Advice, Crisis, or Shelter.
  • Other Council service including safeguarding, adults and children's social care, Housing Benefit, Council Tax, Housing including Private Sector Housing.
  • Multi agency bodies such as the Safeguarding Boards, and MAPPA etc when your information needs to be discussed by several different agencies.
  • Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) for its Homelessness Case Level Information Collection (H-CLIC), the likes of Homes England and Home Office for various statistical returns for funded programmes.
  • Government departments when they are carrying out homelessness research.

If we wish to share your information with other council services or third parties for purposes outside of those listed above, we will ask for your permission.

How long we will keep your information

We keep your information for as long as we need to provide the services to you. This will differ depending on the services you receive. We may also need to keep your information in accordance with legal or other obligations. Where we have no need to keep your data it will be securely destroyed. We have Record of Processing Activity (a requirement under the GDPR) which sets out the specific retention periods applicable in different circumstances. For more information about this please contact housingadvice@gateshead.gov.uk.

Where your information is held

Your personal data is held on NEC, our housing management system and the document management function within that system.

Your personal data is also held on One Drive and our shared internal drives. 

How you can update your information

The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. If you change your address or email address, or if any of your circumstances change or any of the other information we hold is out of date, please contact housingadvice@gateshead.gov.uk or telephone 0191 433 3174.

Your information rights

Please see the relevant section of our Corporate privacy notice.

Marketing and e-newsletters

Gateshead Council always acts upon your choices around what type of communications you want to receive and how you want to receive them. Where you have signed up for one of our newsletters, we use email newsletters to inform you of what we're doing, news and events.

Tools may be used to help us improve the effectiveness of our communications with you, including tracking whether the emails we send are opened and which links are clicked within a message. This helps us to improve and refine future email marketing around our campaigns and make sure all our emails are relevant and useful as possible.

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive marketing information from us. We will always ask for your permission or provide an opportunity to opt out.

Business intelligence, profiling and automated-decision making

Please see the relevant section of our Corporate privacy notice.

Protecting your information

Please see the relevant section of our Corporate privacy notice.

Data Protection Officer

Data Protection Officer
Civic Centre
Regent Street
Gateshead
NE8 1HH

DPOcouncil@gateshead.gov.uk

0191 433 3000

Information Commissioner's Office

The Information Commissioner is the UK's independent body for upholding information rights. Visit their website (opens new window) to find out more about your rights under Data Protection law, and what to expect from us.

For privacy practices or data protection rights concerns, contact the Information Commissioner's Office:

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

0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745

casework@ico.org.uk