Tenant Resource Library

Processing of personal data

This notice sets out how the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will use your personal data for the purposes of this call for evidence and explains your right under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

1. Your data (Data Subject Categories)

The personal information relates to members of the public, parliamentarians, and representatives of organisations or companies.

2. The data we collect (Data Categories)

Information may include the name, address, email address, job title, and employer of the correspondent, as well as their opinions. It is possible that respondents will volunteer additional identifying information about themselves or third parties.

3. Legal basis of processing

The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. The task is consulting on departmental policies or proposals, or obtaining opinion data, in order to develop good effective policies.

4. Special data categories

Although not being requested, it is possible that special category data may be processed if such data is volunteered by the respondent.

5. Legal basis for processing special category data

Where special category data is volunteered by you (the data subject), the legal basis relied upon for processing it is: The processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department. This function is consulting on departmental policies or proposals, or obtaining opinion data, to develop good effective policies.

6. Purpose

The personal information is processed for the purpose of obtaining the opinions of members of the public and representatives of organisations and companies, about departmental policies, proposals, or generally to obtain public opinion data on an issue of public interest.

7. Who we share your responses with (Recipients)

Information provided in response to a call for evidence may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes. These are primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR).

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the FOIA, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals with, amongst other things, obligations of confidence. In view of this it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential. If we receive a request for disclosure of the information, we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality can be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on MHCLG.

Where someone submits special category personal data or personal data about third parties, we will endeavour to delete that data before publication takes place. Where information about respondents is not published, it may be shared with officials within other public bodies involved in this call for evidence process to assist us in developing the policies to which it relates. Examples of these public bodies appear at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations.

As the personal information is stored on our IT infrastructure, it will be accessible to our IT contractor NTT. NTT will only process this data for our purposes and in fulfilment with the contractual obligations they have with us.

8. How long we will hold your data (Retention)

Personal information in responses to call for evidence will generally be published and therefore retained indefinitely as a historic record under the Public Records Act 1958. Personal information in responses that is not published will be retained for three calendar years after the call for evidence has concluded.

9. Your rights

• you have the right to request information about how your personal data are processed and to request a copy of that personal data
• you have the right to request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay
• you have the right to request that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed
• you have the right, in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested), to request that the processing of your personal data is restricted
• you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes 
• you have the right to data portability, which allows your data to be copied or transferred from one IT environment to another

10. How to submit a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)

To request access to personal data that MHCLG holds about you, email dsar@communities.gov.uk. We are currently unable to respond to queries sent in the post at this time. Any written responses will be addressed upon our return to the office. Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, Data Protection Unit, Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.

11. Complaints

If you have any concerns about the use of your personal data, please contact us via this mailbox: privacy@communities.gov.uk If we are unable to address your concerns to your satisfaction, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an independent regulator. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: 0303 123 1113 casework@ico.org.uk Information Commissioner’s Office Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.

12. Contact details

MHCLG is the controller for any personal data collected as part of this call for evidence, the contact details for whom are: HMCLG Fry Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF. public.enquiries@communities.gov.uk

Overview

Throughout the last year many businesses have been forced to close in line with public health restrictions and faced significant periods of disruption to revenue. In response, Government introduced legislation to prevent landlords of commercial properties from being able to evict tenants for not paying rent; to restrict landlords’ abilities to recover rental arrears through the seizure of tenants’ goods; and to restrict the service of statutory demands and winding up petitions.

All of these measures are now in place until 30 June 2021.

Despite this extension these measures are temporary, and while the Government recognises they cannot – and should not – continue indefinitely, a carefully managed exit is necessary to preserve tenant businesses and the millions of jobs that they support. 

This call for evidence will support the Government’s decision making on the best way to withdraw or replace these measures while preserving tenant businesses and the millions of jobs that they support.  If there is evidence that productive discussions between landlords and tenants are not taking place, and that this represents a substantial and ongoing threat to jobs and livelihoods, the Government will not hesitate to intervene further.

