Information and privacy

The personal information we collect from you can be very different as it depends on which process, we’re using it for. Please refer to our process specific privacy notices for further information to understand in more detail what personal data may be processed by Berneslai homes, for what purpose and under what lawful basis.

Personal data means any information from which a living person can be identified, for example:

• Your name
• Your address
• Your email address
• Your telephone number(s)
• Your date of birth
• Your ethnic background
• Information about your religious belief
• Your physical or mental health conditions

We recognise that the information you provide is very personal to you and we will always respect your privacy. Berneslai Homes has a data protection framework in place for the effective and secure processing of your information.

We’ll always explain clearly what data we’re collecting about you and our purposes for processing this data.

We will also collect any information required by legislation.

This information, for instance, may be about:

• nationality, race or ethnicity.
• religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions
• health, including medical conditions, health and sickness records
• criminal convictions and offences.

Please refer to our Appropriate Policy Document which provides how and why we process this special category data.

You may choose not to provide us with personal information. However, some of our services may not be available as a result. We’ll advise you at the time of collecting your information.

We’ll always explain clearly what data we’re collecting about you and our purposes for processing this data.

Your personal information is securely stored within local, UK and EEA data centres.

Like most public and private organisations, we may use third party digital services and applications to process and store your data.

Your trust is important to us. We are committed to keeping your data safe through contractual arrangements and implementing appropriate security and risk assessments and audits. Such measures prevent unauthorised access or misuse of your information as well as protecting it from accidental loss, destruction, or damage.

We collect and process information in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The UK’s regulatory body for this legislation is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Berneslai Homes is a data controller and as such we hold a registration with them. Our registration number is Z7426263. You can read more about data protection on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.  

We have appointed a data protection officer whose role is to make sure the organisation is compliant with data protection legislation. You can contact the DPO by email.

This will vary depending on the processing we’re undertaking – please refer to our process specific privacy notices on this web page for retention periods. Some types of information are governed by statute and others are guidelines following best practice.

Every effort is made to make sure these retention periods are complied with.

You can see information we have about you by submitting a request to us. This can be done by making a request to us either:

Completing this online form

In writing to Berneslai Homes Data Protection Team at Berneslai Homes, PO Box 627, Barnsley.

By email at BHDataProtection@berneslaihomes.co.uk

It’s important that at the time of making the request you give us as much information as possible to assist us so we can provide you with the information you need. For example, the approximate dates we would have processed this information and the scope of the information requested, such as ‘emails between January 2021 and April 2021.’

If you’re acting on behalf of another person, you must provide evidence that you have the authority to do so. This evidence can be provided as formal written and signed authority, giving you permission to act on the individual’s behalf or through power of attorney. We may need to make appropriate checks or request further information to make sure we’re satisfied your request is valid and you’re acting with the appropriate authority.

There is no charge to you for the processing of requests unless the request is deemed excessive or repetitive then we’ll charge an administration fee. We’ll notify you if a charge applies to your request. If there’s no evidence that you’re authorised to act on behalf of an individual, we’ll not be required to comply with the SAR, although we’ll respond to you explaining our decision.

For a request relating only to CCTV images, please use the CCTV images form or write to us. Please remember to submit your photographic ID with your request, and if your appearance has significantly altered in any way from your ID, please let us know as we’ll need to be able to identify you in the footage.

We’ll acknowledge receipt of your request within 5 working days.

We may ask you to clarify your request or provide us with more information – this is because we hold a large amount of information, and we need to make sure we provide you with the information you want. In these circumstances, the time frame in which we respond to you will be paused until more information is received from you.

We can take up to one month to provide a copy of your information. We may extend this by a further two months if there are a number of requests from you, or your request is complex. If this is the case, we will inform you within one month of the receipt of your request and we’ll explain why the extension is necessary.

If you need any advice or assistance in completing and submitting a request, please contact the data protection team at BHDataProtection@berneslaihomes.co.uk

There may be some situations where we must withhold information under legal exemptions, for example, if it’s about a crime. We’ll explain why we’re withholding information if permitted by law.

If we don’t provide the information you requested, or you think your information has been misused, you should ask for a review:

• By email to BHdataprotection@berneslaihomes.co.uk 
• In writing to Berneslai Homes Data Protection Team, Berneslai Homes Data Protection Team at Berneslai Homes, PO Box 627, Barnsley, S70 9FZ.
• Requesting our data protection officer to undertake an independent review.

If you’re still not satisfied, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office:

• By telephone 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 if you prefer to use a national rate
• By email to casework@ico.org.uk (please include your telephone number)

In writing to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

You can only request that we delete information we hold about you where you think we’re holding this for longer than necessary or because you gave us your consent in the first instance to process this information.

Should your request to delete information we hold be agreed to, you should be aware that any service we provide which needs this information will no longer be available to you. Depending upon the reason for collecting this information, your details will either be deleted or will be anonymised so that you cannot be identified.

It’s your responsibility to make sure that our records hold the correct information about you because, if not, we may send information about you to the wrong person, not keep you informed about our services, or not provide you with the correct service for your needs.

We’ll add a reminder to our ‘annual rent change’, ‘remain on our housing register’, and other standard template letters we send to you, asking that you update your information with us if your personal details and circumstances have changed.

You can tell us about changes in any of the following ways:

• Phoning: 01226 787878
• Emailing: customerservices@berneslaihomes.co.uk
• Completing our eform
• Online – login to your Housing Online account
• Telling a member of our staff

Profiling means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a person, to analyse or predict aspects concerning that person’s health, economic situation, reliability and personal preferences.

On the other hand, automated-decision making, which may include profiling, means any processing that is carried out by a computer to make a decision without any human review.

We may use your information from different services across Berneslai Homes to create a profile of you and any household member information.  However, currently we do not use automated decision-making from your profile to make decisions about you which may have a legal or cause similarly significant effects on you without human intervention.

Should this position change, we will notify you.

We profile in order to improve our services to you as follows:

1. Provide you a Tailored Service from your profile across our systems

• This means handling your personal information and any household members to better understand specific needs, satisfaction, complaints, preferences and circumstances in order to provide an effective tailored service in accordance with your requirements and circumstances.

• Ensure we hold one accurate record of you and your household in order to provide and improve on our tailored services to you.
• Plan for future services for you and your household and inform you of other relevant services and benefits.

• Undertake statutory functions (i.e., social protection), legal and contractual obligations efficiently and effectively.

We may also aggregate your profile information. This is to:

• provide more insight on customer groups based on specific categories, such as age and health demographics. This type of activity is not aimed at identifying specific individuals, but its aim is to analyse our performance at delivering services, plan, improve and tailor our services and what services the Berneslai Homes’ customers need.

Our lawful grounds for profiling is that of our legitimate interests which will ensure our customers receive an efficient and effective tailored service as stated above.

Where we will need to process your special category information, such as your health and any “Diversity Information” (i.e., as detailed in the Equality Act 2010 as ethnicity, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, sexual orientation, religion and belief, age, marriage and civil partnership ) in order to make decisions and directly tailor serves for you, we will seek your explicit consent where there is no other lawful ground. Your decision not to provide us with this information, will not affect the services which we provide to you. However, we may not be able to tailor our services specifically to you.

Provide you Tailored Communications (non-marketing) based on your profile

• To effectively tailor our current and future services to the needs of our customers, their families and/or the adults who are responsible for them, we may from time to time invite you to consultation events, focus groups and research panels based on the information that we hold on you. These types of communications are not considered marketing.
• Our lawful basis to provide tailored communications based on your profiled information will be that of explicit consent.
• Your decision about whether to participate will not affect the services that you receive.

Berneslai Homes may, however, process your special category data for other purposes other than profiling to tailor our services or directed communications to you, as provided within the process specific privacy notices. In such cases, your explicit consent may not be sought. Rather, we may rely on other lawful grounds, such as substantial public interests to process your information (i.e., we are obliged under statutory and government purposes, such as for social protection reasons). Please refer to our Appropriate Policy Document.

We do not sell your information or use it for marketing.

Under no circumstances do we share or sell your personal information for marketing purposes to other organisations.

For some of our business processes, we may need to share your data with our approved partners, contractors, subcontractors, agents and suppliers. If we need to share your information to deliver our service to you by approved third parties, for example to carry out works to your property on our behalf, then we’ll tell you about this. Please refer to our individual Process Specific Privacy Notices for further information.

When sharing your personal data with third parties, we ensure robust contractual, technical and security measures are in place so that your personal information remains secure.

We have also signed an inter-agency information sharing protocol with a number of partner organisations in South and West Yorkshire. It sets out a framework for good practice for information sharing agreements, between us and other organisations.

We will share specific and relevant information with law enforcement and government agencies, departments or public bodies where we are legally required to do so, or processing is necessary for the performance of substantial public interest.

Examples may include, but not limited to:

• The prevention or detection of crime and fraud
• The apprehension or prosecution of offenders
• Sharing in connection with legal proceedings
• Sharing in relation to the physical or mental health of an individual, where disclosure is required to protect them or others from serious harm
• Research and statistical purposes
• Sharing in relation to prioritised NHS care of individuals to address health inequalities

We may also share your information with emergency services and local authorities where this is necessary to help them respond to an emergency situation that affects you.

We’ll only ever pass information about you to them if there is a genuine need for it.

We may use your personal information anonymously to enable us to manage the performance of our services.

Schedule 2 Part 1 Para. 2 or Para. 5 Data Protection Act 2018

The police and other agencies can request access to personal information held by local authorities for specified purposes. These types of request include Schedule 2 Part 1 Para. 2 or Para. 5 Data Protection Act 2018 (previously S29 Data Protection Act 1998) and 2013 Protocol, Annex C information disclosure requests.

They can ask for information if it’s about:

• Prevention or detection of crime
• The apprehension or prosecution of offenders
• Assessment or collection of tax, duty or imposition of a similar nature

The Act:

• Does not give an automatic right of access to information.
• States that public bodies can assess the merits of requests and decide whether or not to apply the exemption.

See the Information Commissioners Office guidance about exemptions. It includes reasons we must take into consideration when deciding whether to release information to relevant authorities.

NOTE: This process does not apply where the request is to be made under a valid and approved data sharing protocol or agreement. These requests should be made direct to the relevant business service.

To make a request, please:

Complete our online form.

Get the request signed off by an officer of the rank of Inspector or above if the request is from the police, or senior manager for all other agency requests.

The form will be automatically submitted to Berneslai Homes Data Protection Team for processing. If you have any additional information to support your request or would prefer to email, the completed form can be emailed to BHdataprotection@berneslaihomes.co.uk.

The form will be reviewed by Berneslai Homes Data Protection Team and the requestor contacted within two working days of receipt.

Information requested shall be provided subject to meeting the above requirements of the Data Protection Act. Where necessary consent of the data subject may be required to be obtained to disclose information.

