Make a claim

Introduction

Use this form to claim Council Tax Reduction - this is money to help people on low incomes pay their Council Tax.

If you need help with your rent, most people in Southwark (other than pensioners and a few exempted groups) must apply for Universal Credit (UC) from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), rather than Housing Benefit (HB).

After you’ve answered a few questions on this form, we’ll tell you if you need to claim UC or if you can claim HB. If you then don’t claim UC or delay claiming, any rent arrears will be your responsibility.

If you’re not eligible to claim UC, we’ll use this form to decide if you can get HB as well as Council Tax Reduction.

Completing the form

You can save the form at any time. The easiest way is to sign in to your My Southwark account before you start. You'll then have a record of your completed or saved form in your account. If you don't already have a My Southwark account, you can register now.

We keep saved forms for 1 month so you must finish your claim within that time.

Providing proof

We might need to see proofs to support your claim. We’ll tell you what you need to provide when you’ve completed the form.

The information you give us

Any information or proofs you give us will be used to process your claim for Council Tax Reduction and/or Housing Benefit.

Deliberately giving wrong or incomplete information or not telling us about changes in your circumstances could result in prosecution.

You might be fined £70 if you don’t tell us about a change that affects your Council Tax Reduction within 21 days.

Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction Privacy Notice

The proper handling of personal information is very important to the delivery of our services.

To make that the council treats personal information correctly, we aim to meet in full the requirements of data protection law.

This privacy notice has therefore been produced to explain as clearly as possible how we process your personal data.

Why we collect your personal information

Southwark Council Benefit service collects personal data for the purpose of processing applications for Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction.

We're required to collect this information under this legislation:

  • Social Security Administration Act 1992
  • Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992
  • Housing Benefit Regulations 2006
  • Local Government Finance Act 1992
  • Local Government Finance Act 2012
  • The Fraud Act 2006
How we use your information

Information held by Southwark Benefits service is used in the assessment of claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction.

To improve the service we deliver we may also use your information to communicate with you and provide services appropriate to your needs. This could include help with applications for these services:
  • a blue badge
  • a disabled facilities grant
  • a discretionary housing payment
  • help with supporting people services
  • residential care
  • domiciliary care - such as day care, home helps and meals
  • free school meals
  • food support and other support programmes
We may also use information to identify and support people who are at risk of becoming homeless or help families who may benefit from the Troubled Families programme.

Information provided to the Benefits service may also be used to assess liability for Council Tax or to help in recovery of unpaid Council Tax or Housing Benefit overpayments.

Who has access to your data?

To process claims and fulfill our duties as a benefit provider we may need to share information with other organisations we work with or those who provide services on our behalf. These include:
  • The Department for Work and Pensions
  • HM Revenue and Customs
  • other councils
  • processing partners
  • auditors
  • IT and software providers
Occasionally, your information may be accessed by contracted IT providers. Access by IT providers will only be for reasons of technical support, and any viewing of data will be incidental to this.

There are other specific situations where we may be required to disclose information about you, such as:
  • where we are required to provide the information by law
  • where disclosing the information is required to prevent or detect a crime, including fraud
  • where disclosure is in the vital interests of the person concerned
Your data protection rights

You have these rights in relation to your personal data:
  • the right to be informed about the collection and use of your data
  • the right to obtain access to your data,
  • the right to have any inaccurate or incomplete data rectified
  • the right to have personal data erased in specific circumstances
  • the right to restrict processing of data in specific circumstances
  • the right to object to processing of your data in certain circumstances
You also have a right to make a complaint about our handling of your personal data to the Information Commissioner's Office.

More information

If you’d like to know more about the information we hold, or the way we use it, please email the data protection officer at Southwark Council at dpo@southwark.gov.uk or write to:

Data Protection Officer, PO Box 68763, London, SE1P 4DJ.

More information about data protection law and how it applies to you can be found on the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Information about data collected via online forms

Website feedback

rate this page as GOOD rate this page as AVERAGE rate this page as POOR

Privacy settings