What we do with your personal information

We’ll collect and process data for a number of purposes, including the provision of statutory services. Some examples of the reasons we process data are:

  • Processing information you give on a benefit claim form and to monitor our performance in responding to your request.
  • For Council Tax payments to fund local services to you and in the community.
  • To allow us to be able to communicate and provide services.
  • To ensure that we meet our legal requirements, including obligations imposed under the Equality and Health and Safety Acts.
  • where necessary, for our law enforcement functions, for example licensing, planning enforcement, trading standards, food safety, etc, where we're legally obliged to undertake such processing.
  • Where the processing is necessary for us to comply with our statutory obligations, such as the provision of social care.
  • To process financial transactions including grants, payments and benefits involving us, or where we are acting on behalf of other government bodies, for example the Department for Works and Pensions.
  • Where you have consented to the processing.
  • Where necessary to protect individuals from harm or injury.
  • to improve the health of the population we serve. To help with this we use data and information from a range of sources (such as Office for National Statistics births and deaths data and hospital episode statistics) to understand more about the nature and causes of ill-health and the health and care needs in the area. Our legal duties for processing data for this are covered in the Health and Social Care Act (2012) sections 12, 31, 192, 193, 194 and 206, and the Local Authority Regulations (2013) Public Health Functions.
  • To facilitate peer reviews and peer challenges, both statutory and voluntary. These reviews allow us to have an independent assessment of the services we provide with the aim of identifying improvements we can make.
  • To identify residents of the borough who may be eligible for additional support, for example due to financial vulnerability, and plan services appropriately. This is achieved using a business intelligence solution to analyse data held by the council.

Health data

The lists below describing our statutory duties and wider public health responsibilities are not exhaustive, but broadly describe how we use data to help improve and protect public health, and reduce health inequalities. These uses fulfil our public health function.

Statutory public health duties that data will be used to support

  • Duty to improve public health
    Analyses of the data will be used to support our duty under Section 12 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to take appropriate steps to improve the health of the population, for example by providing information and advice, services and facilities, and incentives and assistance to encourage and enable people to lead healthier lives.

  • Duty to support health and wellbeing boards
    Analyses of the data will be used to support our duty and the Integrated Care Board-led health and wellbeing board under Section 194 of the 2012 Act to improve health and wellbeing, reduce health inequalities, and promote the integration of health and care services.

    The data will also be used to support the statutory duty of health and wellbeing boards under Section 206 of the 2012 Act to undertake pharmaceutical needs assessments.

  • Duty to produce Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) and Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategies (JHWSs)
    Analyses of the data will be used to support our duty under Sections 192 and 193 of the 2012 Act to consult on and publish JSNAs and JHWSs that assess the current and future health and wellbeing needs of the local population.

  • Duty to commission specific public health services
    Analyses of the data will be used to support us to carry out our duty under the Local Authorities Regulations 2013 to plan and provide NHS health check assessments, the National Child Measurement Programme, and open access sexual health services.

  • Duty to provide public health advice to NHS commissioners
    Analyses of the data will be used by us to carry out our duty under the 2013 Regulations to provide a public health advice service to NHS commissioners.

  • Duty to publish an annual public health report
    Analyses of the data will be used by Directors of Public Health to support their duty to prepare and publish an annual report on the health of the local population under Section 31 the 2012 Act.

  • Public health responses on behalf of the local authority to licensing applications and other statutory local authority functions requiring public health input
    Analyses of the data will be used by the Director of Public Health to support their duty under Part 3 of the National Health Services Act 2006 (as amended by Section 30 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012) to provide our public health response (as the responsible authority under the Licensing Act 2003, as amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 Schedule 5 Part 1) to licensing applications.

Wider public health responsibilities supported by analysis of the data

  • Health impact assessments and equity audits
    Analyses of the data will be used to assess the potential impacts on health and the wider social economic and environmental determinants of health of our strategic plans, policies and services.

  • Local health profiles
    Analyses of the data will be used to support the production of locally-commissioned health profiles to improve understand of the health priorities of local areas and guide strategic  commissioning plans by focusing, for example, on:
    • bespoke local geographies (based on the non-standard aggregation of LSOAs);
    • specific demographic, geographic, ethnic and socio-economic groups in the population;
    • inequalities in health status, access to treatment and treatment outcomes;

  • Surveillance of trends in health status and health outcomes
    Analyses of the data will be used for the longitudinal monitoring of trends in the incidence, prevalence, treatment and outcomes for a wide range of diseases and other risks to public health.

  • Responsive and timely local health intelligence service
    Analyses of the data will be used to respond to ad hoc internal and external requests for information and intelligence on the health status and outcomes of the local population generated and received by the Director of Public Health and their team.

National data opt-out 

At this time, we don't share any data for planning or research purposes for which the national data opt-out would apply. We review all of the confidential patient information we process on an annual basis to see if this is used for research and planning purposes. If it is, then individuals can decide to stop their information being shared for this purpose. You can find out more information at NHS your data matters

More information

We may need to share some information about you with other organisations, for example, the Department of Work and Pensions, NHS, Police or care agencies, and third parties working on the council’s behalf, so we can all work together for your benefit. We'll only ever pass information about you to them if there is a genuine need for it and we have your permission, or where the law allows this. 

We may also use inferred anonymous demographic data to help improve our services. You can ask for more information on this through the personal information requests process.

In addition to this, we may also share this information with other bodies responsible for auditing and administering public funds for these purposes. For more information you read about data sharing for the prevention and detection of fraud.

If you feel we've breached your personal data you can contact us to report a personal data breach.