Privacy and Data Protection

Introduction: What is a Housing Needs Survey?
Completing the survey questionnaire is voluntary. You can decide whether to complete the questionnaire; and how much or how little of it you wish to complete.  

The aim of the survey is to understand the extent to which there is a need for additional housing in the study area. If such a need exists, the information we gather will enable us to estimate the number of market and affordable dwellings needed, the type, size (number of bedrooms), and tenure.

The findings of housing need in a study will not necessarily result in additional housing being built. Any development proposal based on the HNS evidence would need planning permission. The local planning authority would undertake public consultation on the merits of the development proposal in accordance with its policies. The HNS and planning applications are separate processes.

Role of CNB Housing Insights

CNB Housing Insights is a housing consultancy that specialises in the assessment of need for housing. It does not initiate projects. All projects undertaken are undertaken under contract with a client. Clients range from local authorities, housing associations, parish councils, planning consultants and house-builders. Irrespective of the client the role of CNB housing Insights is that of an objective and impartial researcher. The client has no role in collecting or processing personal data. CNB Housing insights will not share personal data with anyone. Data will only be shared with a client in the form of a project report that aggregates data from all respondents.

Personal Data

The purposes for which the CNB Housing Insights is processing your personal data are:
  • to understand characteristics of households e.g. age, relationships, household types, health, income and affordability of current and future housing; and
  • to understand household housing needs and preferences regarding the characteristics of its housing in the future.
Categories of personal data

CNB Housing Insights will process your responses to the questions asked in the questionnaire. We will identify responses by using a serial number we will allocate and share with the respondent and the respondents current residence postcode.
This includes any responses given to questions regarding:

• your housing circumstances; and
• your personal characteristics including: age, health status, sexual orientation, religion, gender and ethnicity, employment status, income and savings.

Only the CNB Housing Insights partners will have access to the personal data collected during the survey – no names or street level addresses will be retained in the data, only the full postcode which we use to ensure that we can aggregate data findings into any large geographical sub area specified by the client.

Full postcode level data will not be published in our report and will not be made available to the client or anyone else. 

Legal basis of processing

The processing is necessary for the performance of social research carried out in the public interest. The housing survey is an essential element of the assessment which will help the client to understand and meet potential future housing provision in the study area.
 
In terms of ‘Special Category Data’ collected e.g. information about your health and your ethnicity, the legal basis for processing is that it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a public function.

Information sharing/recipients

Survey data will only be used by CNB Housing Insights for the purpose of the specific project – it will never be passed on, or sold to, anyone for any other purpose. 

Retention

All paper survey responses will be kept securely and destroyed by CNB Housing Insights six months after completion of the project or at a time indicated in the survey letter.

Anonymised electronic survey data will be kept on encrypted archive with all postcodes removed once the reporting and project is completed. We retain the postcode data separately to ensure that the survey responses have no small area identifier such as a postcode linked to them; also, so that if the sub-areas we are reporting to change in the future we can geographically recode the survey data from the postcode. Postcodes are used for no other purpose or reason.

Your rights

To exercise your rights under data protection law, summarised below, CNB Housing Insights will need to be able to identify your individual response to be able to comply. Accordingly, each questionnaire is allocated a unique serial number which must be quoted by the respondent number in all correspondence. 

The number is also used for location coding together with your postcode so responses can be aggregated into appropriate sub-areas agreed with the client. Once we have carried out this coding we no longer need to retain the postcode alongside your responses – this is how the response data will be stored for the retention period – the only identifier will be the serial number. The serial number ID and postcode are retained in a separate secure file for any potential re-coding of geographic sub-area in the future or at the reporting stage.

It is important that you make a note of your unique serial number displayed on the front page of the questionnaire so that if you want to exercise your rights listed below, we can identify your response and amend/remove it as required. 

You have the right to:
• request information about how your personal data are processed, and to request a copy of that personal data.
• request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified;
• request that any incomplete personal data are completed including by means of a supplementary statement;
• request that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed;
• request that the processing of your personal data is restricted; and
• object to the processing of your personal data.

You can exercise your rights by contacting CNB Housing Insights at enquiries@cnbhousing.co.uk 

Complaints

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane , Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF 
Call: 0303 123 1113

Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.

CNB Housing Insights is registered with the Information Controllers office. The registration number is ZA773915.


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