Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit

5a BOROUGH OF POOLE

COMMUNITY SUPPORT OVERVIEW GROUP

TUESDAY 23 NOVEMBER 2004

REPORT OF HEAD REVENUE AND BENEFITS SERVICE

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS AND COMPREHENSIVE PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT FOR HOUSING BENEFIT AND COUNCIL TAX BENEFIT

1 PURPOSE AND POLICY CONTEXT

1.1 The purpose of this report is to :

i) consider the Housing Benefit Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) 2004 (Appendix B).

ii) inform Members of a new on-line facility to estimate housing benefit, which is on the Borough of Poole website.

iii) inform Members of the outcome of the bids for funding from the Performance Standards Fund and to consider a new bid for continuing training funding for new staff.

2. DECISIONS REQUIRED

2.1Members are asked to:

i) note the contents of the CPA report and the “Fair to Good” rating

ii) note the outcomes from successful bids for funding

iii) Recommend that the bid for Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Performance funding for continuing new entrants training be approved in principle and referred to the Portfolio holder for agreement

3. PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

3.1Part of the CPA process is a self assessment by the Council based on approximately 600 performance standards including 114 “above standard “ indicators. The CPA is carried out by the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate ( BFI).

3.2The Performance Standards are broken down into seven functional areas:

 Strategic management

1  Customer Services

 Processing Claims

 Working with Landlords

 Internal Security

 Counter-fraud

 Overpayments

3.3The results of the self-assessment produces a table (Appendix A). This indicates that in many areas the service is at or close to standard. The self- assessment shows Poole to be meeting 97% of the standards and meeting 80% of above standard requirements.

3.4The BFI’s website identifies the percentage levels required to meet the CPA standard levels.

Performance Standards BFI assessment Score

100% and above standard Excellent

100% Good

80-99% Fair towards good

40-79% Fair

0-39% Poor

4 CPA RESULTS

4.1The results of the assessment are provided in a written report (Appendix B).

4.2Poole’s classification as providing a ‘Fair to Good ’ gives us a 4 rating for CPA. This is an improvement on the last two years results (Fair) and a score of 3.

4.3The report highlights many areas where improvements have been made and notes the improvements in the Best Value performance indicators. These indicators in particular are processing new claims and dealing with changes in

2 circumstances. We had made significant improvements from the previous year and were at 42 days and 17days respectively in 2003/ 2004. However we did not meet the standard of 36 days and 9 days.

4.4To put our classification into context we believe that in February 2004 the first Local Authority was assessed as “excellent” and that this was the first Authority to achieve more than a “Fair to Good” rating ( source - magazine of the BFI – Summer 2004)

4.5We did not reach the standards of 36 days for new claims and 9 days for change of circumstances in 2003/2004. However so far this our first quarter results were 41 days and 17 days and this has improved for the second quarter to 36.7 days and 14 days.

4.6We do note that there is still room to improve both our performance and to achieve 100% compliance to the standards. Officers will be working on the particular issues raised both in the report and ensuring where possible the remaining standards are met ready for next year. Areas that we need to concentrate on include improving the Best Value performance indicators mentioned above and to improve the number of fraud proven cases we take forward to a sanction.

5 BENEFIT CALCULATOR

5.1An online benefit estimator is now available at www.BoroughofPoole.com . This allows potential claimants to easily check whether they would be entitled to either housing or council tax benefit, before they apply. This facility can of course be used from the privacy of their own home, or libraries and we are exploring extending access to this facility at the Revenue and Benefits Public counter.

6 PERFORMANCE FUND BIDS

6.1The Performance Fund was set up in 2002 by the DWP to provide additional funding over three years to help Local Authorities improve their performance in the administration of housing and council tax benefit. In 2002 / 2003 we secured funding of £36,000 This year Poole was successful in obtaining funding of £117,000 for a number of projects, with the aim to improve performance further:-

 work flow, using our document image processing system

 home working, allowing some staff to process claims from home

 training analysis project, which will lead to the continual development of all benefit staff; and also includes awareness training for partners in the voluntary sector and landlords.

3 Work has already started to implement these projects over the coming months.

6.2 We have for the last two years received funding for new entrant training. Poole is the lead authority in a consortium of seven Councils using Creekmoor training suite and a private sector training facilitator. We were praised by the DWP for our approach to training and the training provider has recently won an award for working with us and others.

6.3We now wish to submit a bid for two further years of funding. There are now eight Councils wish to take part. It is hoped that an application can be made by the end of November with the results known in January 2005.

John Springett Head of Revenue and Benefits Service

Contact Officer Brett Jones Benefit Manager Tel 633143

Background papers DWP circular HB/CTB S6/2004 BFI report “ The standard” issue 4 Summer 2004