Worcestershire County Council is the data controller for the Warmth on Prescription programme. Our partner Act on Energy operate this programme on our behalf and are data processors.

The programme processes personal information in order to carry out delivery and administration of the Warmth on Prescription Programme either directly or jointly with partners. This includes:

• assessing your eligibility for grants and offers and making energy payments on your behalf
• processing your application
• offering additional energy advice
• conducting data analysis on the users of this service to support the development of new services
• maintaining fraud prevention
• contacting you in the delivery of project services
• providing progress reports to the funding organisation
• evaluating the scheme objectives and outcomes

The information you provide will be used by Act on Energy in order to deliver the programme. Act on Energy have their own privacy notice. View the Act on Energy Privacy Notice.

Our contractor, Act on Energy is required to collect information about you and your home when you voluntarily complete application and post scheme evaluation forms either over the phone or in person and make this data available to Worcestershire County Council when requested.

The project processes personal information, which is relevant to individual cases which may include, but is not limited to, the following personal data:

• personal details such as name, date of birth, address and GP practice
• Contact information such as telephone numbers and email address
• Financial details such as household income, savings and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits
• ID number such as your national Insurance number
• Health data such as a health condition that is recognised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance NG6
• Property details such as property size or heating fuel type
• Utility bills such as energy consumption data and energy account details

The legal bases for processing this personal information are:

• contract for the supply of services
• compliance with a legal obligation
• tasks carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority

The information you provide will be held by Worcestershire County Council and Act on Energy.

To monitor the grant funding, scheme delivery and provide application status updates, your details will be shared between the referring Primary Care Network and Social Prescribing organisation, Act on Energy, District Council of which the applicant resides and Worcestershire County Council.

To evaluate the scheme your referring Primary Care Network and Social Prescribing organisation with share your personal data and health data with Act on Energy and Worcestershire County Council. Primary Care Networks may compare your access to health services during previous Winter periods with the current Winter period. 

All applicants will be requested to complete a post scheme evaluation questionnaire to assist with a full evaluation of the project.

A summary of the evaluation will be provided to district councils without personal data and any special category data.

This includes the participating districts councils listed below,

• Bromsgrove District Council

• Redditch Borough Council

• Worcester City Council

• Wyre Forest District Council

• Wychavon District Council

Warmth on Prescription is grant funded through the Household Support Fund, funded by UK Government. Therefore, there is a requirement to submit MI reports containing anonymized data of grant recipients to the Department of Work and Pensions, following the grant delivery guidance and grant conditions. 

This includes household composition i.e., households with a disabled occupier, occupier of pension age, family with a child or children, or none of the listed. No personal data or special categorised data of an individual will be shared with the Department of Work and Pensions through MI reports. 

Applicants will be identified by Primary Care Network and provided with application forms and a summary of the project. All participating applicants will be offered an appointment to complete the application with a Social Prescriber. 

Social Prescribers will send completed applications to Act on Energy via a secure network to process the application, check eligibility and administer the grant funding and energy advice.

Act on Energy will contact your energy provider on your behalf to make energy payments to your account during the cold weather period, if applicable. 

At no time will your information be passed to an organisation external to Worcestershire County Council for marketing or sales purposes or for any commercial use without your prior express consent.

Information will only ever be shared when it is strictly necessary to help us provide effective services and you may have the right to refuse. 

We will not pass it onto any other parties unless required to do so by law or in all reasonable circumstances the disclosure is fair and warranted for the purposes of processing or subject to a data protection exemption.

We have specific data sharing agreements in place with local agencies and sometimes the law requires that we may have to pass your details on to a third party, for example, to prevent crime.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as we are required to do so by law and the purpose, we collected it for. The retention period is either dictated by law or by our discretion. Once your data is no longer needed it will be securely and confidentially destroyed.

Your information will be kept for 7 years from the date of your last contact with the service and will then be deleted.

You are entitled to a copy, or a description, of the personal data we hold that relates to you, subject to lawful restrictions. Please go to our Make a Data Protection Request webpage to find out how to make a request.

You may be entitled to rectification, restriction, objection, and erasure of your personal information depending on the service and legal basis. Please in the first instance contact dataprotection@worcestershire.gov.uk to exercise these Information Rights or call the main Worcestershire County Council contact telephone number of 01905 765765.

Please see our overarching Privacy Notice for further contact details and if you have a complaint about your information rights