Data Controller: Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council.
Dudley Council Adult Social Care (ASC) Finance Team collects personal and financial information for the following purposes:
To administer its’ policies on charging for Residential care and support, Nursing Home care and support and for Non-Residential care and support (including Direct Payments)
For managing the finances of those people it supports under a Court of Protection Deputyship order
For arranging funerals for those people who die in the borough where no-one else is available or willing to undertake the arrangements.
Your personal information is processed in order to fulfil a public task.
The Care Act 2014 provides a framework for charging for care and support. It enables a local authority to decide whether to charge a person when it is arranging to meet a person’s care and support needs. Where the authority does charge, it should ensure that people should only be required to pay what they can afford and must follow the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) regulations 2014.
In order to determine what a person can afford to pay the local authority must undertake a financial assessment. Under criteria specified in the UK General Data Protection Regulations that states that 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, if full and accurate financial information to enable the undertaking of a financial assessment is not provided, we will interrogate any systems we have legal access to in order to attempt to gain the relevant financial information.
Sections 34-36 of The Care Act and the Care and Support (Deferred Payments Agreements) regulations 2014 means that people should not have to sell their home in their lifetime to pay for care. Local authorities must offer them to people who meet the criteria.
The Court of Protection makes decisions and appoints Deputies to make decisions in the best interests of those who lack capacity. In becoming a Deputy, the local authority must have regard to The Code of Practice under The Mental Capacity Act 2005
Under the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984, the local authority has a statutory duty to make arrangements for the funeral of any person who has died or is found dead in the borough of Dudley, where it appears that no suitable funeral arrangements have been made, or are being made.
ASC Finance may collect and processes a range of information about you. This includes:
your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number, date of birth and gender;
information about income, salary, benefits, private pensions, savings, property or land ownership for you and any partner
details of any bank account and national insurance number;
information about your marital status, next of kin, dependants
detail of any person(s) representing you in financial or welfare matters including their address and telephone number.
The information may be collected in a variety of ways. For example, data might be collected through assessment forms, telephone conversations with you or your representative, from your care provider(s), from correspondence with you, or through meetings or other assessments.
In some cases, ASC Finance may collect personal and financial data about you from third parties, such as former employers, care and support providers, Department for Work and Pensions and from other internal departments such as Revenues and Benefits.
Data will be stored within different financial and social care systems dependent on the services you are receiving, or have received. These systems operate on the Council’s secure network and are maintained in secure data centres that comply with strict security standards.
Your information will be shared internally, for the purposes of fraud detection and safeguarding and externally in order to verify benefit and financial information, to ensure your income is maximised and to ensure charges are correct and administered in a timely manner. Where there is a legal requirement to do so information will also be shared for the purposes of crime detection and prevention e.g. with the police.
ASC Finance will share your personal information with tracing agencies in certain circumstances, such as:
To confirm personal details of a person who it is requested to take over the management of property and financial affairs for
To locate next of kin for persons who have died in the borough
To locate family members in order to complete the administration of the estate of a person whose property and finances it has managed
In circumstances that meet strict criteria (such as those with property, complicated legal issues or high value savings) and where it is deemed in the best interests of a person who lacks the mental capacity to manage their finances, an individual’s personal and financial data may be shared with a Court approved Panel Deputy for the purposes of facilitating an application to Court of Protection to take over the management of that person’s finances and affairs.
For potential safeguarding reasons and/or to ensure access to personal benefits and payment of bills, an individual's personal and financial data may be shared with an approved Appointeeship service provider in advance of the local authority applying to the Court of Protection to take over management of that persons finances and affairs.
If and where there are issues with payment of care and support charges and debt has accrued, Finance may add case notes to the Councils corporate care system for the purposes of highlighting the issue to those undertaking care reviews and investigating any safeguarding concerns.
The standard adult social care record retention is 6 years after an adult social care service has ended. However, there are also a range of other retention periods affecting different information and service need and these range from 1 year – 11 years depending on the type of information and service. Nb. Mental Health record retention is covered by the Mental Health Services Privacy Notice
Please note: stated retention periods may be subject to any legal holds imposed under the Inquiries Act 2005 that may concern the information and override standard retention.
The council has a records retention, destruction and archive policy that is available on request from:
Dudley MBC Corporate Information Governance Team Council House Dudley West Midlands, DY1 1HF
If you do not provide certain information, this will hinder the ability of ASC Finance to administer their charging policies effectively. You may end up being over or undercharged for care and support, not receiving benefits that you may otherwise be entitled to and/or not have your finances managed in line with the expectations of the court of Protection.
to make sure you know why we need it
to ask only for what we need, and not to collect too much or irrelevant information
to protect it and make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn't
to let you know if we share it with other organisations to give you better public services - and if you can say no
to make sure we don't keep it longer than necessary and
not to make your personal information available for commercial use without your permission
give us accurate information; and
tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes, such as a new address
Your information rights
The law also gives you a number of rights to control how we use your personal and special category information. If you would like more information on your rights, please see the Council's Corporate Privacy Statement
We have a Data Protection Officer who is a council staff member whose job it is to make sure we respect your rights and follow the law. If you have any concerns or questions about how the Council looks after your personal information please contact Lewis Bourne, Data Protection Officer, at information.governance@dudley.gov.uk or by calling 0300 555 2345 and asking to speak to the Data Protection Officer.
You can also make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are unhappy with how the council has handled your personal data. You can contact the ICO via: ICO Contact Us telephone 0303 123 1113, or post to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
