Guidance

Homelessness and rough sleeping: Outreach with a health specialism: privacy notice

Published 2 September 2024

Applies to England

This privacy notice explains who we are, the personal data we collect, how we use, store and delete it, the legal basis for using personal data and what your legal rights are in relation to this research.

1. The data controller

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is the “data controller”. This means that we at MHCLG are responsible for determining what personal information we collect about you and use, why and how (the ‘purpose and manner’).

2. What personal data we are collecting and why

When we ask for your personal information, we promise only to ask for what we need and to make sure you know why we need it. If this includes contact details, we will also tell you if we intend to use these details to contact you about anything else, and whether it is possible for you to opt out of this. If you agree to us contacting you about other things, you can withdraw your agreement at any time.

We have commissioned the Centre for Homelessness Impact (CHI) to lead a consortium (a group of organisations) to establish the effectiveness of 8 projects testing different approaches to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping (known as the Test & Learn programme).

One of these 8 projects is ‘Outreach with a health specialism’, which is covered by this privacy notice. This project involves recruiting a member of staff with a health-related specialism in outreach teams to address the health needs of people sleeping rough. For more information, read Nurses in outreach teams.

The aim of this study is to establish the efficacy (how well it works) and cost-effectiveness of this programme in reducing rough sleeping. We will use your data to help us to determine whether this programme is effective in reducing rough sleeping.

MHCLG will hold some personal data for further research, including the impacts of this programme on other outcomes.

Whose data we are collecting

As part of this project, we will be collecting information from:

• individuals experiencing rough sleeping
• staff delivering services or making referrals to those services
• staff bidding to take part in projects

3. Why we are legally allowed to process your data

How we are using your data

The reasons that we can use to collect or use your personal information are set out in law. Most of the time, the lawful basis for us processing your personal information under data protection legislation will be because it is necessary for our work as a public body (the processing is necessary for the performance of a task in the public interest – (Article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR))). Where we process data about criminal convictions, our additional legal basis for processing it is paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

For this project, sensitive personal data known as ‘special category data’ will be processed (detailed below). Where we process special category data, our legal basis for processing it is Article 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR, that processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

For any interviews or focus groups that take place during the course of this research, audio recordings may be used, which may contain personal data.

For individuals experiencing rough sleeping

Your personal details (for example, name, contact details, and information on personal circumstances) will be shared by your local outreach team with Change Grow Live, a sub-processor for the evaluation and part of the CHI consortium. Change Grow Live will also ask you about your situation including about your housing and health.

Change Grow Live will consolidate and clean this personal data before sharing it with Cardiff University, the evaluator appointed for this project (also a sub-processor for the evaluation and part of the CHI consortium). Data shared by Change Grow Live with Cardiff University will not include personal identifiers (name, contact details).

Cardiff University will use this de-identified personal data to understand the impact of the project on reducing rough sleeping, and other outcomes including health.

Change Grow Live will share personal identifiers with MHCLG to enable data linkage and archiving.

The following personal data will be processed about individuals for the ‘Outreach with a health specialism’ trial:

Personal identifiers (provided by outreach teams). The following list is not exhaustive, but examples of this include:

• names
• contact details (e.g. telephone number, email address)

There are needed to be able to contact participants to understand their circumstances at a later date.

Background data (collected by the outreach team directly from you in most cases, but this may include some data processed by the outreach team where the information is already known to them.) The following list is not exhaustive, but examples of background data (some of which is special category data) that will be collected are:

• date of birth
• ethnicity
• nationality
• sexuality
• gender
• disability
• substance misuse and health data
• previous experiences of homelessness or housing insecurity

These data are needed for a number of reasons. Factors like mental health are risk factors in making a person more susceptible to homelessness/rough sleeping, and/or can influence the likely success or failure of interventions. For demographic factors such as age, ethnicity it is important to know whether interventions are more or less successful for different groups (particularly useful to breakdown results by protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010). 