Fraud is said to cost the public sector over £20 billion per year, of which at least £2 billion is in local government. It is in all our interests to stop fraud from happening. We are required by law to make sure we protect the public funds that we look after. Each pound lost reduces the way to provide public services to Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, along with Berneslai Homes. Information given may be shared with other bodies who do auditing, administering public funds, or taking part in a public activity, in order to stop or find out fraud.

The Cabinet Office carries out data matching exercises.

Data matching is the comparing of computer records held by one body at the side of other computer records held by the same or another body to see how far they match. This is usually personal information. Computerised data matching allows possible fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is found it may indicate that there is an something wrong which requires further looking into. No assumption can be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out.

We take part in the Cabinet Office’s National Fraud Initiative: a data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We are required to give particular sets of data to the Minister for the Cabinet Office for matching for each exercise, as detailed on the government’s website.

The gathering of data by the Cabinet Office in a data matching exercise is done with statutory authority under its powers in Part 6 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014. It does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the Data Protection Act 2018.

Data matching by the Cabinet Office is subject to a Code of Practice.

View further details on the Cabinet Office’s legal powers and the reason why it matches particular information.

Section 68 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 was introduced as part of the Government’s commitment to preventing fraud. Section 68 lets public authorities such as Barnsley Council (and this includes Berneslai Homes) to disclose information for the purposes of preventing fraud, as a member of a specified antifraud organisation or otherwise, in accordance with any arrangements made with such an organisation.

A specified antifraud organisation enables or facilitates the sharing of information for the prevention of fraud and is specified by an order made by the Secretary of State. Disclosures of information from a public authority to a specified antifraud organisation are subject to a Code of Practice and this, along with a full list of specified antifraud organisation we may share information with, can be found on the Home Office website here.

In addition, all disclosures must be made in accordance with Data Protection Legislation.

The UK GDPR provides the following rights for individuals:

1. The right to be informed

Individuals have the right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data. Transparency is paramount. This privacy notice and the related process specific privacy notices includes our purposes for processing your personal information, our retention periods and who it may be shared with.

2. The right of access

Individuals have the right to access and receive a copy of their personal data, and other supplementary information.  This is referred to as a subject access request or SAR which individuals can make verbally or in writing. Please refer to the section above  “How can I see what information you have about me?” for more information and contact details.

3. The right to rectification

Individuals have the right to have inaccurate personal data rectified or completed if in complete. An individual can make a request for rectification verbally or in writing. In certain circumstances however a request for rectification can be refused. Please refer to section “Can I update, amend and delete my personal information?” for more information and contact details.

4. The right to erasure

An individual has the right for personal data to be erased. However, this right is not absolute and only applies in certain circumstances. Individuals can make a request for erasure verbally or in writing. Please refer to section “Can I update, amend and delete my personal information?” for more information and contact details.

5. The right to restrict processing

Individuals have the right to request the restriction of their personal data. This is not an absolute right and only applies in certain circumstances. When processing is restricted, we are permitted to store the personal data but not use it. Individuals can make a request for erasure verbally or in writing. Please contact the following ways:

• Phoning: 01226 787878
• Emailing: BHdataprotection@berneslaihomes.co.uk

6. The right to data portability

The right to data portability allows individuals to obtain and reuse their personal data for their own purposes across different services. If the situation arises where it would be helpful for you to move, copy or transfer personal data we hold about you, across different services, you may be able to ask us to do this. This right only applies to personal data that you have provided to us, such as an eform, where the reason we are relying on to use the information is either your consent or for the performance of a contract, and where processing is carried out by automated means. Please contact us.

• Phoning: 01226 787878
• Emailing: BHdataprotection@berneslaihomes.co.uk

7. The right to object

Individuals have the right to object to processing of their personal data in certain circumstances, such as for direct marketing or where personal information is processed under legitimate interests. An individual can make an objection verbally or in writing. You may not be able to object to your information being used, held or shared under certain circumstances. Please contact us:

• Phoning: 01226 787878
• Emailing: BHdataprotection@berneslaihomes.co.uk

8. Rights in relation to automated decision making, including profiling.

As previously stated, we do not use automated decision-making, including profiling to make decisions about you which will have legal or significant effects on you.

For any such request and whether we can agree in full or partially to your request will depend on the specific circumstances. However, if we cannot comply to a request, we will explain the reasons why.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to Gas Servicing and Water Hygiene Survey’s for your home.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We need to process your information in order to undertake an annual gas boiler service.   Every fourth year we will also carry out a water hygiene survey to assess the age and condition of the domestic hot and cold-water system in your home.

We will use either our in-house Construction Services team or our approved contractor to undertake this work.

We will notify you in writing of our scheduled appointment visit and will send email and SMS appointment reminders. We may also call you to confirm your appointment. If at any point an appointment is inconvenient for you, you can change this.

After us taking reasonable steps to arrange a suitable appointment, if you do not allow us access to the property to undertake the gas service, we will refer the matter to the magistrates court to gain access via a warrant to carry out the statutory works.

Once work has been completed, your records will be updated so that we can plan for future servicing and assessments to be undertaken at the property.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will need your name, contact details, address and details of the equipment and adaptation requirements to your home you are applying for.

How we will collect your personal information

We will not need to collect any new information from you for this purpose of this task as we utilise information held on our existing records

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

We have a legal obligation to process your data for this purpose as it is necessary for us to comply with the law.

• Gas Safety Regulations 36 (Installation and Use) 1998
• Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
• COSHH – Control of Substances Hazardous to Health
• HSE – ACOP L8

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

We will provide your information with our in-house team, Construction Services or our appointed contractor Wates who will be carrying out the works on our behalf depending on your geographical location. If necessary, we will also share your information with the Magistrates Court to enable us to obtain a warrant to enter the property in order to carry out the annual gas service.

We will also pass the information detailed in ‘what type of information we will collect from you’ section to any approved sub-contractor who is carrying out works in relation to Gas Servicing and Water Hygiene surveys on behalf of Berneslai Homes, Construction Services or Wates.

We will always transfer your information to our approved third parties securely.

How long will your information be kept?

Following the servicing we will update our records in order to plan the next annual gas service which will be due within 12 months, and the water survey within 4 years.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated March 2023. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information in relation to these Services.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

Berneslai Homes has Neighbourhood Teams that are available to provide you and your family with support with regards to Anti-Social Behaviour reporting.

Our support may be tailored to your particular circumstances to allow us to report incidents to third parties, as detailed below,  and evidence anti-social behaviour that you may be experiencing.

Our tailored support comes in the form of reporting and evidencing on an Anti-Social Behaviour Application (ASB App) and through a telephone contact service (Respect Line).

Once we have been informed, either from you or by a third party, that you wish to be considered for our tailored support service(s) we will contact you to understand your current circumstances and identify which third party agencies and organisations we may need to engage with.  This process will ensure that we can provide you with the best possible support to meet your needs.

Following our initial contact, if it is recognised that tailored support services are required, we can provide the following:

• Assistance through the ASB APP. We will give you guidance on how, for example, to download the application and how you can upload evidence such as diary sheets, video and audio evidence. We can also help you identify which third party agencies and organisations we need to engage with. As stated previously, this process will ensure that we can provide you with the best possible service to meet your needs. Following our initial contact, if it is recognised this service is relevant, we will remain in contact with you while the incident is progressed and resolved.

• Respect Line contact details for you to directly contact the organisation, activating on our behalf, or for you to receive a direct phone call so that you get the support you need during Berneslai Homes’ out of office times.  Any appropriate evidence will then be recorded and passed to Berneslai Homes to process. Please note that no telephone recordings will be undertaken.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will need to ask and record on our data sources,  personal information that is required to assess your needs and provide you with the relevant support.  This information may not only be about you but also from others (aged over 16) that are identified during our contact with you.

In addition, we will process relevant information provided to us by any third-party agencies and organisations that may be involved with you.  This information will include both personal and special categories of data, such as but not limited to your name,  address, date of birth, contact details, health records, financial details.

How we will collect your personal information

With your permission, we will contact third party agencies and organisations on your behalf to gain the information we need to provide these services to you.

We will discuss with you, both during the initial assessment and at regular future update meetings which of these are relevant for us to contact to support your needs.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

Information that we receive from you may be stored confidentially and securely in our systems with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to see your information.

Our systems and software that we use for these services may be supported or provided by organisations, acting as our data processors.  This is for the purpose of maintaining, developing or supporting our business needs and those of our service users. Please refer to our General Privacy notice  which provides for more information to how we store your personal data.  

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

We are processing your personal data for this purpose with your consent and with your explicit consent for your special category data.  This means that you can stop us processing your data at any time by applying your rights under data protection legislation – refer to our full privacy notice for information about your rights and how to put in a request.  However, if you withdraw your consent to us processing your information this may result in us not being able to offer your family our services.

Please note in some instances we may process your data without your consent if we have a legal reason or in the public interest to do so.  This will be required to ensure that we comply with the law for such matters including safeguarding and crime prevention. Some examples are - Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, Environmental Protection Act 1990, Care Act 2014, Children’s Act 1989/ 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

We may need to share the information you provided to us with third-party agencies and organisations to enable them to undertake some actions to support your needs.

These third-party agencies and organisations will include, but not limited to, Barnsley Council services, Police, Probation, Fire Service, Adult and Children’s Social Services, Job Centre Plus, Education, Schools, Barnardo’s, MIND, debt agencies, Health, AO, Furniture Resource Centre.

The sharing of your personal data is only undertaken where we either have an appropriate lawful basis,  a data sharing agreement in place or an approved contract in place with this. We will always endeavour to transfer  your personal information securely and in accordance with data protection legislation.

How long will your information be kept?

We will securely retain this information for a period of 10 years after you have stopped receiving our support services.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022.  

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to us ensuring we meet the Barnsley Homes Standards for all our properties.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

Berneslai Homes is required to maintain all its properties we manage in line with the Governments published Decent Homes Standards.

We are responsible for identifying those properties that are eligible to join Barnsley Homes Standard (BHS) schemes or to be part of other property improvement schemes,  this is to ensure our housing stock is continuously improved.  The data we use for this purpose may include new publicly available external property images and also that from our existing housing records.

Using your name and contact information from our tenant records we will contact you in writing to inform you your property is due to be part of the next BHS / improvement scheme we are running – you may opt out of the scheme should you wish by notifying us in writing of your decision; this will be respected by us providing there is no health and safety issues at the property that under law we must address in your interest.

Construction Services and our approved Property Repair and Improvement Partners, Wates, will be carrying out the works overseen by us. We will provide them with your name, address, contact details and any identified access needs, communication needs or health problems you have told us about to enable them to arrange a survey of your property.

On some property improvement programmes works will also be delivered on our behalf by an appointed external contractor and overseen by Berneslai Homes who may liaise directly with you.

Following an initial survey, we will approve the work to be undertaken and you will be contacted to schedule in the works to be undertaken.

