Housing Delivery Division DWP Inspection Report for Watford Borough Council’s and Three Rivers District Council’s Revenues and Benefits Shared Service 1 Housing Delivery Division INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 3 BACKGROUND.............................................................................. 4 ORGANISATION .............................................................................. 5 INSPECTION METHODOLOGY ............................................................ 5 FINDINGS....................................................................................... 5 SUMMARY OF MAIN FINDINGS ........................................................... 5 FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS .......................................................... 6 RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................ 17 2 Housing Delivery Division INTRODUCTION 1.1 Section 139A of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 sets out the legislative framework for this inspection. It provides that: The Secretary of State may authorise persons to consider and report to him on the administration by authorities of housing benefit (HB) and council tax benefit (CTB). 1.2 This report assesses Watford Borough Council’s and Three Rivers District Council’s Revenues and Benefits Shared Service (the Shared Service) arrangements for processing new claims and changes of circumstances for HB/CTB. We limited the scope of this inspection to those areas of work that have a direct impact on the Shared Service’s new claims and changes of circumstances processing performance. 1.3 DWP officials first met with managers from the Shared Service in February 2011 to discuss performance and levels of outstanding work. The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Consultancy Support and Challenge Team (CSCT) was invited to undertake a ‘health check’ of the Shared Service in July 2011. Following this work the CSCT offered to assist the Shared Service with implementing the recommendations. The Shared Service declined the offer, expressing a wish to continue with its own plans to contract an external supplier to assist with off-site processing to reduce the backlog of work. Although this was a positive step, the CSCT advised that it felt that a more radical plan was needed to make the necessary changes to improve and sustain performance. 1.4 DWP continued to monitor progress and performance since the first meeting with the Shared Service in February 2011. Watford Borough Council and Three Rivers Council were selected for an inspection because, following the implementation of the Shared Service, the new claims and change of circumstances processing times showed significant delays and the latest published figures (Q3 2011/12) showed no improvement. 1.5 Three Rivers District Council’s performance was good until it abruptly declined in Q1 of 2010/11, following the merger in December 2009. Although performance has fluctuated slightly since, by Q3 of 2011/12 the average time taken to process new claims had risen to 42 days and changes of circumstances were taking, on average, 52 days to process. 1.6 Watford Borough Council’s performance has historically been worse than Three Rivers. The council was, at times, unable to produce data to confirm actual performance times. In Q1 2010/11 it was taking an average of 40 days to process new claims and 34 days to process changes of circumstances. By Q3 of 2011/12 performance had fallen to an average of 45 days to process new claims and 52 days to process changes of circumstances. The Shared Service has continued to 3 Housing Delivery Division record separate performance figures for each council since it merged in December 2009. Figure 1 below sets out both councils’ performance since 2006. Fig.1: In-month processing times for new claims and changes of circumstances (days) Three Rivers Watford New Claims Changes New Claims Changes 2006/07 21 7 30 8 2007/08 21 6 30 11 2008/09 No data No data No data No data 2009/10 Q1 17 6 Not known No known 2009/10 Q2 16 7 58 31 2009/10 Q3 17 10 Not known Not known 2009/10 Q4 26 5* Not known Not known 2010/11 Q1 43 27 40 34 2010/11 Q2 32 36 30 29 2010/11 Q3 37 33 32 38 2010/11 Q4 38 9 * 36 13 2011/12 Q1 49 38 44 40 2011/12 Q2 42 49 42 44 2011/12 Q3 42 52 45 52 Source: Shared Service *Performance improved for quarter4 due to the inclusion of rent increases BACKGROUND 2.1 Three Rivers District Council is located in south-west Hertfordshire, covering an area of 88.8 square kilometres, a mixture of rural, suburban and urban environments. It has a population of around 88,000. 2.2 There is a high proportion of older residents, with 21% aged 60 or over. About 13% of the population belong to ethnic minority groups. Unemployment is below the national average, although it has increased as a result of the recession. Three Rivers ranks low on the deprivation scale, although there are pockets of higher deprivation. 