Building control

This privacy notice explains what personal information is collected, what it is used for and who it is provided to. The notice also describes why the Council requires your data, and the legal basis on which it does this. This privacy notice relates to the Council’s Building Control Services. It should be read together with our general privacy notice, which provides more detail.

Building legislation (The Building Act 1984 and The Building Regulations 2010 (as amended)) requires the Council to make details and keep a record of applicants and proposals for the purposes of the building regulations.

In order to administer our services we collect the following information from you:

• name
• address
• email
• telephone number
• bank details
• agent contact details (if applicable)
• full address of the development.
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We also collect some more sensitive information about you, known as special category personal data. The only special category data we collect about you is medical information. This is for the purpose of assessing whether you are eligible for a fee waiver due to a disability.

The Council uses your personal information in order to deal with building control-related matters, for example, to make decisions on applications made under the Building Regulations and the Building Act 1984 (as amended) (and other associated building control legislation).

We use your information for the purposes of processing and determining building regulations compliance, dangerous structures and investigating alleged breaches of the regulations.

Building Control aims to make buildings safe, secure, accessible and energy efficient as well as removing dangers from unsafe structures.

As part of its work, we collect and hold certain personal data to effectively manage our statutory functions, and to contact people about their properties.

We charge for Building Control applications and will record payment amounts made, amounts outstanding and the action taken to recover monies owed.

Enforcement cases remain confidential and at no time will we divulge the details of complainants who have informed us of alleged breaches of Building Regulations or making complaints about dangerous structures.

Generally, the information we hold will have been provided by you (on an application or enquiry form or when we communicate with you), but we may also hold information provided by third parties where this is relevant i.e. complainants, Local Government Ombudsman and other council departments.

We will only ask for personal information that is appropriate to enable us to deliver our services. In some cases, you can refuse to provide your details if you deem a request to be inappropriate. However, you should note that this may impact on our ability to provide some services to you.

We collect and use your personal information because it is necessary to perform our public task (Article 6(1)(e) of the General Data Protection Regulation ‘GPDR’). In some cases, we may be required by law to share your information (Article 6 (1)(c) ‘GDPR’). For the Special Category data, we will process your data to perform a task which is in the substantial public interest (by reason of having a statutory duty and to promote equality of treatment) under Article 9(2)(g) ‘GDPR’.

We have a statutory obligation to provide these services in accordance with the following legislation:

• Building Act 1984
• Building Regulations 2010
• Greater Manchester Act 1981
• Fire Safety at Safety at Places of Sport Act 1987
• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
• Safety at Sports Grounds Act 1975
• Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
• Local Government Act 1972

The processing of your information is necessary for compliance with the legal obligations contained in this legislation.

Your personal data is shared securely with the following organisations where it is both necessary and appropriate to do so.

We share information you have provided us with, and obtain information about you from, other Manchester City Council departments such as Highways or Housing where held and only as appropriate and necessary to support enforcement and investigations by the Council and other law enforcement agencies.

Where required by law or necessary to do so, such as to assist in the prevention of crime or in criminal investigations, we share your information with the following external agencies:

• Police
• Fire Service
• Border Control Service
• HMRC
• Health & Safety Executive
• Government Departments/Agencies e.g: Local Government Ombudsman or Information Commissioner in the event of complaints.
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We will not disclose any information to any company outside of Manchester City Council except to prevent fraud, or if required to do so by law.

Our retention schedule sets out how long we keep personal information for.

You can find out more about your rights regarding the personal information used for this service. Your rights apply to the information held by the Council as a data controller, and the information we hold on behalf of the other data controllers.

If you have any questions or concerns about how we use your personal information, please contact the Council’s Data Protection Officer.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you're unhappy about how we process your information.