Council tax privacy notice
Who we are and what we do
We maintain databases to ensure efficient and effective billing, collection and recovery of Council Tax, Business Rates and Business Improvement District debt.
London Borough of Redbridge, Council Tax Service, Revenues, Benefits and Transactional Centre, PO Box 1354
Lynton House
255-259 High Road
Ilford
IG1 1NN
Email: council.tax@redbridge.gov.uk
Phone: 020 8708 5670
Why we need your information and how we use it
In accordance with prevailing legislation, Local Authority Tax collectors are obliged to levy and collect taxes. The legislation that requires Local Authorities to collect and administer tax from its residents, is as follows:
- The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992
- The Local Government Finance Act 1992
We use your information collected for purposes of administering Council Tax setting up your account for billing purposes, processing discounts, exemptions etc.
What type of information is collected from you
You will usually have to pay Council Tax if you’re 18 or over and own or rent a home. The information that we collect and process for administering Council tax is:
- name
- mailing address
- property address attracting liability
- household make up in order to accurately apply relevant discounts exemptions and disregards
- email address
- telephone number - which may be used for SMS
Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)
Information may be shared with other departments at the London Borough of Redbridge such as Housing Benefit. It may also be shared with other agencies in accordance with prevailing Data Protection statute for the detection and prevention of fraud and crime.
By law we must give out some information if we are asked - for example by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or HM Revenue & Customs.
We are required by law to participate in National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching exercises. Housing benefit and council tax reduction information may be provided to the Cabinet Office for NFI purposes and will be used for cross-system and cross-authority comparison for the prevention and detection of fraud. Data may be shared with the Cabinet Office, DWP and HMRC as part of Digital Economy Act 2017 Debt Recovery and Vulnerability Support pilot.
We will also use the information for the purpose of performing any of its statutory enforcement duties. It will make any disclosures required by law and may also share this information with other bodies responsible for detecting/preventing fraud or auditing/ administering public funds. We may share the details with other organisations that handle public funds and assist in the processing of other benefits.
We are required to share council tax data with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to help with the production of statistics related to the economy, population and society and to help with the Census. Details of the information we will share and how it will be used can be viewed on the ONS website.
We can share information collected with other departments in the Council, other Local Authorities the Department for Work and Pensions.
How long we keep your information
We retain data for current taxpayers back to 1 April 1999 only.
For tax payers who no longer live in the borough, we retain your information for six years after the last payment. If an account has an outstanding debt, we will retain your information for six years after full payment.
If the claim has an active fraud investigation, we will retain all information until 6 years after the end of the fraud investigation and conclusion of court action.
Marketing and E-Newsletters
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice
Business Intelligence, Profiling and Automated-Decision making
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice
Protecting your information
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice
How you can access, update or correct your information
As far as Taxation is concerned you will find us approaching you to review the data we hold. There is no set pattern but typically every year or so we will review aspects of the data we hold.
The Data Protection law gives you the right to apply for a copy of information about yourself. This is called a ‘Subject Access Request'.
The accuracy of your information is important to us to be able to provide relevant services more quickly. We are working to make our record keeping more efficient. In the meantime, if you change your address or email address, or if any of your circumstances change or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date please email us at council.tax@redbridge.gov.uk or write to us at:
Council Tax service
PO Box 1354,
Lynton House
255-259 High Road
Ilford
IG1 1NN
Phone: 020 8708 5670
Your information choice and rights
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice
Information Commissioner’s Office
Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice
