Additional Restricted Grants (ARG) privacy notice

We are the Waltham Forest Council Business Growth and Enterprise Team. We work with local businesses, investors and employers, and internal teams such as Property, Culture, Business Rates, Adult Learning Service, Strategic Regeneration, and others, to support socio-economic growth in the borough.

By submitting your information to us, you are consenting for Waltham Forest Council to be the ‘Controller’ of your data. Waltham Forest Council determines the purposes and means of processing your personal data as stated below.

Business Growth, Investment & Employment Team

Phone: 0208 496 3000 Email: business.growth@walthamforest.gov.uk

We only collect personal data about you, that we need in order to support your business or enterprise, and for the purpose of distributing the Additional Restricted Grants. We will only use personal data for the following purposes:

• Assessing your grant application, including eligibility and against the discretionary criteria set by Waltham Forest Council.
• Carrying out statutory appropriate and proportionate fraud checks including checking your data against bank account and companies house information, other grant applications received by Waltham Forest Council and other local authorities, and Spotlight checks.
• The Business Growth Team may get in touch with you using the contact information you have provided.
• For the purposes of service delivery, Waltham Forest Council will share your personal information with trusted third party partners such as event organisers, external training and support providers, and internal personnel.
• Waltham Forest may use different mediums to access your data for portability purposes such as mobile phones, laptops, tablets or other devices. All mediums will be properly safeguarded with security pin codes/passwords.
• You will be able to unsubscribe from communications from Waltham Forest Council at any time]

Information that we obtain from third party sources:

For the purpose of this grant round, we may collect personal information about you from third party sources.  

• Your data will be stored on Waltham Forest’s secure grants application system provided by Ascendent Solutions Ltd. Information is fully GDPR compliant and stored in secure UK based data centres. Access is restricted to Waltham Forest Council programme staff.
• For the purposes of Fraud checks we will be sharing your data with the Government’s online automated due-diligence tool.
• We have subscribed to the Beauhurst Platform, a searchable database of the UK’s high-growth companies.  The Personal data we collect from Beauhurst is limited to name, job title and email address. Beauhurst process this data on the grounds of legitimate interests. No sensitive personal data is processed on the platform. More information can be found on their Privacy Notice.

We hold your data because you have applied for a grant through the Additional Restricted Grants process and have consented to us processing your data for the purpose(s) you have provided it.

We use your data to:

• Assess your grant application and carry out statutory checks.
• Notify you of the outcome of your grant application.
• Request further information in support of your grant application.
• Notify you of business support programmes and events, which may be of benefit to you.
• Invite you to join Council facilitated business networks.

To respond to the local business community in light of emergencies or pandemics in order to mitigate their impact on the local economy.

Consent:  the individual has given clear consent for you to process their personal data for a specific purpose.

For more details on the Lawful Basis see the ICO guidance

We may share your data with:

• Government fraud checking tools (e.g. Spotlight)
• Other council departments including the Business Rates Team in the Waltham Forest Revenues and Benefits Service.

As part of our COVID-19 emergency response, we have commissioned a High Street business support plan, to be delivered by Save the High Street (Colex Connect Ltd). This will require some data sharing between the Council and Save the High Street. To deliver a successful service to you the Council and Save the High Street will share the names of businesses, name of owner/manager, telephone, email and a summary of the business.

We are required by Government to hold data submitted through your application for a minimum of 10 years.

Our Data Protection Officer

Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes, you contact him by email at data.protectionofficer@walthamforest.gov.uk

Protecting your information

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Your information choice and rights

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Complaints and contact details

These are included in the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Information Commissioner’s Office

If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)