Fair processing notices - Declarations of Eligibility made under the Council’s published Statement of Intent: Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Flexible Eligibility Criteria for ENERGY EFFICIENCY SCHEMES

How we use your data

At Stoke-on-Trent City Council we take your privacy seriously and will only keep and use your personal information for reasons law requires or allows.  We are a data controller for the personal information we hold about you in relation to issuing declarations for Government flexible eligibility for energy efficiency schemes where local authority discretion is permitted. In order to comply with data protection legislation we must be sure you understand how we use this information.

The purposes for which the data will be used are:-

  • To consider whether or not applicants meet the eligibility criteria set out in the Council’s Statement of Intent for Flexible Eligibility for the Government’s Energy Company Obligation Scheme.  The Council may also contact applicants regarding the Council’s Safe and Warm Homes Grant and/or other grants available through the Council’s Housing Renewal Assistance Policy.
  • Companies who work on behalf of Energy Suppliers - will use this information to consider whether or not applicants meet the eligibility criteria for assistance offered through the Government’s Energy Company Obligation Scheme (ECO3) and/or other Government energy efficiency schemes.

We are able to do this because legislation set out in The Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment) Order 2018 (“the Order”) as amended in 2019 has continued the mechanism (known as “Flexible Eligibility”) until March 2022. There is no legal requirement for the Council to take part in Flexible Eligibility, however, if the Council does take part, then under Articles 17(1)(c), 17(4)(c) and (d), and 17(5)  we are able to declare households as eligible if they live in fuel poverty or are on a low income and are vulnerable to the effects of living in a cold home and we have published a suitable Statement of Intent (as defined by Article 17(1)(5)).    

Council’s participating in the Government’s Flexible Eligibility scheme are required to hold and share some of your information excluding details of income, savings and health conditions with:

  • Ofgem - Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, a non-ministerial government department and an independent National Regulatory Authority.  Ofgem will monitor take-up for the programme to ensure that energy companies are delivering targets set through the Energy Company Obligation Scheme. 
  •  BEIS – the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy who require information in order to monitor take-up.  This will be used to determine future schemes and eligibility for the Energy Company Obligation Scheme.

The Council may also share similar information with other relevant obligated energy companies and suppliers participating in the Government’s Energy Company Obligation scheme and with the Energy Saving Trust - who require information from Groundwork for monitoring purposes and, where necessary, with other organisations, including (but not limited to) where it is appropriate to protect public funds and/or to prevent fraud.

Applicants should be aware that we have a duty to protect public funds.  We may therefore use the information we have for the prevention and detection of fraud.  We may share this information with other bodies for these purposes. We may also share this information with other parts of the council or other relevant organisations for purposes which may include enforcement.

Data protection law provides you with certain rights, however not all of these rights will be available to you in all situations.  Where we are under a legal duty to use data for a particular purpose you will not have the right to prevent it being used in that way.

A full list of the rights you may have, under data protection law, is given below: 

  • You can ask to see the information we hold about you.
  • You can ask what is being done with the information we hold about you.
  • You can ask to have some of the data we hold about you deleted.
  • You can ask us to review a decision made about you by a computer, and ask for a new decision to be made by a person.
  • You can ask us to stop processing the data we hold about you
  • You can ask us to make changes to data about you that you believe is inaccurate.
  • In some circumstances you can ask us to help you move your information to another organisation.
  • You can ask us to restrict or limit what we do with your data, for example if you believe the data we hold is inaccurate, or if you believe the processing in unlawful.
Who to contact if you have questions

If you wish to contact us in relation to any of your information rights, please contact the Information Rights Team at foi@stoke.gov.uk or Information Rights Team, Floor 2, Civic Centre, Glebe Street, Stoke-on-Trent ST4 1HH or you can complete the online form on the City Council's website: https://www.stoke.gov.uk/homepage/117/feedback_form

If you wish to complain about how your personal information has been handled by Stoke-on-Trent City Council then please contact the Information Rights Team in the first instance using the details above.  If you are not satisfied you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, Tel: 0303 123 1113 or you can visit their website at ico.org.uk.

You can find details of how we handle your personal information by visiting stoke.gov.uk/dataprotection

For any general enquiries you can contact the council by phone on 01782 234234, via email to enquiries@stoke.gov.uk or by writing to us at Civic Centre, Glebe Street, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 1HH.