In September 2021, the Government announced that vulnerable households in England will be able to access the Household Support Fund. The fund provides help for households facing challenges with the cost of living.
Local authorities administer the fund on behalf of the Government to help vulnerable households access support to help with the rising costs of energy, food, water and other essentials. The funding was allocated to Surrey County Council via the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to help families. Surrey County Council allocated a proportion of its funding to local borough and district councils to support their residents within the Government guidance for the fund.
Find out more about the Household Support Fund:
GOV.UK - Get help with the cost of living
Surrey County Council - Household Support Fund
If you apply, we will need to process your personal data to assess if you are eligible to receive financial support, and if so, to:
This privacy notice sets out what personal data we will use, and how and why we use it when an applicant applies for this support.
Everyday Essentials E-Voucher Scheme
From 1 April 2026 borough and district councils no longer receive a proportion from Surrey County Council’s Household Support Fund allocation. Instead the County Council is utilising the equivalent proportion to operate its Everyday Essentials E-Voucher Scheme, that eligible households can apply to via an online form available on their website.
Successful applicants are awarded supermarket e-vouchers.
Alongside this, the County Council has developed a “preferred referrer” process: Borough and district councils may work with a small number of identified households to support them to submit their application on their behalf, to the Everyday Essentials E-Voucher scheme. The purpose is to ensure households that may need extra support, such as those who are digitally excluded, receive help to apply.
As part of this process, we will continue to collect and process information from identified households, to check they are eligible to apply, in order to complete the Surrey County Council online application on their behalf.
Once an online application is submitted, Surrey County Council (SCC) will process the application and issue supermarket vouchers to successful applicants. As part of the process SCC will verify a person’s eligibility using their own and DWP data.
Please refer to the Surrey County Council Privacy Notice for information on how they collect and process your data.
Data controller
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has allocated Household Support Fund money to local authorities in England.
Waverley Borough Council is the data controller for the purposes of assessing eligibility, administering and making payments from its Household Support Fund allocation received from SCC.
If you are facing immediate financial difficulties, are a household living in Waverley and are struggling to pay essential household bills, you may be eligible for financial support from the Household Support Fund. Help is available on a first come first served basis and until the funds have run out, or by the deadline dates when funds must be spent by are reached. These deadline dates are set by SCC.
The DWP requires local authorities to report on how the Household support Fund is spent using its MI Return Form. They do not require the authorities to provide any personal data. SCC completes the MI Return Form on behalf of all boroughs and districts and other local organisations it has allocated Household Support Fund monies to. Waverley does not provide SCC with any personal data.
Categories of personal data we collect and process
We collect and process the personal data that you provide to us when completing your application for support from the Household Support Fund, which may include:
- full name
- full residential address
- email address
- telephone number
- how many children live in your household and their ages
- whether any adults of pensionable age live in your household
- whether anyone in your household is registered as disabled
- bank account details
- proof of any benefit entitlements eg Universal Credit, PIP, ESA
- proof of your financial situation eg bank statement, savings account
- copies of utility bills
- The personal details of an official person (a referee) who has agreed to support your application including their name, how you know them, telephone number and email address.
Source and categories of personal data
We will obtain your personal data when you submit your application to the Fund. You must seek permission from your referee to provide the details we require as part of your application. We may contact your referee to confirm your personal circumstances and that you are likely to be a household in need of support.
What we use your personal data for
We may need to carry out checks with your referee for verification in validating your application. We may need to see copies of any benefit entitlements you receive or a recent bank statement. If your application is successful and you receive a direct payment, we will ask you to provide proof that you have used the funds in accordance with the offer.
We will provide information to SCC about the number and type of awards made from the Household Support Fund. We will also report on how the Fund has been spent to Waverley Councillors. This monitoring does not include any personal data.
Our lawful basis for processing the personal data
We must have a legal basis to process your personal data.
Where we use personal information to assess whether someone is eligible for the Household Support Fund, the lawful basis will be:
- General Data Protection Information (GDPR) Article 6(1)e - processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.
Sometimes applicants tell us about their medical situation or provide details about their health. Whilst we do not need this to process an application, we must have a lawful basis to process (ie store) this special category data. The lawful basis for this personal data will be:
- GDPR Article 9(a) – explicit consent.
We also process your data based upon GDPR Article 6 (a) – consent (see below).
International data transfers and storage
We will not transfer or store your data outside the UK.
Personal data disposal and retention
We will only keep your personal data for as long as is needed to process your application under the Household Support Fund framework:
- for payment purposes
- to provide monitoring data to Surrey County Council, and
- for audit purposes.
Therefore records relating to an award will be kept for 6 years plus the current financial year.
Further information
For information about:
- your data rights
- data security
- cookies
- ICO contact details
- how to submit a subject access request
- contact details of our Data Protection Officer
Please refer to our main privacy notice.