When the work has been completed, we will update our records with details of the works undertaken to the property.  We will also send a satisfaction survey for you to complete and we act on any feedback that you provide.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will collect contact details to be used during the programme; these can be for friends, family, carers or someone else who you wish to act on your behalf to enable us to arrange visits to your property to carry out the works.

During the home survey we will also need to collect information about your health and disability information for this programme, so that any works that are undertaken can be tailored to meet your needs.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this?

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Your contact details, access needs, communication needs and health requirements are processed for the purposes of compliance with the Barnsley Homes Standards programme and improvement programmes as required to be administrated under UK law.

Where your contact details are used for sending you a satisfaction survey, this is done on the legal basis of our ‘Legitimate interests’ of understanding what went well or how we can improve our services.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

To assist us identify properties that require external home improvements and to enhance our service delivery,  we are constantly reviewing innovative, non-invasive, technology that uses publicly sourced data to achieve this.  To do this,  we have to provide property address level information only to our approved third party contractors.

For any assessment or works to be undertaken we will share your information for this purpose with our approved property repair and improvement partners.  Occasionally, our main contractors will use sub-contractors to help deliver work – this is only undertaken with our prior permission and approval. We have put safeguards in place to ensure they respect any personal information they may need to use.

Your contact details may require to be sent to property surveying contractors in order to undertake property condition surveys prior to any works taking place and to advise any customer choices that may need to be confirmed prior to the start of works.

How long will your information be kept?

We’ll destroy the survey information within 2 years of works being carried out and personal information collected during the process 7 years after the works have been completed.  The survey questionnaire will be destroyed 2 years after receipt of your responses.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to the maintenance and repairs undertaken by our in-house construction services for your home.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

Berneslai Homes Construction Services carry out repairs and maintenance at your home.  This can be both when you report this to us or to maintain the property in line with required safety standards and regulations (such as gas servicing).

This information is needed to enable Berneslai Homes Construction Service or our approved subcontractors and suppliers, who work on our behalf, to be able to book appointments, ensure they are aware of any relevant communication or access needs and have details of the work to be undertaken. Details of the work to be undertaken may include taking before and after photographs in relation to the maintenance and repair.

The work may require an initial assessment inspection. If an inspection is required, we will notify you of this and make arrangements to visit.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

For this purpose, we will need to process your name, address, contact details (or an alternative contact number if you would like them contacting on your behalf).

We will also need to use the ‘access needs’ information held on your tenancy file, when carrying out work within your home, to ensure that construction staff respect and support your needs.  This includes the following information:

• Communication needs e.g., sign language, English not main language
• Access needs e.g., use back door, knock loudly
• Warning markers registered against your property for employee / customer safety and wellbeing
• We may also use disability or health information which you tell us about that workforce visiting your property need to be aware of. For example, you are a wheelchair user – this will allow us to wait longer for you to come to door when we arrive

We will also share this personal information, if it is essential, with our approved subcontractors to enable them to carry out any work.

How we will collect your personal information?

We obtain this information both from your tenancy file and from any repair reports you make to our Repairs Hotline.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this?

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

We hold details of the work carried out on our order management system. We keep this information in line with our record retention policy.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular backups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Your contact details and access requirements are processed for the purposes of the maintenance works we have been requested to carry out for you under our contractual obligations with you.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service?

We will share your information, including your contact details and access needs with our approved subcontractors and third-party service providers, for the purposes of completing work at your home. These companies are under contractual obligation and we have made necessary checks to ensure they meet our standards, have robust processes in place and able to look after and protect your data.  We use several different Companies to support us with this work, these include:

• Scaffolding companies
• Property Condition Survey companies – This supports work under our Barnsley Homes Standard Scheme.
• Kitchen surveys
• Asbestos surveys and removal
• Heating and Electrical contractors
• Roofing contractors
• Flooring contractors
• Insulation contractors for both external wall insulation and roof and cavity wall insulation
• Metal Fabricator Contractor
• Gas and Electrical Audit consultants
• Manufacturers where we have fitted boilers or showers, equipment and adaptations that are still under warranty
• Plastering and general building contractors
• Couriers and delivery companies – where we may have parts delivered to your home address
• Statutory undertakers – Water, Electrical and Gas service providers
• Professional advisors such as engineers and surveyors

Where necessary we will also share information where required to by law or in the public interest, with other statutory service providers, with regulators, with the police or fire service. We may also share personal data in order to exercise or defend our legal rights.

Whenever personal information is shared outside the European Economic Area, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place – such as contractual controls and (for US-based Companies) the Privacy Shield scheme. For further details please contact us using the details at the beginning of this notice.

How long will your information be kept?

We hold details of the work carried out on our order management system. We retain all records relating to repairs and maintenance for 12 years in line with our Records Retention Policy.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to central heating replacement scheme for your home.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

In most cases, we will need to provide our approved third-party contractor with your details so that they can undertake a survey of your property to check for asbestos and collate a materials list, allowing the works to be programmed in.

Should you not allow the survey to be undertaken, we will be unable to continue with the replacement central heating and will update our records accordingly.

Once we receive any survey results or can gather the required information from our existing records, we will pass your details to our approved installation contractor who will then liaise with you direct and programme heating system / boiler replacement works at your convenience.

Occasionally, our approved contractors will use sub-contractors to help deliver work; this is only done with our prior permission and approval. We have safeguards in place to ensure they respect any personal information they may need to use.

Once we are notified that works have been completed at your property, we will update our records with details of the new boiler and installation date. This will allow us to plan for future servicing of the boiler.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will ask at the start for your contact details that we may use for this scheme. From our existing records we will need to use your name, address, house type, existing boiler details, identified access, communication needs and on a needs basis details of health problems you have previously told us about; for example you have assisted walking so may take longer to reach the door or you have a hearing impairment.

How we will collect your personal information

Using our database of properties, we will identify those that are eligible to be considered for a replacement central heating system, this is usually based on fuel type and age.

We will inform you in writing if your property has been identified and will ask that you either decline works or provide us with your contact details so that we can progress this on your behalf.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

In addition to the above Berneslai homes and the Occupational Therapist service use a shared portal for this purpose – only those with a need to access your information are given permission to view this.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Your information is being processed as it is necessary for us to perform this activity in the public’s interest or in the exercise of our official authority.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

We will only share your information with our approved contractors, Tersus who will carry out asbestos checks where necessary, and Home Utility Group Limited who will carry out heating related works in your home.

To protect your data, we will only use secure email when sending your information to our third party approved contractors.

How long will your information be kept?

Where you decline to take part in the scheme, we will keep the reason you give for a period 12 months to enable us to respond to any queries.

Following completion of works we will update our records with your new central heating system information to enable us to carry out future servicing work.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated February 2025. 

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when we collect and process your personal information. This notice applies to information we process in relation to complaints, appeals and reviews.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We need your information so that we can investigate your complaint or appeal, produce a response and take any necessary action.

We will keep you fully up to date with the progress of our investigations.

What type of personal information will we either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

Initially we will collect your name, address, contact details and the nature of your complaint including evidence you supply to us. We will also ask you if you have any additional support needs or if you require any reasonable adjustments so we can meet your needs throughout our investigation. 

We will then undertake a full and detailed independent investigation; this may include obtaining additional information from our services and systems where your data is held.

Where we need to provide a refund, compensation or a credit to you, we will ask you to provide us with your bank account details.  We will then pass this onto Barnsley Council Financial Services who will process these on our behalf.

How we will collect your personal information

If you register a complaint or appeal, we will investigate the complaint or appeal.

We collect your information when you contact us, in the following ways:

• by phone
• by e-mail
• using our e-form
• through social media platform
• by letter
• through a third party such as a councillor or advocacy agency
• in person if we visit you or you visit us

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Our legal basis for the processing of complaints is because we have a legal obligation to do so on notification.

We have a legal duty to consider appeals and reviews as follows:

• Review of decisions made on housing applications - Housing Act 1996
• Reviews of introductory tenancies and demoted tenancies – Housing Act 1996
  • Reviews of Flexible Tenancies – s.107A Housing Act 1985, as inserted by s.154 Localism Act 2011.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

We do not generally share information about a specific complaint. However, for the purpose of completing an investigation we may need to share your information with a third party contractor who is involved with the subject of your complaint, for example a repairs contractor. We will only share the basic information which will enable them to answer the concerns you have raised. We do not share any personal sensitive data or information that you have asked us not to share.

If you have an advocate or legal representative who is making the complaint on your behalf we will share information with them but only if you have given us permission to share information with them. If a councillor or MP is making a complaint on your behalf, we do not need to ask your permission to share relevant information with them.

If you ask the Housing or Local Government Ombudsman to investigate your complaint, then we will share information with them.

If you have registered an appeal or asked for a review of a decision about an introductory, flexible or demoted tenancy then we will share your information with the panel who consider your request for a review or appeal. This panel is made up of tenant representatives and Board directors – they have specific protocols to follow in respect of protecting your personal data. The information they receive before the appeal is anonymised. They do not retain any personal information they receive at the appeal or review meeting – any notes they make are returned to the support officer who destroys them confidentially.

How long will your information be kept?

We keep information that we collect during the processing of the complaint, review or appeal on our system, with only the staff who need access to your file given access permission.

We retain our stage 1 and stage 2 complaint files for a period of 6 years after the case has been concluded. Ombudsman complaint files are retained for a period of 6 years after case has been concluded. We retain appeal and review files for a period of 6 years after the case has been concluded.

We will not retain bank account details on our system and will delete any payment processing request forms after 1 month.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when we collect and process your personal information. This notice applies to information we process in relation to complaints, appeals and reviews.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We need your information so that we can investigate your complaint or appeal, produce a response and take any necessary action.

We will keep you fully up to date with the progress of our investigations.

What type of personal information will we either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

Initially we will collect your name, address, contact details and the nature of your complaint including evidence you supply to us. We will also ask you if you have any additional support needs or if you require any reasonable adjustments so we can meet your needs throughout our investigation. 

We will then undertake a full and detailed independent investigation; this may include obtaining additional information from our services and systems where your data is held.

Where we need to provide a refund, compensation or a credit to you, we will ask you to provide us with your bank account details.  We will then pass this onto Barnsley Council Financial Services who will process these on our behalf.

How we will collect your personal information

If you register an informal or formal complaint or appeal, we will investigate the complaint or appeal.

We collect your information when you contact us over the phone, by e-mail, using our e-form, by letter, through a third party such as a councillor or advocacy agency or in person if we visit you or you visit us.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Our legal basis for the processing of complaints is because we have a legal obligation to do so on notification.

We have a legal duty to consider appeals and reviews as follows:
• Appeals about a housing application – Housing Act 1996
• Reviews of introductory tenancies and demoted tenancies – Housing Act 1996
• Reviews of Flexible Tenancies – s.107A Housing Act 1985, as inserted by s.154 Localism Act 2011.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

We do not generally share information about a specific complaint. However, for the purpose of completing an investigation we may need to share your information with a third party contractor who is involved with the subject of your complaint, for example a repairs contractor. We will only share the basic information which will enable them to answer the concerns you have raised. We do not share any personal sensitive data or information that you have asked us not to share.

