Published:
The council is bringing together information we already hold to help us identify households who may be missing out on financial support or at risk of financial hardship, fuel poverty or homelessness. We also want to help to target early help and advice for households facing housing insecurity, reduce duplication across the council and plan better services. To do this, we will use information such as housing benefit, council tax support, and discretionary housing payments.
1. Overview
We are committed to being transparent about how we use personal information in line with data protection legislation. This notice explains how we will your personal information to improve services and support our residents who may be experiencing financial hardship.
2. What the LIFT platform is
The council is using a secure system called the Low-Income Family Tracker or LIFT. The platform is provided by Policy in Practice Ltd, which acts as our data processor under a contractual Data Processing Agreement and certified to ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus standards. They operate only under our strict instructions and do not use the personal data for any other reasons:
- Only trained council officers will use the system to contact residents.]
- LIFT does not make decisions automatically about you. It highlights potential need so that we can review and, where appropriate, contact you to offer information or support.
- We will also offer the use of a Better Off Calculator on our website so that residents can see what support they could apply for. This calculator will not store any of your personal information.
3. Which information we use
The Council securely provides LIFT with information that is already held in its own systems, such as:
- Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support data
- Discretionary Housing Payment awards
- Council Tax arrears and support flags
- Address, postcode, household composition and demographic indicators (where available)
- DWP and HMRC data regarding Universal Credit eligibility and uptake
Special-category information (e.g. health, ethnicity) is only included where this is already part of a relevant council record and necessary for the stated purpose. This includes:
- Council Tax Severe Mental Impairment (SMI) discount indicator
- HB/SHBE disability-related premiums/markers (e.g., disability/severe disability premium; inferences from PIP/DLA/AA receipt)
- Adult Social Care charging hardship / Disability Related Expenditure (DRE) flags (minimised)
- H-CLIC support-need flags (e.g., health, disability, mental health, domestic abuse)
- Carer indicators revealing another person’s health condition
As we develop our approach then we may add other data sets to this list and will update this privacy notice. We may use other non personal information to help us identify the challenges households face such as energy performance or council tax banding.
4. Our lawful bases for processing
Under data protection legislation, we have to identify a lawful basis for processing personal data and special category data.
| Purpose | Lawful Basis |
|---|---|
| Carrying out public duties to prevent poverty, homelessness and financial hardship | Article 6(1)(e) – processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority |
| Where special-category data (e.g. health, disability) are processed | Article 9(2)(g) – processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, supported by Schedule 1, Part 2, Paragraph 6 (statutory and government purposes) of the Data Protection Act 2018 |
This means we use LIFT as part of our public task to support residents’ welfare and deliver statutory social-protection functions. The council has statutory duties under the Care Act 2014 s2 (prevention duty) for early-help/financial wellbeing; the Housing Act 1996 / Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 (assessments, prevention and relief duties).
5. Who has access to the data
Access to LIFT is strictly limited to authorised Council officers working in:
- Shared Transactional Services (system management)
- Business Intelligence and Public Health (aggregated, anonymised data only)
All users complete mandatory data-protection training.
6. How we keep your information safe
- Data is transferred from the council to the system using secure means via encrypted channels and stored in secure UK-based cloud environments (AWS UK Region).
- LIFT does not allow public access or open publication of identifiable data.
- Resident-level information is retained in the system for no longer than 24 months, after which it is deleted or anonymised.
7. When and how we may contact you
If analysis suggests you might be entitled to extra support (for example, benefits, energy-efficiency grants or debt advice), the Council may contact you by letter or email.
All communication will:
- Only come directly from Peterborough City Council, not from Policy in Practice or any third party.
- Clearly explain why we are contacting you and how we obtained your information.
- Provide contact details for advice or to exercise your data-protection rights.
You will never be asked to provide bank details or make payments as part of a LIFT contact.
8. Your data-protection rights
You have rights under Data Protection and these are stated on our Data Protection Rights page.
The request will be submitted to the Data Protection Officer and the Information Governance Service. There are reasons why we may not be able to agree to your request, but we will explain why and always look to see how we can help you.
9. Contact details and complaints
If you are unhappy about how your information has been collected, used or stored then you can complain to:
The Data Protection Officer for Peterborough City Council is shown below:
Ben Stevenson
Peterborough City Council
Town Hall
Bridge Street
Peterborough
PE1 1HG
dataprotection@peterborough.gov.uk
The Information Commissioner’s Office is the UK's independent body set up to uphold information rights. Their role is to uphold information rights in the public interest. They can be contacted as below:
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545700
http://www.ico.org.uk
10. Updates to this privacy notice
We review this privacy notice annually or whenever there are significant changes to how we use the LIFT platform. Any updates will appear on this webpage with a new “last updated” date.