Council Tax privacy notice

The Revenues department is part of the Revenues and Benefits Service and is responsible for the efficient and effective billing, collection and recovery of Council Tax, Business Rates, and Business Improvement District debt.

Address: Revenues and Benefits Service
London Borough of Waltham Forest
PO Box 856
London E17 9PN

This privacy notice only relates to Council Tax.

Why we need your information and how we use it - We are required by legislation to levy and collect Council Tax from those who are liable. That legislation is as follows:

• The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992
• The Local Government Finance Act 1992

We use your information for administering Council Tax to set up an account for billing and collection purposes and for processing any discounts, disregards and exemptions you may be entitled to.

The processing and use of your personal data are underpinned by our compliance with our public task, legal and statutory obligations, primarily under the:

• Valuation Tribunal for England (Council Tax and Rating Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2009/2269
• The Non-Domestic Rating (Collection and Enforcement) (Local Lists) Regulations 1989
• The Local Government Finance Acts 1988 and 1992
• Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement Regulations 1992)

To bill you and collect Council Tax payments we collect the names of all liable persons, the address of which you are liable, any other relevant addresses, contact details and bank details.

To award discounts and disregards we require details of other occupiers, for example, student certificates, proof of child benefit etc.

To award exemptions depending on the type of exemption we collect a variety of information, for example, student certificates, doctors medical information, probate information etc. We also collect phone numbers and email addresses for the purpose of communicating directly with you by email or text when you have missed a payment and/or to offer you a payment arrangement.  

We will use your information for the purpose of performing any of its statutory enforcement duties. We 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 will share information with a third party where you have given us written permission to do so.
We will share information with Elected Members of the London Borough of Waltham Forest where they are pursuing their legitimate functions and with Members of Parliament for the same reason.

We use companies, Voicescape Ltd and Telsolutions to support contacting customers who are in arrears with their Council Tax and make payment arrangements or arrange for targeted campaigns for customers who may be in financial hardship and unable to meet their liability to pay Council Tax and offer reductions that they might be eligible for. Voicescape or Telsolutions may contact you by phone or sms message to signpost you to contact us.

As part of the checks carried out in accordance with our statutory duty to collect Council Tax and Business rates, we may obtain information about you from the data analytics and consumer credit reporting companies Experian, Transunion, Ascendant and Destin Solutions Ltd.

We also use Liberata Ltd who support us with services and solutions covering Revenues & Benefits, If you have questions regarding Experian’s data gathering and sharing practices you can access their privacy policies on their website.

We will not keep your information longer than is necessary. We retain data for current taxpayers dating back to 1997 for the purpose of successful challenges to liability and Council Tax banding.  For taxpayers who no longer live in the borough, we will retain information for six years after the account(s) is paid in full.

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)