If you have an advocate or legal representative who is making the complaint on your behalf we will share information with them but only if you have given us permission to share information with them. If a councillor or MP is making a complaint on your behalf, we do not need to ask your permission to share relevant information with them.

If you ask the Housing or Local Government Ombudsman to investigate your complaint, then we will share information with them.

If you have registered an appeal or asked for a review of a decision about an introductory, flexible or demoted tenancy then we will share your information with the panel who consider your request for a review or appeal. This panel is made up of tenant representatives and Board directors – they have specific protocols to follow in respect of protecting your personal data. The information they receive before the appeal is anonymised. They do not retain any personal information they receive at the appeal or review meeting – any notes they make are returned to the support officer who destroys them confidentially.

How long will your information be kept?

We keep information that we collect during the processing of the complaint, review or appeal on our system, with only the staff who need access to your file given access permission.

We retain our stage 1 and stage 2 complaint files for a period of 6 years after the case has been concluded. Ombudsman complaint files are retained for a period of 6 years after case has been concluded. We retain appeal and review files for a period of 2 years after the case has been concluded.

We will not retain bank account details on our system and shall discard the completed payment form once we are assured the payment has reached your bank account.

Emergency Contact Details – Privacy Notice

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated April 2023. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when we collect and process your personal information. This notice applies to information we process in relation to the personal data that we may receive regarding relatives or other emergency contacts of staff or those using our services.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We require your personal data in order to contact you as a nominated employee’s or customer’s emergency contact. We will only contact you in the event of a risk of harm or an emergency situation.

What type of personal information we will either collect, or obtain from our existing records we hold about you, for our purpose(s)?

For both staff and customers’ emergency contact details, we may collect and process your name, home address, personal phone number and details of any communications between you and Berneslai Homes  (if applicable).  

How we will collect your personal information

We collect your information from the person who is nominating you as an emergency contact. We require that permission has been sought beforehand by the nominating party. Collection of your details will be from the nominating party, provided only through written channels, such as email, form or e-form.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this?

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Our legal basis for the processing emergency contact information is under:

• 6(1)(f )-Legitimate interests – we collect and lawfully process your personal data as the process is necessary for the legitimate interests of a third party, i.e., a staff member and a customer.
• 6(1)(d) - Processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of a data subject or another person, i.e.,  a staff member or a customer.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service.

Berneslai Homes may share your personal information with the relevant Emergency Services.

Your information will not be disclosed to any other organisations, except where Berneslai Homes is required and allowed to by law, to safeguard public safety and in risk of harm or emergency situations.

Berneslai Homes will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

How long will your information be kept?

We will only retain your personal information for the duration of the employment or until our staff member notifies us that you are no longer an Emergency Contact.

We will only retain your personal information for the duration of tenancy or until our customer (the tenant) notifies us that you are no longer an Emergency Contact.

Please refer to our main privacy notice which provides our contact details and information on how you may exercise your rights, such as your right to access the information we hold about you, your right to deletion and your right to object to processing.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to equipment and adaptations for your home.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

You can request equipment and adaptations for you home to meet your current health condition needs at any time of your tenancy.

We will undertake an initial review of the request and we will either approve this request or request additional information and further assessment to consider this matter and to ensure we provide you with the correct equipment and adaptation for your needs.  Refer to the section below regarding who we share your information with to process this request.

If your request is rejected by us at any time, we will notify you in writing on our decision. You have a right of appeal our decision, at which time your request, assessment and further information collected as part of the process will be discussed and considered.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will need your name, contact details, address and details of the equipment and adaptation requirements to your home you are applying for.

How we will collect your personal information

This request can either be made by phone, online by visiting our website, or by asking someone else to do this on your behalf.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

In addition to the above Berneslai homes and the Occupational Therapist service use a shared portal for this purpose – only those with a need to access your information are given permission to view this.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

We have a legal obligation to process your information for this purpose and allow us to comply with the law.

Where we need your permission to share your data, for example a referral to our Independent Living at Home team following our assessment, we will be processing this with your explicit consent.  This consent can be withdrawn at any time but this may result in you not being able to access our services for this purpose.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

Following the approval of this request, we will pass your contact details, communication and access information held on our tenant file to our in-house Construction Services team or approved partners Wates for them to arrange to deliver and install this at your property. If you do not allow us access or decline the install of this equipment, we will return this to stock and update your tenancy record with the reason for this.

Where after the initial review we require further information and assessments to consider your request and to ensure we provide you with the correct equipment and adaption for you needs we will pass your contact information and request details to an Occupational Therapist or an Equipment and Adaptations Officer for them to arrange a visit to you. During the visit they will be able to offer you advice and assess the way you manage in your property.  Following the visit, they will report back to Berneslai Homes making any recommendations for equipment and adaptations relevant to your needs.

As part of the appeals procedure, data provided to us as part of your application and appeal will be shared with a Berneslai Homes Representatives, a Senior Occupational Therapist and a panel which Councillors and Board Members are part of. Also, if you choose to nominate somebody to represent you as part of your appeal, data will be shared with them.

How long will your information be kept?

We will keep this information for: 2 years after our final decision is taken with regards to your application (approval or decline).

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

The Tenants First is ‘funded by European Social Fund.’

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to Tenant First Services.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

Berneslai Homes has obtained funding through ESF (European Social Fund) to deliver an employment support programme that is available to provide you and your family with additional specialist support, tailored to your circumstances, to support you on a journey to employment and to help you sustain your tenancy. In partnership with BMBC, we will use support that Berneslai Homes Tenants First Team provide along with additional support from external providers where needed.

Once we have been informed, either from you or by a third party, that you wish to access this service we will contact you to understand your current circumstances and identify the support needed, including which third party agencies and organisations we need to engage with. This process will ensure that we can provide you with the best possible service to meet your needs.

Following your initial assessment, and registration to the programme we will need to collect proof of identification and current employment status, this is a requirement of the ESF funding. During your time on the programme we will produce a plan which will be reviewed with you on a regular basis while ever you are receiving support from the service.

If you or other persons identified under the initial assessment do not provide us with the evidence we need to comply with ESF funding requirements or refuse to give us permission to gain information with other relevant third party agencies and organisations on your behalf, we will not be able to proceed with our services.

You can withdraw from the service and support being offered to you at any time and we will close our file.

For more information regarding this scheme and the way they will process your data to protect your privacy visit the GOV.UK website.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will need to ask and record on our forms personal information that is required to assess your needs and provide you with the relevant support.

You will need to provide us with proof of identity showing your right to work in the UK, as well as evidence of current employment status. We will keep a copy of these records and you will need to sign to say you agree the information given at registration is correct.

In addition, we will process relevant information provided to us by any third party agencies and organisations that may be involved with you. This information will include both personal and special categories of data, such as but not limited to your name / address / date of birth / contact details / education / employment records.

How we will collect your personal information

We will discuss with you, both during the initial assessment and registration as well as at regular future update meetings which of these are relevant for us to contact to support your needs.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to it

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and staff with a business need, permitted to seeing your information.

All information sent as part of the quarterly funding claims will be sent without reference to your name or address. Our funding providers, DWP, will have access to our records if requested during quarterly audits.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information: .

We use Alcium Software for some of the processing – we have undertaken the necessary security checks with this software provider to ensure that your data is secure and will be held in the UK.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

We are processing your personal data for this purpose with your consent and with your explicit consent for your special category data. This means that you can stop us processing your data at any time by applying your rights under data protection legislation – refer to our full privacy notice for information about your rights and how to put in a request. However, if you withdraw your consent to us processing your information for this purpose this may result in us not being able to offer your family our services.

Please note in some instances we may process your data without your consent if we have a legal reason to do so. This will be required to ensure that we comply with the law for such matters including safeguarding and crime prevention; Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Care Act 2014, Children’s Act 1989/ 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us deliver this service

We may need to share the information you provided to us with these third party agencies and organisations to enable them to undertake some actions to support your needs.

These third party agencies and organisations will include, but not limited to, Barnsley Council services, Police, Probation, Fire Service, Job Centre Plus, Education, Schools, Barnardo’s, MIND, debt agencies, Health, AO, Furniture Resource Centre.

The sharing of your personal data is only undertaken where we either have a data sharing agreement in place or an approved contract in place with this – this is to ensure that your personal information is processed securely and in accordance with data protection legislation.
If we are sending your personal information in an email, we will ensure this is sent securely using our secure email solution.

How long will your information be kept?

The information that we collect and process whilst providing this service to you will be retained in a secure system file, with only limited access given to those Berneslai Homes colleagues that need to know your case details.

We will keep this information for a period of 6 years after the end of the ESF final claim (31/12/2029).

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to Independent Living Schemes.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

The information below includes our legal basis and retention requirements for the data we process for these specific purposes.

We collect and process your personal information for a number of different purposes under this scheme. Detailed below are our specific processes and within each one we inform you of our purpose for the processing, data we need to collect, legal basis for processing and our record retention information.

We do also operate CCTV on our premises to provide residents and visitors with a greater feeling of safety and security and to assist in the prevention and detection of crime. Our recordings are in accordance with guidance contained within the Information Commissioner’s CCTV Code of Practice and the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s Code of Practice.

New Tenant Introduction Process:

We use your personal information including your name / address/ contact number / moving in date for this purpose to make sure that you are notified of everything you need to need to know as a new tenant living in the property; for example using the communal facilities such as the community room and laundry.

We are processing your data to comply with meeting the terms of the tenancy contract.  All records are destroyed 6 months after your introduction meeting.

Next of Kin records:

We collect next of kin information from our tenants, along with your name, address and contact details so that should there be an emergency situation arising we can act quickly and where required ensure that your next of kin and emergency services can be contacted on your behalf.

We process your information in your vital interest.  All records are destroyed on termination of your tenancy at the property.

Person Centred Fire Risk Assessment:

We collect your name, address and contact information and other information you give us that you wish to be included on the assessment form, such as information about your current health needs and with your permission we share this with South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue so that they can undertake a risk assessment. Once the assessment is complete, we work together to ensure you have the correct equipment to support any risks identified.

We share your information with your permission only and in the public’s interest unless we have a legal obligation to do so. All records are destroyed on termination of your tenancy at the property.

Mobility Scooter storage facilities:

We collect and process your name /address / contact information in order to allow you to store your scooter in our storage facilities – you will be required to pay for this service and we will notify you of any costs and add the amount on to your rent account. It may be necessary to hold your name and contact details on a waiting list if the mobility scooter store is full.

We are processing your information to meet with the terms of the agreement.  All records are destroyed 12 months after you no longer use the store facility.

Hiring a community room:

We collect your name / address / contact information to allow you to rent out one of our community rooms. We do allow regular or one off bookings to be made.  We will notify you of the payment amount due and you will need to make payments via our rents team who will not keep any of your bank account details on our records.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular backups of the data we hold.  This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

Person centred fire risk assessments – we may pass on your details to South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue if you agree to have a fire risk assessment completed by them. This would be name, address, phone number.

