DWP Customer Consent

7/29/2019 DWP Customer Consent

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The following issues are addressed in this memo.

The introduction of the Customer Consent form withinGeneric Provider Guidance - Chapter 5 to enableDWP to validate job related outcomes does notprovide clarity whether this form can be used by bothDWP and the Provider.Update

As part of the payment validation process for job

related outcomes Providers are required to obtaincustomer consent to allow DWP to contact their employers. A customer consent form has beendesigned for this purpose and can be found at Annex1 of Chapter 5 of the Generic Provider Guide.

This consent form has been designed to ensure thatDWP is compliant with DPA requirements for the

purpose of contacting employers and cannot bealtered. This consent form will not entirely cover theresponsibilities of the Provider. Therefore to complywith Data Protection legislation, Providers must havea customer declaration and ensure that thisdeclaration is included in the customer's inductionpack which gives authority for the Provider to collect,

process and share customer information. Thedeclaration should be completed and signed by thecustomer and kept on file by the Provider. Details of what must be included in the customer declaration aregiven below.



Customer Consent to Sharing/Disclosure of PersonalInformation

Providers are reminded that they are required to

obtain customer consent prior to their collecting of customer's personal information andsharing/disclosure of such information with theDepartment and/or other providers.

In addition, the customer must give clear writtenconsent for the provider to use customer personal

information when contacting employers to obtainevidence of employment.

These consents must be given by the customer before any information disclosure takes place.

The following notice was published in the 'Notices toProviders' section of the 'Supplying DWP' page on theDWP Website on 6 May 2008:

Compliance with Data Protection Act and InformationDisclosure

All contracted employment providers must, as amatter of urgency, review the arrangements they havein place for collecting, processing and sharingcustomer information.

It is important to remind a customer of the DWPconfidentiality statement which they signed when theyfirst made a claim to benefit. However, a customer'ssignature which only acknowledges awareness of the



DWP Confidentiality Statement does not constitute"consent" at all and does not enable any sort of datasharing or disclosure. It simply provides a degree of

assurance that DWP will handle personal data fairlyand lawfully.

There is no specific legislative "enabler" which gives aprovider the ability to gather or share customer'sinformation with a third party, for example anemployer or another training provider, for the purposeof placing the customer into training/work and

obtaining outcome-related payments from DWP. Theinformed consent of the individual must be obtainedbeforehand, in line with the requirements of the DataProtection Act.

The information disclosure consent form must, as aminimum, contain the following information:

What customer's information your organisationwill collect

why the organisation needs the information, for example for the purpose recording the numbers of customers placed into training and/or employment ,monitoring the effectiveness of the service andreporting outcomes to DWP and claiming associatedpayments

how the information will be storedwhen and why the information will be shared with

a third party, for example an employer will becontacted when the customer starts work within somany weeks of leaving provision for the purpose of



obtaining evidence of employment so that a joboutcome payment can be claimed from DWP

Your organisation needs to make it clear to customers

that giving consent is voluntary and that refusal togive consent or withdrawal of an existing consent willnot affect any benefit they may be entitled to.

Authorisation to contact an employer to obtainevidence of employment must be expressly stated bythe Provider and consented to by the customer before

any information disclosure takes place.

Documents

DWP Customer Consent