Financial Assessments and Benefits

Hampshire County Council collects information about you in order to assess or review your eligibility for assistance towards funding for social care services. We will use the information for the purpose of assessment or review. We may also use information provided to undertake verification checks against publicly available information. The legal basis for our use of this information is our legal duty under the Care Act 2014 to undertake an assessment of financial resources.

We may use your name, national insurance number, date of birth and address to obtain relevant information about you from the Department Work and Pensions (DWP) in order to determine if you are liable to contribute towards the cost of the service you need and if so, the amount of that contribution. This is both at the point of the assessment and at review. The legal basis for this sharing of information is Section 131(1) of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and Regulation 5(1) (ci) of the Social Security (Information sharing in relation to Welfare Services etc.) Regulations 2012. We may share information about you with the DWP where otherwise permitted by law (for example, where necessary to prevent duplication of payments).

You do not have to give us information about your financial circumstances. But if we are unable to assess your financial position, then you will have to pay the full cost towards your services. You may also have to pay administration fees.

We may share your information with other organisations, such as the Local Government Ombudsman, where there is a court order requiring us to provide information, where information is needed to detect, prevent or investigate a crime and where otherwise legally obliged to by law. • We may share your information with third party processors in order to provide a service to you, including Civica and Looking Local.

We will keep your personal information according to our retention policy.

If you have a general query about your financial assessment please contact our Adults’ Health and Care help and support staff on 0300 555 1386.

The above information is the specific privacy notice for this service. For more information about your rights in relation to your personal data, see the County Council’s general privacy notice.

You have some legal rights in respect of the personal information we collect from you. See our Data Protection page for further details.

You can contact the County Council’s Data Protection Officer by email [email protected].

If you have a concern about the way we are collecting or using your personal data, you should raise your concern with us in the first instance or directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office.