Next of kin details are held in order to contact next of kin in case of emergency. May be shared with the emergency services should the need arise.

CCTV images that we capture from our premises will be retained in line with CCTV and crime prevention legislation. We may be required without your permission to share these images with the police for the detection and prevention of crime.

Information Governance

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2024. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice informs customers, members of the public, employees and contractors (“You”, “Your”) what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to how and why the Information Governance Team (“We”, “Our”, “Us”), processes your personal data.

Why do we need to process your personal information?

Berneslai Homes’ Information and Governance Team, sometimes referred to as the Data Protection Team in online policies, procedures and forms, is responsible for providing assistance, investigating and meeting our legal and compliance obligations regarding your Information and Data Protection rights.

Processing scenarios may include, but not limited to, the following:

Co-ordinating requests for information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 or Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) 2004;

Co-ordinating data protection requests, such as Subject Access Requests (SAR), under the Data Protection Act 2018;

Handling Data Protection  reviews, complaints and concerns;

Handling and investigating personal data breaches;

Liaising with the Information Commissioner’s Office (the UK Data Protection Regulator) and any other relevant regulator;

Overseeing Berneslai Homes’ Information Governance strategy.

What type of personal information we will either collect, or obtain from our existing records we hold about you, for our purpose(s)?

For FOI/EIR/SAR Requests and depending on your request, we may collect, store and process your name, your contact details, your organisation (if applicable), details of your request, records and any other information within Berneslai Homes Services and IT systems in order to respond to you.

For all other functions we may collect, store and process your name, your contact details, your involvement with Berneslai Homes, details of your request if applicable, records and any other information that you have supplied to us, including obtaining additional information from our services and IT systems where your data may be held.

For some requests, we may need to validate your identity or your right of access in order to ensure we are only releasing personal information to authorised persons. To do this we may ask you to provide  identification which we can match against our existing records.

The team does not usually collect special category personal data directly from you. However, it is recognised that in order to handle requests, concerns and investigations then the team may need to process data considered to be ‘Special Category’. These categories include, but not necessarily limited to, details about: criminal conviction history, religious or philosophical beliefs, political opinions or affiliations, trade Union membership, mental or physical health, sexual life or sexual orientation, race or ethnic origin.

How will we collect your personal information?

We may collect your personal information by telephone, e-mail, e-forms from you or through a third party, such as though Barnsley Council or our contractors and suppliers, who are acting on our behalf,  in order to investigate incidents, enable us to action FOI/EIR/SAR requests, reviews, complaints or perform any other processing scenario previously described in this Privacy Notice.

We may equally collect and handle your information for our stated purposes from individuals, such as those acting on your behalf. Examples being, those with Powers of Attorney, Solicitors or Public Officials (i.e., MPs, Councillors) who in their official capacity have your consent.

We may also handle previously collected information that you have provided to other Berneslai Homes’ Services, such as records, previous communications and any other information stored and processed on our IT systems.

Where will we store your personal information and who has access to this?

Your information is stored confidentially and securely on our systems. Access controls are applied which means that only staff with a business need are permitted to seeing your personal information.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Any personal data and special category data which is processed by us is to meet our legal and regulatory obligations such as, but not limited, to the Data Protection Act 2018.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service.

In order to provide an efficient and robust service, the Information and Governance Team may sometimes need to share your personal data across Berneslai Homes’ Services and with Barnsley Council.

In rare cases, we may also need to share your personal information with a third-party contractor or supplier, who is acting on our behalf, when completing an internal investigation, review, complaint or subject access request to help us meet our legal obligations to you.  We will only do so if we can’t satisfy a request, concern or investigation internally.

Lastly, we may be required to disclose your personal information to regulatory bodies, such as but not limited to, the Information Commissioner’s Office, Law Enforcement Authorities or the Local Government Ombudsman) if a legal obligation compels us to do so. Please refer to “Who Else Do You Share My Data With?” within the “Berneslai Homes – Your Privacy” Notice.

How long will your information be kept?

Personal information will be retained according to whether there are applicable laws requiring a specific duration of retention or a business need. The following provides examples of retention durations.

We will destroy copies of identification documentation upon validation, but a record of what documents were provided and who validated will be kept with your request.

FOI, EIR, SAR Requests and internal reviews will be kept up to six (6) years upon closure.

Data Protection Requests, Concerns/Complaints and Internal Reviews will be kept six years (6) upon closure.

All Requests that have been examined by the Information Commissioner’s Office will be kept for six (6) years following closure.

All Requests that have been examined by the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) will be kept for six (6) years upon closure.

Data Breach investigation reports and investigations will be kept for six (6) years upon disclosure.

When a record reaches its retention date, we will undertake the following: We destroy any paper and/or electronic information associated with a request, inquiry, investigation or complaint. However, we will keep a skeleton record or log indefinitely. This record or log which we will use for audit and statistical purposes will not include any information that could identify you.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when we collect and process your personal information. This notice applies to information we process in relation to tenants and residents who are involved with us, for example as a tenant inspector or a member of our Customer Panel.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We have an active group of tenants and residents who undertake different activities on our behalf. This is to help test the quality of our services, give opinion about new policies, services or initiatives, and the ensure we meet our regulatory duties.

How we will collect your personal information

We collect information when you express your interest in being an involved tenant. This can be in person, over the phone, by e-mail or using an e-form. The information includes:

Name, address, age, contact details, gender and disability information as well as information about your interest and skill sets.

We record minutes of any meetings that you attend. This enables us to follow up actions. We do not publish these minutes, but we do publish a summary of actions arising out of meetings and discussions.

We ask for signature where we are reimbursing you travel or other expenses. This is to provide a financial audit of the transaction.

Where we reimburse you other costs we may ask for bank details. We do retain this information securely for a limited time until we are satisfied your payment has reached your bank account.

We will ask for a signature if the role involves a Confidentiality Agreement, this is to ensure that any sensitive information, that is not in the public domain, is used for the sole purpose of receipt

We ask for information about your health to enable a risk assessment to be undertaken before you complete activities on our behalf.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

We also use the following systems to process and store information to help us work with you as an involved tenant:
Wizemail – we use this system to send e-mails and text messages
Smartsurvey – we use this system to collect any responses to online surveys, analyse the surveys and produce reports.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

The processing of this data is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest and to fulfil our official functions.

We have a duty under the Social Housing Regulatory Framework to involve and empower tenants and involve them in the regulation of our services.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

All information about our involved tenants is stored in a secure electronic filing system which is only accessible to the staff who manage this service.

We will only share information about you in your capacity as an involved tenant where you have given express permission to do so. This will only include sharing your contact details with third parties such as training organisations, contractors or other third party such as the council who you have agreed to work with and have given permission for us to contact.

How long will your information be kept?

If you no longer want to be an involved tenant you can request that we remove your details from our involved tenant database and erase any personal data we have collected about you in respect of your involved tenant status. We will do this within one week of your request.

We will retain information about your attendance at meetings, meeting minutes or other involvement for a period of 3 years after the event. This only includes your name and address and any decisions made. This will not change if you cease to be an involved tenant as we need a record of decisions made by tenants.

We keep records of financial transactions for a period of 6 years plus current after the transaction in line with financial regulations.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to leasehold services.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We need your information when you purchase a property where Berneslai Homes manages the lease on behalf of Barnsley Council, so that we can fulfil their landlord obligations.

Where your lease states that Barnsley Council is responsible for providing comprehensive buildings insurance cover, we will add your details as the property owner to the block insurance policy procured by the Council.

We will use your information that we hold to send you letters informing you of details about the lease, property repairs both that are due and any proportional charges you must pay, and forums and events that you may wish to attend.

We may also contact you to make an arrangement to come and visit you at the property to discuss your leasehold agreement that you have signed.

In certain circumstances, such as where you have service charges or ground rent arrears or you have breached another clause of your leasehold agreement, we may contact your mortgage company with an interest in the leasehold property. We may also pass your details to the First Tier Tribunal to enable them to determine whether a breach of lease has taken place.

There are some circumstances where we need to give your information to your landlord, Barnsley Council, these circumstances include but are not limited to; advising them of a breach of the lease conditions; or to ask them to raise invoices direct to you in respect of major works.  Upon your request we may also liaise with them over buying your property back or putting a legal charge against your property.

We collect your next of kin information and we will use this information to contact them should the situation arise that is deemed in your vital interest to do so.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

When you become a leaseholder we require name, address, date of purchase and the purchase price of the property, mortgage provider and your next of kin information – your solicitor should provide us with this information following completion of the sale, but we may contact you direct for this if they do not.

If we become aware that there has been a new purchase of one of our leasehold properties and we have not been informed of your information from your solicitor, we will complete a land registry search to find out this information and will contact you to obtain information we need to undertake our landlord obligations as described above.

We require you to provide the contact details of any property management company you engage to let and manage the property to ensure we can carry out our landlord obligations in a safe and timely manner.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Our legal basis for processing this information is because it is necessary to fulfil a contract between you and Berneslai Homes the managing agent on behalf of Barnsley Council, your landlord.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service.

At your request we will provide your solicitor engaged to administer the sale and assignment of your lease with details of your Lease, service charges, insurance cover and ongoing or planned section 20 major works. There is a charge for the solicitor sales pack payable in advance.

Solicitor sales pack are completed and provided with your permission on the legal basis of your ‘Consent.’

Your Landlord BMBC will, when it is in compliance with the landlord covenants within the Lease, procure buildings insurance for your property. The cost will be charged to you as part of your annual service charge bill. You will be required to confirm your details prior to this being shared with the provider, currently Zurich Municipal plc on the basis of your ‘Consent’.

How long will your information be kept?

We will keep your information for: 7 years after the expiry of the lease.   However, by law we need to retain some of the leasehold information for the period of the lease that runs for 125 years from date of its commencement.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to allocation of properties.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

In the course of our activities as a provider of social housing, we need to collect, store and use personal data about you to enable us to deliver efficient and effective services to you such as in the following areas:

• letting and renting properties- so that we know the type and size of accommodation you need
• administering waiting lists
• carrying out research
• providing associated welfare services, advice and support eg to assist you with applying for vacant homes
• maintaining our records
• monitoring and promoting equal opportunities
• providing housing options and homelessness advice to you
• dealing with complaints and any feedback from you
• responding to any enquiries we receive from Councillors, MPs and any support agencies you may have asked to support your housing application
• responding to government who may ask for information about the general size and make up of the waiting list. We would never disclose any of your personal information to government

While ever you are on the waiting list you must notify us if your circumstances change so that we can reassess your application.