The measures which are the subject of this call for evidence are:

• The moratorium on commercial lease evictions established by s82 of the Coronavirus Act 2020; and
• The restrictions on the use of Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery (CRAR) established by the The Taking Control of Goods (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021.

In addition, these measures are complemented by the restrictions on the use of winding-up petitions and statutory demands established by 41(1)(b) of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 which applies economy-wide. The content of these restrictions is not being considered here, however we are interested in the length of time for which these measures should be in place and how they relate to the other measures.  

Why we are consulting

Scope of this call for evidence:  The Government’s objective is to gather more evidence to understand how landlords and tenants are responding to the build-up of rent arrears that has occurred as a result of businesses being unable to trade normally during the pandemic. This will inform a better understanding of the risk to economic recovery posed by remaining rent debts, and to understand how landlords and tenants are adjusting existing lease terms to reflect the period of recovery that many tenant businesses will need once the trading restrictions are lifted. The evidence gathered will inform government policy regarding the exit from the existing measures and any need for additional measures to preserve viable businesses and the jobs that they provide.

In November 2020 the Government announced a review of the commercial landlord and tenant relationship, to consider a wide range of evidence from across the sector in order to make recommendations to the Government on potential reforms to the commercial property legislation.  This call for evidence does not form part of that review. 

The review is a part of a longer-term strategic policy development exercise in assessing the current condition of the commercial property industry with the intention that it should make recommendations to the Government on potential future reform.  Further announcements regarding the review will follow in due course.   

Many landlords have raised concerns about tenant businesses using Company Voluntary Arrangements (CVAs) to alter lease terms and disclaim leases of unprofitable locations, particularly after the landlord has agreed rent concessions with the tenant.  The use of CVAs does not form part of this call for evidence.  There have been a number of recent developments that may affect the use of CVAs in the future, such as the restoration of Crown Preference and the judgement in the Debenhams Retail Ltd case.  There are also a number of legal challenges brought by landlords and others to the use of CVAs making their way through the courts.  The Government will separately continue to monitor the use of CVAs and the impact that these recent developments are having on landlords. 

Who should read this:  The Government seeks views from businesses; business representative organisations; commercial landlords, lenders, and investors and their representative organisations; commercial property professionals; and anyone with an interest in or connection to the commercial property market in England.  The Government is particularly interested in the views of small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) including small commercial landlords, independent businesses and sole traders with leased premises. 

Duration:  The Government would welcome responses by 23:59 on 4 May 2021.

Urban Policy Team
030 3444 0000
Regeneration@communities.gov.uk

Our new insurance partners Wessex Insurance Services are providing GOTA members with access to an Employee Welfare Counselling Service.

The professional Employee Welfare Counselling Services offers support to GOTA Member’s employees to help you and your staff deal with stresses and issues that might adversely impact your work performance, health or emotional wellbeing.

This service is being paid for by Wessex Insurance as part of the package of services that we have negotiated with them – and is free for GOTA members.

In response, we would like you to send your insurance details to Wessex Insurance so that they can provide you with a quote. They can insure
almost any type of business and they hope to save you money – while making sure that you have the right insurances in place. They do business insurance and can also quote for your home insurance. Wessex Insurance are helping us to support our members by generating income for our fighting fund, solving member insurance problems as well as helping us to build our membership.

The Employee Welfare Counselling Service includes both telephone and email helplines offering confidential advice and support for business owners, leaders, managers and employees. The service is based on the principles of emotional first aid and offers advice and support, a common-sense based sounding board and allocation into appropriate counselling provision where this is identified as being wanted and needed.

The benefits for your employees:
Time for thinking and reflection about how issues may be affecting emotional and physical wellbeing
Recognising and responding to workplace stress
Common sense strategies to explore and manage problems and practical solutions for stress
management
Increased resilience to feel confident in handling future problems and issues

The benefits for your business:
Reduced stress and distraction in the workplace
Performance and productivity improvements
Enhancing your reputation as an organisation that takes good care of its people
Meeting your legal requirements to protect and maintain the health and wellbeing of your team