Homelessness and rough sleeping research: privacy notice

The Department for Upliftment, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) is committed to improving our understanding of what works to prevent and tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.

To achieve this, the new End Rough Sleeping for Good strategy has announced two initiatives: a £12m testing and training program to accelerate the spread of both innovation and proven good practice, and an assessment of 2 £.2 million to the statutory homelessness system. .

DLUHC has commissioned the Homelessness Impact Center to undertake a feasibility study for the proposed testing and training program, while Alma Economics will cover options for evaluating the homelessness system.

This privacy notice sets out how DLUHC (as data controller) and their processors use your personal information in connection with this research. DLUHC will always consider the requirement to fulfill its data protection obligations as set out in this privacy notice.

If you have any concerns about the way DLUHC handles your personal information, you can email the Department’s Data Protection Officer at: dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk.

Or contact us at the following address:

1. What is the purpose of the study?

This research is being carried out by the Center for Homelessness Impact (CHI) and Alma Economics on behalf of the Department for Leveling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and will improve our ability to fulfill our public functions – in this case to reduce homelessness. DLUHC is the data controller for this study and CHI and Alma Economics are data processors.

We want to gather information from a variety of sources to improve our understanding of what works to prevent and reduce homelessness and rough sleeping.

By conducting this research DLUHC aims to:

1. System-wide assessment aims to provide contextual information to better understand delivery across the system and at local level; providing a broader understanding of how the system works as a whole.

2. To provide a better understanding of how people enter and move through the homelessness and rough sleeping system and interact with different services.

3. To measure delivery and interventions using a common set of indicators to understand the effectiveness of the HRS system and service delivery and what provides the best value for money.

4. The testing and training work program will aim to improve outcomes by focusing on gaining a better understanding of ‘what works’, for whom, where, why and in what context.

5. This will extend across the HRS system and include identifying, implementing, evaluating and scaling up effective practice.

6. Facilitate knowledge sharing and support capacity building for local leaders and practitioners to advance the understanding and use of evidence to improve services

2. What personal information do we collect and what will we do with it?

Personal data is defined under the UK GDPR as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person” – where “an identifiable natural person is a person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name , identification number, location data, online identifier or one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person”.

1. For this project we (or our processors) will collect contact details – including your name, title, organisation, email address, telephone number and postal address;

2. Your interaction with us and our processors – for example, if you submit information by email or survey, this may be stored in our/our processors;

3. Location data – when the survey is completed online, we or our processors may collect your IP address;

Where applicable, we may also collect other data from you as part of surveys, interviews or focus groups. This may include your age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, etc. This data will be collected directly from you and will be collected and processed in a way that cannot be directly linked to you.

We may also collect or instruct our processors to collect:

• voice and/or audio recordings of your contribution (where applicable, you will have the option to opt out of this in the consent form)
• automated transcription of your contribution (where applicable, you will have the option to opt out of this in the consent form)
• your personal experiences and views about the HRS system (to the extent that you are happy to discuss them).

When this happens, your view, entries and responses will be stored separately from your personal data so that you cannot be identified from this information.

3. How we obtain personal information and why we have it

The personal data we process is provided to us by local authorities to administer the relevant funds and to carry out this research project. It may also be provided to us if you have expressed an interest in providing feedback about your experience. Additional information may be collected directly from you during surveys, workshops and/or interviews if you consent to this.

Personal data is processed on our behalf by our research contractors; The Center for Impact on Homelessness (CHI) and Alma Economics. They may use this information to contact you about further research and to find out more about the homelessness system and services.

4. What is the legal basis for processing your data?

According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the legal grounds we rely on to process this information are:

Article 6, paragraph 1, letter e) – the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official powers granted to the controller.

5. How we store your personal information

Your personal data will not be sent outside the EU: it will be stored securely in the UK or EU by DLUHC and its processors.

CHI and Alma Economics (DLUHC’s third party processors) will keep your personal data and store it securely for a maximum of three months after the end of their contracts (expected in April 2023), if their contracts are extended the retention time will be extended accordingly. DLUHC may retain contact details and transcripts of interviews and focus groups for longer to enable the continuation of this research, which is due to conclude in 2025. To ensure that we do not retain the data for longer than necessary, we will carry out a review every year. If it is decided that the data is no longer necessary for the research, your personal data will be securely deleted.

DLUHC will only use your data within the terms of data protection laws, delete your data in a secure manner and only keep it for as long as is necessary for our work as a public body. DLUHC will review personal data and data retention dates in the future. Where appropriate, some data may be stored without personal data attached (eg survey results) for longer periods.

The security and anonymity of data is of great importance to this project. All data will be transferred between organizations using secure transfer methods. Strict security procedures will be agreed and implemented for each organization involved in the project.

6. What will happen to the results of this research?

Only summary results of this research will be published, eg DLUHC will publish reports on the gov.uk website. You will not be identified in any research report.

7. Automated decision making

DLUHC will not use your data for automated decision making, for example using statistical modeling to decide whether or not to provide services.

8. What are my rights?

You have the right to object to the use of your personal data, the right to see the stored personal data (name, address, etc.) and the right to have it changed if it is wrong. You also have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances. If you wish to exercise these rights, please contact DLUHC’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk or at the postal address below:

9. What if I want to complain or find out more information?

If you would like more information, you can ask a member of staff at your local authority and/or contact DLUHC researchers at HRSresearch@levellingup.gov.uk.

You can contact DLUHC’s Knowledge and Information Team to request access or correction of your data by emailing DLUHC’s Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@levellingup.gov.uk.

If you are not satisfied with the way your personal data is being processed, you can contact the Independent Information Commissioner at:

ico.org.uk/livechat

Helpline 0303 123 1113.