When you make an application for a vacancy and are the successful applicant, we will use the information supplied to:

• Determine that you are still eligible for an offer of accommodation, this may include checking that your situation has not changed, you are no longer eligible to appear on the waiting list etc.
• The property being offered meets your housing needs
• The property to be offered does not increase the personal risk to you and your family or to an immediate neighbour
• The application is not a fraudulent application and is in accordance with the information you have supplied

You can refuse to take up the tenancy at any time, starting from when we notified you about the offer up to the tenancy agreement being signed.  If you do this, we will ask for your reason and this will be retained on our Housing management system.   Refusing a property could impact your priority status and, in some cases, warrant suspension from the housing register – we will notify you should this apply to you.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

You will be required to complete an application form.  This will collect a significant amount of personal information about you in order that primarily it can be used to determine whether you are eligible to join the waiting list, the priority on the waiting list and the type and size of accommodation you need to meet your needs.

We will also use the information supplied to determine whether you need assistance to search and apply for vacancies.

Before we make you an offer of accommodation, we will ensure that we have all the information we need to validate that you are eligible for an offer of the property.  This will include existing and previous landlord references and other information from individuals and agencies that relate to your application information provided – this is undertaken with your permission that you gave us when you submitted your housing application.

Should you wish to take up tenancy, following its viewing, of a property you will be required to sign a tenancy agreement.   Before you sign your tenancy agreement you will be asked to provide proof of identification and we check to see that no information has changed since your application and check your identity. Your record will be updated if necessary. We will ask you about health matters including any disability that you have previously disclosed to assist in determining if the offer is suitable to meet your needs.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

We have access to your data held on the Barnsley Council Tax and Housing benefit system to support us to verify the information you provide to us.

We are also signed up to the National Fraud initiative scheme, that is used to prevent and detect fraudulent activity.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

The processing of your personal data for this purpose is in the course of you entering into a contract with us; and for your special category data, such as your health data with the legal basis of our obligations of social law –  these both extend to processing your data for your housing application and if successful your tenancy agreement.

The checks that we undertake to assess your eligibility for a property are done with your consent and for your health records your explicit consent.

Where required following the offering of a property to you we will share your personal information with the necessary approved utility providers as required under the terms of your contract with us to ensure utilities to the property are administered correctly, such as for bill payments to be made by you.

We are imposed by the government to provide CORE information to them once we have offered you a tenancy and this has been accepted by you – this data is provided on an anonymous basis.

In the download you can find further information on the government's published privacy notice for processing this data for this purpose.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

If you apply for a housing association or any private rented accommodation we advertise on the website we will share with the Housing Association or Private Landlord  your name / address / contact information and housing register priority details to assist them in determining whether you qualify for their accommodation and to contact you about the vacancy.

If you are successful with your property bid and we are to make you a property offer, once our checks are completed, we will pass your name / address / contact details to one of our Housing Management Officer who will contact you direct to arrange for you to view the property.

Once you have signed your tenancy agreement we will inform our approved preferred energy supplier of your name / address and tenancy start date.   This is done to ensure you have services to the property when you move in – you will be provided with information about how you can change energy suppliers

How long will your information be kept?

We will keep your personal data for no longer than necessary for the purposes that we have obtained it. We have a Records Retention Schedule which sets out how long we will keep different types of information. Once it is no longer necessary to continue processing your personal data we will delete it securely and confidentially.

Most of the documentation collected during the application through to allocation of properties is retained securely and confidentially for legal purposes for 12 years after the tenancy ends.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to housing register applications.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

Your information will primarily be used to determine whether you are eligible to join the waiting list, the priority on the waiting list and the type and size of accommodation you need to meet your needs.

In addition, in the course of our activities as a provider of social housing, we need to collect, store and use personal data about you to enable us to deliver efficient and effective services to you such as in the following areas:

• letting and renting properties- so that we know the type and size of accommodation you need
• administering waiting lists
• carrying out research
• providing associated welfare services, advice and support e.g. to assist you with applying for vacant homes
• maintaining our records
• monitoring and promoting equal opportunities
• providing housing options and homelessness advice to you
• dealing with complaints and any feedback from you
• responding to any enquiries we receive from Councillors, MPs and any support agencies you may have asked to support your housing application
• responding to government who may ask for information about the general size and make up of the waiting list. We would never disclose any of your personal information to government
• To prevent fraud
• To determine eligibility to join the Housing Register we will obtain your permission on the application form to undertake the following activities:
• Carry out checks with previous/current landlords
• Carry out previous/current BMBC tenancy checks
• Obtain information from Police Authorities/Probation Services if appropriate
• Carry out checks on the BMBC Housing Benefit/Council Tax system
• Contact relevant support agencies as necessary
• Complete an assessment of current housing need/priority.

Once we have completed our assessment, we will notify you in writing of our decision.  If you are not successful you will be offered a right of appeal of our decision.  If you are successful, we will advise you your unique Homeseeker reference number / priority band / priority date / and when your priority will be reviewed/ how to apply for vacant properties.

We will use your contact details given on the application form to contact you at least on an annual basis, and in some circumstances more frequent, to ascertain if you wish remain on the housing register, tell you about any changes we make to the service we offer and to contact you about any vacancies we may advertise.

You can notify us at any time if you wish to be removed from the register and we will cancel your application and if applicable remove you from our housing register.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We collect most of this data directly from you from the application, medical or changes of circumstances forms you complete. These are completed online, in person by phone or email and/or through our website. However, we may also collect data from third parties such as:

• housing benefits
• your previous landlords
• the police
• health and social welfare agencies
• enquiries that are received from councillors, MPs or someone acting on your behalf

We need your personal information, and if applicable that of your joint applicant and family members.  If you do not give us this information, we will not be able to process or assess your application correctly and determine what type and size of accommodation you may need or qualify for.

Characteristic data that we collect is used solely for equality monitoring so we can ensure our services do not discriminate against individuals or groups – data used for this purpose is completely anonymised.  You do not have to provide this information and you can use the ‘prefer not to say’ category.

While ever you are on the waiting list you must notify us if your circumstances change so that we can reassess your application.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

We have access to your data held on the Barnsley Council Tax and Housing benefit system to support us to verify the information you provide to us.

We are also signed up to the National Fraud initiative scheme, that is used to prevent and detect fraudulent activity.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

When you apply to join the Housing Register we are processing your information with our legal obligation and for carrying out a ‘Task in the public interest’.

The data collected for equality monitoring is collected on the legal basis of carrying out a ‘Task in the public interest’ and ‘Substantial public interest’, specifically to monitor and improve equality of treatment and opportunity.

The verification of information with a third party will be done with your permission (consent).

Where we share information for purposes such as safeguarding or crime prevention or detection, we do this because we have a legal obligation to do so.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

Generally, we will not share information about a housing applicant unless we get your written permission.

If an applicant asks us to pass information about their application to a nominated person, we will obtain your authority before doing so.  We will continue to give information about the application to the nominated person unless the applicant tells us they no longer want us to.

We may be required, allowed under data protection legislation, to disclose your personal data without your permission (consent), for example if we have a legal obligation to do so, such as for:

• law enforcement
• fraud investigations
• regulation and licensing
• criminal prosecutions
• court proceedings

We must protect public funds and may use personal data and data-matching techniques to detect and prevent fraud, collect taxes and ensure public money is targeted and spent in the most appropriate and cost-effective way. To do this, your personal data may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, including the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs, the Police and other local authorities.

Where there are public protection issues (e.g. vulnerable adults or children or for crime prevention or detection purposes), where there is potential fraud or when assessing your housing needs, where we may need to share information with relevant agencies. This would be covered by legislation or our Interagency Information Sharing Protocol.

If there is uncertainty about an Applicant’s immigration status, we must contact the Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate to verify that an applicant has the legal right to appear on the waiting list / be granted a tenancy.

How long will your information be kept?

We are committed to making sure that your privacy is protected. Any information you provide will be held securely and in line with data protection and privacy legislation.

We will keep your personal data for no longer than necessary for the purposes that we have obtained it. If you have not been successful as an applicant, we retain your application form and supporting documentation collated to reach our decision securely for a period of 6 years.  Where you subsequently are offered a property and become a Berneslai Homes tenant your application documentation is transferred to your tenancy file and retained for a period of 12 years after termination of the tenancy.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

What type of information we will process for this purpose:

You will need to give us your name, address, contact details (or an alternative contact number if you would like them to be contacted on your behalf) and maintenance and repair information when you contact us for this purpose either to our repairs hotline, online via our website or in writing to us.

We will also need to use the following information held on your tenancy file to process your request:

• Communication needs e.g. sign language, English not main language.
• Access needs e.g. use back door, knock loudly.
• Warning markers registered against your property for employee / customer safety and wellbeing.
• We may also use disability or health information which you tell us about that workforce visiting your property need to be aware of. For example, you are a wheelchair user – this will allow us to wait longer for you to come to door when we arrive.

Why do we need your information?

This information is provided to either our in-house repairs service or our approved partners, who work on our behalf, to be able to book appointments, ensure they are aware of any relevant communication or access needs and have details of the work to be undertaken that is approved by us.

We will accept requests for maintenance and repairs from individuals acting on your behalf. We will contact you or your nominated appointee that we hold on our records to make arrangements to either carry out an assessment or carry out the works to the property.

The work may be ordered directly following the report or depending on the repair / maintenance requested to the property it may generate an initial assessment inspection. If an inspection is required, we will notify you of this decision and the timescales.

For tenants of properties which we manage on behalf of private landlords, we will refer any repair issues to your landlord.

We hold details of the work carried out on our order management system. We retain all records relating to repairs and maintenance for 12 years in line with our Records Retention Policy.

Our legal basis for processing your information

Your contact details and access requirements are processed for the purposes of the maintenance and regulatory checks we are required to carry out under our contractual obligations with you.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated October 2023.

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to fraud.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

Berneslai Homes, under a service agreement, works in collaboration with your landlord, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (BMBC) in order to protect the public’s funds, it administers and recognises the potentially significant risk that fraud and corruption pose to the delivery of public services. Additionally, the public rightly expects a safeguard of public funds. 

In short, we will process your and your household details in order to prevent and detect crime or fraud.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We may collect information through paper documents or electronically.

We may collect the following types of Personal Data:

• Name
• Contact details (addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses etc)
• Date of birth
• National insurance number
• Details of family and household members
• Current employment
• Identity information (passports, driving licenses, birth certificates)

How we will collect your personal information

We may collect information about you in the following ways:

• Through Berneslai Homes staff carrying out home checks
• Most of the personal information held by Berneslai Homes is provided by you in applications and the supporting information you include with it
• Paper and online application forms
• Communication with yourself by telephone, in person, or written
• Information received from BMBC, other third parties or external organisations where required by law
• Allegations of fraud reported direct to us

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this?

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

The lawful basis for processing this information is:

• processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation.
• processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service.

Your personal information can be shared if the law allows this. In most cases, this will be with the Corporate Antifraud team at BMBC. However, Berneslai Homes may share specific and relevant information with law enforcement and government agencies or public bodies where we are legally required to do so, or processing is necessary for the performance of substantial public interest.

How long will your information be kept?