Outcome data (collected by Change Grow Live from you in most cases, but this may include some data processed by the outreach team where the information is already known to them.) The following list is not exhaustive, but examples of the data to be collected include:

• housing and homelessness
• physical and mental health
• referrals to other services (e.g. GP practices)

Administrative data and data linkage

Should MHCLG choose to link data with other governmental departments in the future for the purpose of understanding the impact of the intervention over longer periods of time, this may include, but will not be limited to:

• MHCLG: Statutory homelessness applications and duties
• NHS Digital data which may include: Mental health services dataset (MHSDS), Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) dataset and Emergency Care Dataset (ECDS), Hospital Episode Statistics (HES)
• DWP/HMRC, e.g. Single Housing Benefits Extract, Universal Credit and Jobseekers Allowance data
• Police National Computer (PNC) for cautions and convictions
• Council tax debt and other administrative data held by local authorities

Change Grow Live will share personal identifiers with MHCLG to enable data linkage and archiving. MHCLG will hold some personal data (such as name, date of birth and gender – see above for full list) for further research, including data linkage to understand the effectiveness of this project on other outcomes.

Voice recordings for interviews

• Responses during interviews will be recorded and transcribed

For staff delivering services, making referrals to services, and other relevant stakeholders

Your personal details (name and contact details) will be shared by the relevant local authority or CGL with Cardiff University (the evaluator) for the purpose of arranging interviews or focus groups.

Personal identifiers (provided by outreach teams or local authorities), for example:

• name
• contact details (e.g. telephone number, email address)

Voice recordings for interviews (provided directly by the participants)

• information about location, place of work and occupation
• responses during interviews will be recorded and transcribed

All personal data shared between members of the CHI-led consortium will be shared via secure electronic systems. All findings will be anonymised in any disseminated/published reports.

For staff bidding to take part in projects

For the Test & Learn programme, personal details (name and contact details) will be collected to process, score and oversee applications and grants to take part in specific projects. These will be managed by CHI through Flexigrant.

Personal identifiers

• names

• contact details (e.g. telephone number, email address)

4. Sharing your data

Personal data collected during this study will not be shared with any other body outside the members of the CHI-led consortium or MHCLG, the data controller, or other government departments who may provide additional personal administrative data (as described in section 3). MHCLG may link your data with other governmental departments for the purpose of understanding the impact of the intervention over longer periods of time, including but not limited to DWP, HMRC and DHSC.

Personal data (name and contact details) for professionals interested in taking part in projects, for example, submitting an application through Flexigrant, may be shared with third parties for the purpose of scoring.

5. Keeping your data

We will only keep your personal data as long as we continue to have a lawful basis to do so. This will usually mean that it is still necessary for our work as a public body. This will be decided by our ongoing business need and any laws or government policies that affect how long we keep it. We have a “retention schedule” that sets out how long we will keep personal data:

• CHI and consortium members will securely keep your personal data for up to 3 months after the completion of the Test & Learn evaluation. MHCLG, the data controller, may keep your data securely stored for up to 5 years after the completion of the evaluation, after which this will be further reviewed.

You may ask to withdraw from the study by getting in touch with MHCLG using the contact details in section 11 of this privacy notice.

6. Your rights

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have rights that affect what happens to it. Generally, you have the right to:

(a) know that we are using your personal data;

(b) see what data we have about you;

(c) ask to have your data corrected, and to ask how we check the information we hold is accurate;

(d) ask to have your data deleted where the processing is no longer necessary for the purposes stated in this privacy notice;

(e) object to the processing of your personal data; and

(f) complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (see below).

7. Sending data overseas

We will not usually send your data overseas. If for some reason we do, such as storing data on computer servers that are not in the UK, we will ensure that all necessary safeguards are in place.

8. Automated decision making

We will not use your data for any automated decision making.

9. Storage, security and data management

Your personal data will be stored securely and will be protected to make sure nobody has access to it who shouldn’t.

You can ask us for details of our instructions to staff on how to collect, use and delete your personal data.

10. What we ask of you

So that we can keep your personal information reliable and up to date, please:

• give us accurate information; and
• tell us as soon as possible if there are any changes, such as a new address or contact details.

11. Complaints and more information

When we ask you for information, we will keep to the law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 and any new legislation coming into force.

If you are unhappy with the way the department has acted, you can make a complaint.

If you are not happy with how we are using your personal information, you should first contact dataprotection@communities.gov.uk.

If you are still not happy, or for independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing, you can contact:

The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 030 3123 1113

Website: https://ico.org.uk/