1. Calderdale Council takes security of your data and your privacy seriously and will only use your information for the purposes listed in section 2 below. This notice provides details of how the Council collects and uses information (data) about you for the purposes of collecting business rates.
We will keep your information secure at all times.
a) The Data Controller for the information we hold is:
Calderdale Council
Town Hall, Crossley Street, Halifax
HX1 1UJ
Calderdale Council is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office for the purposes of processing your personal information in relation to your application.
b) If you have any query regarding how we are using your information as outlined in section 2 below, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer in the first instance:
You can contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer at information.management@calderdale.gov.uk.
2. As the Billing Authority responsible for the administration, billing, collection and recovery of national non-domestic rates (business rates) and Business Improvement District (BID) Levies, we collect, process and store personal details about you in order to carry out our responsibilities to administer public funds and to enforce collection of monies owed.
We also sometimes use information held on our databases for other purposes including the prevention and detection of fraud and protection of public funds.
Normally, we only collect basic data about you including your name, address and contact details whenever you make an application for any relief or exemption or you move into business property or alternatively where you move out of business property or make an arrangement for payment or register to pay by direct debit.
If there is a dispute about liability, we may need to collect additional information regarding ownership and evidence of occupation.
Sometimes we obtain information about you from third parties including previous owners, landlords, agents or solicitors, where this is necessary in order to administer and enforce collection of business rates.
If you choose to pay by direct debit, we will collect and store financial information that you provide.
We may also share your information with other Council services in order to keep our records as accurate and as up to date as possible and to perform any of our statutory duties, including enforcement.
We are required by law to protect public funds we administer and may use your information for the prevention and detection of crime (including fraud and money laundering). We may share your data with the following bodies:
- HM Revenue & Customs
- Immigration Service
- Credit Reference Agencies
- Courts & Tribunals
- Police
- Other Local Authorities
- Central Government Departments
- Elected Members / Members of Parliament
- Contracted 3rd party investigation companies.
If you owe the Council business rates or BID Levy, we will always try to contact you to make suitable arrangements to pay off any debt without the need for using external debt collection agents to enforce collection.
At times, the Council may sometimes work with other external parties to deliver statutory functions or deliver certain services. Where this is the case, we may share your data with these parties for any of the purposes detailed above. These external partners are normally contracted enforcement agencies or the Cabinet Office. The Council has joined the National Fraud Initiative and undertakes data matching exercises to identify potential discrepancies that may indicate fraud.
We will always ensure that your data is kept secure, is only used for these purposes and not shared or disclosed for any other purpose unless required by law.
Your personal information will be treated with the strictest confidence and will only be accessible by those who need to access it in order to carry out the above functions.
Authority to Collect And Use Your Information
We collect and use your data in order to collect Business Rates or BID levies under the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and accompanying regulations and the Business Improvement Districts (England) Regulations 2004 and the Localism Act 2011.
Processing of your data is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to collect Business Rates, Council Tax or BID Levies, a task that is carried out under the official authority vested in the Data Controller.
How Long Will We Keep Your Data?
We will only retain your data for as long as it is required by the authority or other regulatory bodies in order to comply with legal or regulatory requirements.
In most cases, this will be for a maximum of 7 (seven) years under the Limitation Act 1980.
Personal Data – Your Rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 you have the following rights:
Right To Be Informed
The way your personal data is collected, handled and processed and the purpose for its processing is detailed in this Privacy Statement. The Privacy Notice is a full explanation for you of exactly why we need your personal data, where it will be stored, who it will be shared with, the purpose of collecting it, the Data Protection Officer contact, your rights to object and how long the data will be kept for. Each Privacy Notice is different depending upon the data being collected. There is a generic Privacy Notice on the Council website.
Right Of Access
To the personal information we hold about you and/or a right to be given a copy of the data. This is called a Subject Access Request (SAR) and is dealt with by the Council’s Information Governance team free of charge. Please ensure that any request is made to information.management@calderdale.gov.uk
Right To Rectification
A right to request that the Council corrects any personal data that is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, such as wrong addresses, incorrect spellings etc. Third parties holding your data are required to amend their records also.
Right To Erasure
In certain circumstances, you may have the right to request your personal data is removed from our database as long as the purpose for processing the data is not a statutory one.
Right To Restriction Of Processing
Where there is a dispute in relation to accuracy or lawfulness of the processing of your personal information, you have a right to request that a restriction is placed on further processing while we look into the matter.
Right To Object To Processing Personal Data
You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data. This applies only in certain specific circumstances and is dependent upon our legal basis for processing.
To exercise any of the above rights, please contact the Business Rates Manager at business.rates@calderdale.gov.uk
Right Of Complaint
You can complain to the Council’s Data Protection Officer if you feel that your data rights have been incorrectly handled or breached. Complaints about data protection should not be sent to the Council’s Complaints Unit but should be sent to the Council’s SPO at information.management@calderdale.gov.uk
Further Processing
If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose not covered by this notice, then we will provide you with a new transparency notice explaining this prior to commencing the processing and setting out the reasons and processing conditions.