At present, where there is no reason to suspect tenancy or benefit fraud, we will delete any information collected as soon as checks have been undertaken by us. This is usually within 30 days. However, where your details may be shared with BMBC, agencies or other public bodies, your information will be retained under their service retention schedules.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to redecoration allowance payments.

Why do we need your information?

We use your information that we have collected from you to process and pay your redecoration allowance. We can only pay this allowance by bank transfer, so we collect your bank details and send these to the Barnsley Council Financial Services team for processing on Berneslai Homes’ behalf. We do not retain details of your bank account on our system and discard of any record of your bank details once assured the payment has reached your bank account. There  are no circumstances where we  voice record card payment information.

How will we collect your information?

We will collect your bank details face to face, over the phone or via post. Circumstances will dictate the type of collection.

Our legal basis for processing your information:

Your payment details are processed on the legal basis of being necessary for the ‘Contract’ which you have entered into with us, i.e. redecoration allowance.

How long will we keep your information?

We’ll keep information about your redecoration payments for a period of 7 years in line with financial payment retention standards. Details of your tenancy will remain on our housing management system for a period of 12 years after your tenancy is ended. We do not retain bank details.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to rent payment management for your home.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We use your information held on our housing management system, that we have collected from you both during the tenancy application process and from subsequent updates you have informed us about during your tenancy, in order to manage your rent account in relation to your tenancy.

As part of our tenancy offering process, we will advise and discuss with you before you take up the tenancy, the amount of the rent to be paid, how you will pay and the payment frequency– you need to be certain that you can afford the rent payment as you have a legal obligation to pay your rent once you start your tenancy.

We will serve you notice whenever there is a change in the gross rent for the property.

Should you be unable to make your rent payments or reach an arrangement with us to repay your debts we will process your information to take possession proceedings against you in the County Courts.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will use the information that we hold about you on our Housing Management System.

With regards your direct debit to make your rent payments, you can phone the Income Management team to provide your details or submit a direct debit form either online or by sending to us by post. If your account details change you can also notify of the change in this way.
Where we take a payment direct from you our payment systems do not retain any information about the bank account being used and there are no circumstances where we voice record card payment information.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this?

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Your payment details are processed on the legal basis of being necessary for the ‘Contract’ which you have entered into with us, i.e. your tenancy agreement.

Tenancy references are provided, homelessness and other support agency and organisation referrals are made with your permission on the legal basis of your ‘Consent.’

We may share information without your permission where we have a legal obligation to do so such as where we have safeguarding concerns about you and members of the family, if we suspect fraud or you breach the terms of your tenancy agreement.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third-party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

Where you claim housing benefit or Universal Credit we will share your name, address, national insurance number, tenancy agreement and weekly rent with BMBC Benefits and Taxation service and with the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) in order for them to calculate your entitlement correctly. If you receive housing benefit we will notify Barnsley Council of any changes to your rent payable – for tenants on Universal Credit you are responsible to do this. When a new claim is made for Universal Credit and the DWP have notified Berneslai Homes, we will contact you via text (using Wizemail) or letter to confirm and inform you of our support offer.

We prefer our tenants to pay via direct debit, we will collect your bank account details and send these along with details of your payment plan to Allpay our direct debit provider to ensure your payments are correct for the coming financial year. We do not keep details of your bank account on our system.

Our systems will automatically alert us to any missed payments from you. We will contact you to discuss repayment terms of the arrears holding on your account. If during our discussions with you we determine that you would benefit from specialist support from our Tenant First Service, our CAB Money Advice Worker, BMBC's Information Advice and Guidance Advisors we will obtain your permission to give your details to them so that they may contact you and try and support you with debt management or in the most serious of cases if you are facing eviction from your property to the BMBC’s Housing Options and Homeless Advice Service.

If you seek legal advice or support from a third party, we will only pass information to that person / agency with your explicit written consent. You will be kept informed of proceedings against you.

Where Berneslai Homes needs to provide a refund, compensation or a credit to you, we will contact you for your account details and pass them to Barnsley Council Financial Services who will process these on our behalf.

If you leave an outstanding balance on your rent account when you terminate your tenancy and fail to maintain a repayment arrangement we may, in specific circumstances give your details to the debt collection agencies; Marston Holdings, Jacobs and CDER.
At your request we can provide a tenancy reference to housing associations and/or letting agents covering rent payments, length of tenancy and anti-social behaviour registered for your tenancy that you hold for us. There may be a charge for this service payable in advance and we will notify you if this is the case.

At your request we can provide your name and contact details for a call back from the Home Contents Insurance provider engaged to offer this service.

How long will your information be kept?

In general, we will keep your tenancy records including your financial records, such as your rent account payments, for a period of 6 years after the tenancy ends. However, records may be retained for longer where tenancy ends with arrears. Deletion of these records will be 6 years from completion of debt repayment.  Retention of financial records is in line with financial payment retention standards.

Where we take a payment direct from you our payment systems do not retain any information about the bank account being used and there are no circumstances where we voice record card payment information.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information using this technology. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to remote assist video link communications for repair and maintenance video triage.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We require your personal information to provide assistance regarding housing repair requests and meeting our obligations regarding property maintenance. Scenarios which may benefit from the use of a Remote Assist video link communication include to:

• triage emergency repair requests to establish if an out of hours visit is required
• provide imminent support and advice to customers without the need for a home visit
• establish repair requests where imminent support and advice would benefit
• conduct surveys and provisions for work planning and materials without the need for home visit
• provide support from managers to operatives that are in the field conducting repairs within your home
• support managers to assess work progress and job satisfaction levels

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will only collect and save the video recordings that you take for this purpose.  We will never ask you to take videos that include images of yourself or anyone else in the property.

How we will collect your personal information

You will need to report a repair or maintenance required to your property in the usual way.  This request can either be made by phone, online by visiting our website, or by asking someone else to do this on your behalf.

If we feel it is appropriate to use this remote assistance video technology for this request; we will send you a link with a unique reference to use and upload your video to when completed.   We will also be issued with the unique reference number as this will then allow us to view the video you taken that relates to this specific reported job.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

When you upload a video recording all the information will be stored confidentially and securely in Remote assistance systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Berneslai Homes staff will be given access rights to the videos held by ‘Remote Assistance’ where they have a business need to access them.  All employees and contractors who have access to these videos will be trained to handle data properly.

From time to time Berneslai Homes may be required to download and retain a copy of the video on our systems in order to ensure that the correct action is taken or where we are required to retain a copy for legal purposes.  Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Your video is being processed for the purposes of the maintenance works we have been requested to carry out for you under our contractual obligations with you.

In some instances we may process your data without your consent if we have a legal reason to do so.  This will be required to ensure that we comply with the law for such matters including safeguarding and crime prevention; Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Care Act 2014, Children’s Act 1989/ 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information

Your video recording will be seen by Berneslai Homes staff who are processing your repair or maintenance report for your property.  It may be disclosed to our in-house Construction Services team or approved partner for them to carry out repairs and maintenance on our behalf.

We may also be required to share the information with other Berneslai Homes teams who require this information.  For example, where you have raised a complaint about works completed; or information is needed to support an application for an adaption to your property to meet your needs.

We will also share information with law enforcement and other agencies where we have a legal reason to do so.

How long will your information be kept?

Recordings held on the ‘remote assistance’ database will be automatically deleted 12 months after the video was uploaded, by which time the repair and maintenance request should be closed.

Where we have downloaded a copy of the video onto our systems, the data will be retained for a period of 12 years in line with our Records Retention Policy.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated March 2025. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when we collect and process your personal information. This notice applies to information we process in relation to satisfaction and other tenant surveys.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We complete tenant satisfaction surveys looking at all aspects of our service and these include on a routine basis:

• when a repair has been completed (random sample per month)
• following resolution of a complaint
• receiving support from the Tenants First Team
• after improvement works have been completed
• following resolution after reporting anti-social behaviour
• yearly feedback on the services we provide to tenants through our Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs) survey 

We also complete one off or occasional surveys with tenants on other parts of our service, where we need feedback or where we are proposing to make changes to our service.

The results from these surveys are used to monitor performance, for research purposes and to gather feedback which helps us identify areas for improvement or for business planning.

How we will collect and use your personal data

The surveys can be carried out by postal, email, text message, or over the phone.

Data (survey lists) that we use for sending surveys are either collected from our partners or from our  database. All data lists that we use to send surveys is controlled within Berneslai Homes. We only gather data for the purpose of the consultation.  Personal data may include, but not limited to, name, address, property/application reference number and contact details.

You can update and check your contact details (that we hold on our database) at MyHousing online.

Any dissatisfaction or comments received from surveys will not be treated as a complaint, but all our surveys give details on how tenants can make a complaint if they remain unhappy.

We use third party systems, Smart Survey, and Voicescape for collecting feedback from our surveys and for carrying out any analysis. 

We analyse responses by extracting a report from Smart Survey and Voicescape.  This is then stored safely onto our secure survey folder (with limited access).  The results from the surveys are used to produce anonymous reports, we do not include any personal or identifiable data in these reports.  The anonymous reports are distributed to the relevant teams, departments, SMT, EMT or Board.

You can choose not to respond to any survey. If you receive an email survey from us, you can unsubscribe from future marketing emails by clicking this option at the bottom of the email.  You can also stop future text messages being sent to you, by texting back the code that is provided on the text message.

You can opt out of future surveys by emailing us at customerservices@berneslaihomes.co.uk or by phoning us on 01226 787878.

Please remember to tell us your name and address.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this?

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls and only staff with a business need permitted to see your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

We also use the following:
– Voicescape, for carrying out automated telephone surveys. If the tenant doesn’t answer the call, then a text message is sent to them asking for them to give feedback using an online survey. We only upload data that is required to carry out the survey and for any research analysis.

- Wizemail, for the sending emails and text messages.  We only upload personal contact data, such as email addresses and mobile phone numbers, no other personal data is uploaded.

– Smart Survey, for collecting feedback and to carry out any analysis. We do not upload any mailing lists onto this system (this is completed by using Wizemail). All surveys inputted onto Smart Survey use the SSL encryption.  We have a process in place to make sure that IP addresses are not stored on Smart Survey. We may collect personal data such as name, address, property/application reference number and contact details for the purpose of the survey. Smart Survey will not use this data to make contact with our customers.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

We have a legitimate interest to process your information for this purpose as it enables us to ensure that our services are meeting our tenants needs.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service.

The process of analysing data is made transparent to data subjects which we use to produce anonymous reports which highlights findings and actions.

We do not share the personal data supplied in your survey unless you have given us permission to do so and there is a reason to share your information to enable us to follow up an issue you raised. In this instance we will feed back individual comments to the relevant person to address any problems raised and to enable practices to be reviewed. The relevant person can include an officer in Berneslai Homes who is responsible for resolving the query or issue you have raised, or a contractor who has completed a repair or service in your home.