2.3 Housing in Three Rivers is predominantly owner occupied (77%), higher than the national average. Council housing stock was transferred to a housing association in 2008. Social housing now makes up about 16% of households. There is a small private rental sector which covers 6% of households. 2.4 Watford Borough Council serves a compact, predominantly urban area of 21 square kilometres, situated in Hertfordshire, near to the northern fringes of London and immediately east of Three Rivers. The population is around 80,000. 4 Housing Delivery Division 2.5 21% of the population belong to ethnic minority groups. The average age of Watford’s residents is about 37 years. The proportion of people over retirement age is lower than the national average. Watford ranks relatively low on the deprivation scale, with lower than average unemployment, although there are some areas where deprivation is high. 2.6 About 80% of Watford’s households are owner occupied, with around 16% in social housing and 10% in private rental accommodation. Watford transferred its housing stock to a housing association in 2007. Organisation 2.7 Three Rivers and Watford Councils entered into a Shared Service of Revenues and Benefits in December 2009. This is one of four Shared Services within Three Rivers and Watford Councils, including Finance, HR and ICT. Two of these, namely Finance and Revenues & Benefits, report to the Corporate Director of Resources & Governance at Three Rivers. The other two report to the Executive Director of Resources at Watford. 2.8 A Joint Shared Services Committee oversees all the Shared Services including Revenues & Benefits. This is made up of three Members of each authority with the chair alternating. Inspection methodology 2.9 Two Authorised Officers from the DWP undertook the on-site work for this inspection between 5-7 March 2012. Work to establish the effectiveness of the Shared Service’s performance included: interviewing staff and managers observing processes and procedures analysing management information examining policies and procedures sampling a small number of new claims and changes of circumstances decisions FINDINGS Summary of main findings 3.1 The Shared Service has made improvements in the speed of processing both new claims and changes of circumstances since the CSCT’s health check in the summer of 2011, most noticeably in the month of February 2012. Work has been sent to an external supplier to process off-site to help reduce the backlog. 5 Housing Delivery Division Outstanding workloads have reduced to more manageable levels and some excellent work has been done to bring the staff from two very different local authorities into one integrated group. 3.2 Process improvements and considerable work to align the different IT systems, previously used by each council, have resulted in more unified working practices, better customer services, more manageable workloads and morale has greatly improved amongst staff. Allocating dedicated staff to new claims, along with introducing a fast-track new claims process has had a positive effect on processing times and outstanding work. 3.3 However, further work needs to be done to continue and sustain these improvements. Improved management information must be developed to assist with accurately identifying the current work position, desired future position and plans to tackle the gap. This will allow the Shared Service to maintain a firmer grip on the management and flow of work and more accurately plan and cost the extent of continued recovery in order to achieve a steady state with an agreed head of work. 3.4 We found that despite receiving Automatic Transfer to Local Authority Systems (ATLAS) notifications from the Department since July 2011 none of these had been actioned. This may result in a considerable amount of additional work which, without careful planning, could detrimentally affect the Shared Service’s recovery. As well as the operational impact of not actioning this work both councils may lose subsidy as a result of delaying the correction of notified changes resulting in overpayments. 3.5 The Shared Service is currently considering setting targets for staff and key work objectives and appraisals have been reintroduced after not being carried out for a considerable period. This will help staff to recognise what they need to achieve and further integrate them into the Shared Service. 3.6 The introduction of e-claiming is planned for the end of April 2012. Very sensibly, the Shared Service has decided to implement a ‘low key’ start to impact the changes on the service and iron out any unforeseen problems before a major launch. However, there is still work to be done to design back office processes that will need to be amended to make best use of this new initiative. In addition, some automation of processes has been planned and implemented but there is more scope to further automate processes to maximise efficiency and increase productivity. Findings and conclusions Managing workloads and performance 3.7 The Shared Service has made some progress since the CSCT ‘health check’ in the summer of 2011. However, improvements only started to show in local, unpublished, processing times in February 2012.