Council Tax

What we do

We maintain databases to ensure efficient and effective billing, collection and recovery of Council Tax, Business Rates and Business Improvement District debt.

Contact details

Revenues Service,
Directorate of Finance,
The Woolwich Centre,
35 Wellington Street,
London SE18 6HQ

Why we need your information and how we use it

In accordance with prevailing legislation Local Authority Tax collectors are obliged to levy and collect taxes.

The legislation requires local authorities to collect and administer tax from its residents in accordance with the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 and the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

We use your information collected for purposes of administering Council Tax such as setting up your account for billing purposes, processing discounts, exemptions.

What is our power to obtain and use personal data?
  • In accordance with prevailing legislation, the council is obliged to levy and collect taxes. The legislation that requires the council to collect and administer tax from its residents, is as follows (the list is not exhaustive):
    • Local Government Finance Act 1992
    • Social Security Administration Act 1992
    • The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992
    • Statistics and Registration Service Act (Amended) 2007
    • Council Tax (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) Regulations 2009
    • Council Tax (Demand Notices) (England) Regulations 2010
    • Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Detection of Fraud and Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2013
    • Care Act 2014
  • We use your information collected for purposes of administering Council Tax setting up your account for billing purposes, processing discounts, exemptions etc.
  • The service uses 'legal obligation' as the lawful basis. Any 'special category' data (such as health and disability) will be processed as part of our obligation to meet social protection laws.
  • If we need to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights by protecting public interests or in the exercise of official authority (e.g. to detect and prevent fraud/crime, and in prosecutions and Court proceedings);
  • Where it is in the legitimate interest of the council to do so.
What type of information we collect

You'll usually have to pay Council Tax if you are 18 or over and own or rent a home.

The information that we collect and process for administering Council tax is name, current and re-addresses if different, and household make up in order to accurately apply relevant discounts exemptions and disregards.

Who we may share your information with

Information may be shared with other departments within the council such as Housing Benefit. It may also be shared with other agencies for the detection and prevention of fraud and crime.

By law we must give out some information if we are asked - for example by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or HM Revenue and Customs.

We're required by law to participate in National Fraud Initiative (NFI) data matching exercises and Housing Benefit and Council Tax reduction information may be provided to the Cabinet Office for NFI purposes and will be used for cross-system and cross-authority comparison for the prevention and detection of fraud.

We'll also use the information for the purpose of performing statutory enforcement duties. It will make any disclosures required by law and we may also share this information with other bodies responsible for detecting or preventing fraud or auditing and administering public funds.

We may share the details with other organisations that handle public funds and assist in the processing of other benefits.

The Cabinet Office currently requires us to participate in a data-matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We're required to provide particular sets of data to the Cabinet Office for matching for each exercise. We may share information provided to it with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud. For example, the Single Persons Discount Review.

The use of data by the Cabinet Office in a data-matching exercise is carried out with the statutory authority under its powers in Part 6 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.

Profiling and automated decision-making

We may analyse your personal information to improve services and for the following purposes:

  • undertake statutory functions efficiently and effectively
  • service planning by understanding your needs to provide the services that you request
  • understanding what we can do for you and inform you of other relevant services and benefits
  • help us to build up a picture of how we are performing at delivering services to you and what services the people of the Royal Borough Greenwich need
  • analysis of costs and spend of services we provide so that we can to ensure better and efficient use of public funds
  • evaluating, monitoring health of the Royal Borough Greenwich population and protecting and improving public health.

The Council is committed to using pseudonymised or anonymised information as much as is practical, and in many cases this will be the default position. Pseudonymisation is a procedure by which the most identifying fields within a data record are replaced by one or more artificial identifiers, or pseudonyms.

There can be a single pseudonym for a collection of replaced fields or a pseudonym per replaced field. Anonymisation is the process of removing identifying particulars or details from (something, especially medical test results) for statistical or other purposes.

How long we keep your information

We retain data for current taxpayers back to the start of Council Tax in 1993 because there has yet to be a revaluation of current bands. Therefore it's possible for adjustment to be required back to the start of the tax.

For tax payers who no longer live in the borough, we retain your information for six years after the last payment.

If an account has an outstanding debt, we'll retain your information for six years after full payment.

If the claim has an active fraud investigation, we'll retain all information until six years after the end of the fraud investigation and conclusion of court action.

Your rights

Find out about your personal data rights

Version date
June 2019