If you have completed a survey and would like this removing, changing or if you need access to it then please contact us at customerservices@berneslaihomes.co.uk. Please remember to tell us your name, address, what you would like us to do and the survey that you have completed.

How long will your information be kept?

Data is removed manually from Smart Survey. If the survey is ongoing or re-occurring then this is removed 1 year after administrative use.  ‘One off’ surveys are removed 3 months after administrative use.  Regular audits are completed every quarter, to make sure that data has been removed from Smart Survey and stored within Berneslai Homes secure database, SharePoint.

Any identifiable data, scanned surveys or call recordings are removed from SharePoint 1 year after administrative use.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

Why do we need your information?

Berneslai Homes has an agreement with Switch 2, for them to provide all-inclusive maintenance and operation of current and future prepayment and metering systems for district/communal heating schemes. Properties connected to the schemes are supplied heat provided by Berneslai Homes which is managed by Switch 2.

We will only collect and process information we have about you and your account, and any information we may have about other individuals at the supply address to deal with your account.

Our legal basis for processing your information

The information Berneslai Homes shares with Switch2 is necessary to perform specific activities such as:

• Setting up and administrating your account, and making any changes to the terms of providing the utility supply to you
• Letting you know of any work needed to be conducted
• Identifying you when you make enquiries and complaints
• Resolving unpaid bills and debt recovery
• Preventing fraud or loss
• Quality assurance and maintaining accurate records (including recording communications with you); and checks with credit-reference agencies (who will keep a record of the search).
• Complying with legal obligations

Who we may share your information with

In connection with your account we may share information about you and other individuals at the supply address with others, including other Switch2 group companies and credit-reference and fraud-prevention agencies or if we have to provide information for regulatory purposes or by law.

How long will we keep your information?

We retain all records relating to repairs and maintenance for 12 years in line with our Records Retention Policy The length of time that Switch2 retain information is 12 years.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated February 2024. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

We have telephone call recording on some of our telephone lines that you may use. Some departments and staff members also have mobile phones or landlines which have a voicemail recording facility where you can leave a message.

The phone lines that may be recorded are:

• Berneslai Homes enquiries line on 01226 787878
• Construction Services Planning team 01226 773731

You will be told at the start of a conversation if this will be recorded, unless the law states otherwise (e.g. in relation to the prevention and detection of crime or fraud).

We may listen to the recording for the following reasons:

• to monitor calls to ensure we are providing you with the best possible service;
• to train staff to respond and deal with your calls;
• to resolve queries; and
• to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute fraud.

We do this to offer a good customer service, support our staff and to protect public funds.

If you do not wish to have your call recorded then you can use other ways of contacting us, such as online or in person.  Simply visit our Contact Us section to find out more.

Telephone payments

When you make a telephone payment we do not record the part of the conversation that includes your bank account number, sort code or payment card details. Your call is routed to a separate system held by us for this purpose.

Leaving a voice recording on a phone survey

Berneslai Homes carry out a range of satisfaction surveys by SMS, email or by phone, after a transaction as taken place. For example, when a repair has been completed, or when a complaint has been closed.

When carrying out telephone surveys, we use a third-party system, Voicescape, for collecting feedback. This is where the system makes contact with a tenant and asks them to rate our services using their telephone keypad. At the end of the survey the tenant has the option to leave a recorded message to explain the reasons for their answers. Call recordings are held on the live system for 2 years and then archived for 4 years before being securely deleted.

How long do we keep your telephone call recording?

We will automatically delete call recordings 12 months after the call was made, this also includes voicemail recordings made on a landline number. Any voicemail recordings on mobile phones will be deleted within 1 month.  Calls may be kept longer if there is a business need; for example evidence to support a complaint.

This ensures that we can use the recording for the purposes given above.  We may take a transcript of the recording where you have raised a query or the information is required for the purposes of preventing, detecting, investigating and prosecuting fraud; this will be kept securely in our records for a period as defined by our retention schedule.

Who do we share your information with?

The telephone recording and data collected during the call may be shared with other parts of Berneslai Homes and in some cases external organisations and the Council if they have a legal right to see it. For more information on data processing you can take a look at our Specific privacy notices.

Do we transfer your telephone call recording outside of the UK or EEA countries?

Our telephone conversation recording is captured and processed on computer systems in the UK.

Your rights

The information you provide will be managed as required by Data Protection law.

You can find out more about your rights and how we process your personal information under the your personal data section.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when we collect and process your personal information. This notice applies to information we process in relation to Tenant and Resident Association (TARA) supported by our Community Engagement Team.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We need information for our Community Engagement team to give your TARA support.

We will need the names and addresses of all association committee members to check our records to ensure that there are no conflict of interests. We would not support a TARA where committee members have current or former tenancy breaches.

We need your TARA bank account details to pay any grant awarded. How we will collect your personal information

Our Community Engagement Officers will collect information from you either over the phone, by e-mail or in person.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

The processing of this data is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest and to fulfil our official functions.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us to deliver this service

We will share with the public agreed contact details of the TARA on our website. This is to promote new membership.

We will share agreed contact details of the TARA with partners, councillors and the council to enable them to contact the group and offer support.

Bank account information will be shared with BMBC Financial Services to enable us to make an annual payment to assist in the running of the TARA.

No other personal details about members will be shared unless we have reason to believe that a fraud is being committed. If this is the case we will share the relevant information with BMBC and the police.

How long will your information be kept?

If you no longer want to be a committee member and or a key contact for the TARA, you can request that we remove your details from our TARA database and erase any personal data we have collected about you in respect of this. We will do this within one week of your request.

What about on termination of a TARA – how long do we hold / publish committee data?

We will delete information about your bank account once we are satisfied the account is registered correctly with BMBC financial services. We will keep records of financial transactions for a period of 6 years plus current after the transaction in line with financial regulations.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when Berneslai Homes collects and processes your personal information. This notice applies to information Berneslai Homes processes in relation to Tenant First Services.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

Berneslai Homes has a Tenants First Team that is available to provide you and your family with additional specialist support, tailored to your circumstances and to help you sustain your tenancy.  This includes access to family intervention services, tenancy support officers, mental health workers and access to our furnished tenancy schemes.

Once we have been informed, either from you or by a third party, that you wish to be considered for this service we will contact you to understand your current circumstances and identify which third party agencies and organisations we need to engage with.  This process will ensure that we can provide you with the best possible service to meet your needs.

Following your initial assessment, if it is recognised, we can provide you with the support you need, we will produce a plan which will be reviewed with you on a regular basis while ever you are receiving support from the service.

If you or other persons identified under the initial assessment do not provide us with the information we need to make the assessment or refuse to give us permission to gain information with other relevant third party agencies and organisations on your behalf, we will not be able to proceed with our services.

You can withdraw from the service and support being offered to you at any time and we will close our file.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

We will need to ask and record on our forms personal information that is required to assess your needs and provide you with the relevant support.  This information will not only be about you but also from others (aged over 16) that are identified during our contact with you.

In addition, we will process relevant information provided to us by any third party agencies and organisations that may be involved with you.  This information will include both personal and special categories of data, such as but not limited to your name / address / date of birth / contact details / health records / financial details.

How we will collect your personal information

With your permission (consent), we will contact third party agencies and organisations on your behalf to gain the information we need to provide this service to you.

We will discuss with you, both during the initial assessment and at regular future update meetings which of these are relevant for us to contact to support your needs.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations.  This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users.  We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information.  Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back ups of the data we hold.   This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service.  This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

We are processing your personal data for this purpose with your consent and with your explicit consent for your special category data.  This means that you can stop us processing your data at any time by applying your rights under data protection legislation – refer to our full privacy notice for information about your rights and how to put in a request.  However, if you withdraw your consent to us processing your information for this purpose this may result in us not being able to offer your family our services.

Please note in some instances we may process your data without your consent if we have a legal reason to do so.  This will be required to ensure that we comply with the law for such matters including safeguarding and crime prevention; Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Care Act 2014, Children’s Act 1989/ 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015.

Who and the reasons why we may share or allow access to your information with other third party organisations to enable us deliver this service

We may need to share the information you provided to us with these third party agencies and organisations to enable them to undertake some actions to support your needs.

These third party agencies and organisations will include, but not limited to, Barnsley Council services, Police, Probation, Fire Service, Job Centre Plus, Education, Schools, Barnardo’s, MIND, debt agencies, Health, AO, Furniture Resource Centre.

For those tenants wishing to apply for a furnished tenancy through either the Newcastle Furnished Tenancy Scheme (NFS) or Legacy Scheme, Berneslai Homes may disclose your personal information to them regarding this matter to set up your furnished tenancy scheme, and progress with your application.

The sharing of your personal data is only undertaken where we either have a data sharing agreement in place or an approved contract in place with this – this is to ensure that your personal information is processed securely and in accordance with data protection legislation.

If we are sending your personal information in an email, we will ensure this is sent securely using our secure email solution.

How long will your information be kept?

The information that we collect and process whilst providing this service to you will be retained in a secure system file, with only limited access given to those Berneslai Homes colleagues that need to know your case details.

We will keep this information for a period of 7 years after you have stopped receiving our support services.

We will review our privacy notice on a regular basis to reflect any changes and post any updates on this web page. This privacy notice was last updated November 2022. 

At Berneslai Homes we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Privacy Notice tells you what you can expect when we collect and process your personal information. This notice applies to information we process in relation to when you require a translation service.

Why do we need to process your personal information for this purpose?

We need your information so that we can arrange a suitable translation service to enable effective communications with our services.

What type of personal information we will either collect or obtain from our existing records we hold about you for this purpose?

Initially we will collect your name, address, contact details, the translation service required and the nature of your enquiry.
We will then be able to book a translation service and confirm appointment details.

How we will collect your personal information

We collect your information when you contact us over the phone, by e-mail, using our e-form, or in person through contact with one of our officers.

Where will we store your personal information and who will have access to this?

All the information we receive from you is stored confidentially and securely in our systems, with access controls applied and only staff with a business need permitted to seeing your information.

Our systems and software that we use for this purpose are supported by third party organisations. This is for the purpose of maintaining and developing our systems to ensure they work to support our business needs and those of our service users. We do not permit the testing of the system with your personal information. Access to these systems is strictly controlled on a needs basis and then only with our prior approval.

Barnsley Council, our parent organisation, is approved by us to take regular back-ups of the data we hold. This is to ensure that should there be a system failure we can recreate the data we hold about you in a timely manner with no loss of service. This data can be held within servers on their premises or in UK based cloud storage solutions – both of these having certified security measures and checks in place to protect your data.

Our Legal Basis for processing your information

Our legal basis for the processing translation service requests is because we have a legal obligation to do so to ensure we can effectively communicate with customers who use our services.

We have a contract with AA Global Language Services to provide this service and any requests are treated with strict confidentiality. It is built into our contracts with our staff, translators and interpreters that all information that they have access to must be handled as strictly confidential and must not be disclosed to any third parties.

How long will your information be kept?

We retain information for a period of 2 years.