Fair Processing Statement

For each circumstance in which the Council collects personal information, a fair processing statement will be provided to explain the specific conditions around that particular collection of information. Please contact the relevant Service to request the fair processing statement which is applicable to your dealings with the Council.

Use of personal information

Generally, we will use your personal information to deliver the function or service which you have requested from us or that we are duty bound to provide you. The main functions and services the Council provides and therefore the main purposes for using your personal information are:

• Building Control
• Burials
• Council Tax
• Complaints
• Economic Development
• Education
• Electoral Registration
• Emergency Planning
• Environmental Health
• Housing Benefits
• Recruitment and Selection
• Leisure and Sport
• Libraries
• Licensing
• Registration
• Social Work
• Trading Standards
• Valuation and Rating

For most purposes, we will only use your information with your consent. In most cases, we will presume that by providing us with your details in order to obtain a service from the Council, you are consenting to us using those details in order to provide that service to you.

As a general rule, we will not use your personal details for any other purpose without first obtaining your consent to that other purpose or purposes (you may have been asked to provide this additional consent at the time when you originally contacted us, for example in an additional section on an application form). However, please be aware that in line with the Data Protection Act 1998 and other relevant statutory legislations governing some of the work the Council carries out, we may be able to use and share your personal information with other organisations and Council departments for different purposes without your consent. This however will always be done so lawfully and only when necessary, for example, for purposes of crime prevention and detection and/or when required by law.

For some regulatory activity carried out by the Council, your application may require to be published and potentially discussed in open Council committees. This will be made clear on any relevant application forms. For matters decided by Council committees, the reports and minutes of these committees are normally public documents and will be made available in public libraries and on the Council's website.

Disclosure and sharing of personal information

In most circumstances we will not disclose personal data without consent. However, for some functions and services we will either be lawfully able to or lawfully required to share information across Council departments and/ or disclose information about you to a third party. As previously detailed, an example of this scenario would be to prevent and detect crime.

We work closely with a number of other public bodies, for example with the Dumfries and Galloway Health Board and other parts of the NHS operating in the Dumfries and Galloway area. Information will generally only be shared with these partner bodies with your consent and you should always be made aware when services are to be provided to you on a joint basis. Moving forward, the integration of health and social care in terms of the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 will result in more information being exchanged with the health board, the new Integration Joint Board and new Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership once the new arrangements start.

The Council itself is establishing a network of Arms Length External Organisations (ALEOs) which basically provide services to the Council which were previously carried out by Council service departments. Information will be shared with the relevant ALEOs where necessary but you should normally be advised when this will happen and given the opportunity to refuse to allow this.

External contractors are appointed to process information on behalf of the Council and under its instructions. All contractors which do this are appointed under written contracts requiring them to keep the personal information safe and prohibiting them from doing anything with the personal data they process for us other than following the Council's instructions.

By law we are obliged to provide information to certain other public bodies such as the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenues and Customs, courts, tribunals, hearings and other formal bodies dealing with legal processes, and various external regulatory bodies. We also have an obligation to assist in the prevention of crime and we will therefore generally supply specific information which we are asked to provide to the police or other crime detection agencies, provided we are satisfied that the request is connected to an investigation and that disclosure would be lawful and proportionate.

The Council carries out statistical analyses of the information which it holds in order to monitor its performance in various areas and in order to improve service delivery. These statistics, once they cannot identify any individuals, may be published or shared with other organisations or individuals. The Council also conducts research and assists other bodies to conduct research using the information we hold. We may also share your information with other public bodies as part of a project to produce better population estimates for the area.

If an individual elects to make public statements relating to the Council and the Council holds information showing that these statements are incorrect, we may publicise the fact that we hold information contradicting that version. We may also seek your consent to publish the contradictory information; if you decline to give us this consent, we may make your refusal of this consent public.

National Fraud Initiative

Dumfries and Galloway Council is required by law to protect the public funds it administers. The Council may share information provided to it with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.

On behalf of the Accounts Commission and the Auditor General for Scotland, Audit Scotland appoints an auditor to audit the accounts of this authority. Audit Scotland also assists appointed auditors by conducting a National Fraud Initiative, which is a data matching exercise.

Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body. This is usually personal information. Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is found it indicates that there is an inconsistency which requires further investigation. No assumption can be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out.

Audit Scotland currently requires the Council to participate in data matching exercises to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We have to provide particular sets of data to Audit Scotland for matching.

The data required from the Council includes information on:

• Staff Payroll Details
• Staff Pensions Details
• Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction (via Department of Work and Pensions)
• Private Supported Care Home Residents
• Transport Passes and Permits (including Residents Parking and Blue Badges)
• Licences - Market Trader/Operator, Taxi/Private Hire Driver, and Personal Licences to Supply Alcohol
• Council Tax
• Electoral Register
• Trade Creditors

The details are matched against details obtained from other local and central government bodies, the NHS and a number of private sector pension bodies. The Council investigates the resulting matches.

The use of data by Audit Scotland in a data matching exercise is carried out with statutory authority, normally under its powers in Part 2A of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000. It does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Data matching by Audit Scotland is subject to a Code of Practice.

Access to personal information

Dumfries and Galloway Council aims to be as open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. Individuals can find out if we hold any personal information by making a 'subject access request' under the Data Protection Act 1998. If we do hold information about you we will:

• give you a description of it;
• tell you why we are holding it;
• tell you who it could be disclosed to; and
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a request to the Council for any personal information we may hold you need to put the request in writing addressing it to our Information Management and Complaints Unit.

One of the principles of the Data Protection Act is that personal data must be accurate and up to date.

If on receiving information in a response to a subject access request you think that the personal data the Council holds about you is incorrect, you can write to us explaining why you believe it is wrong and ask for it to be corrected. The Council may ask for further proof of identity or supporting evidence. 

If the Council is satisfied that the existing information held is incorrect it will amend its records. If we do not agree we will add a note that you disagree with our version of the data.

Service specific statements

The Council intends to undertake a project to review its individual fair processing statements and make them available through this webpage. Once reviewed and agreed, a link will be detailed below.

Changes to this fair processing statement

We keep our fair processing statement under regular review. This fair processing statement was last updated on 5 June 2015.