Meeting documents

To consider the attached report.

Contact Officer:  Debbie White (01296) 585021

The Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction schemes ("Housing Benefit") were cornerstones of the Welfare State.  Nationally, nearly £25 billion was paid out in total per annum.  At November 2011, the total number of people claiming Housing Benefit was 4.94 million, with 5.87 million claiming Council Tax Reduction.

In the early 1990’s the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had introduced a "verification framework policy" for administering Housing and Council Tax Benefit claims.  This was a voluntary policy that strongly recommended that local Councils should obtain a substantial amount of documentary evidence, carry out numerous pre-payment checks and visits before making any payment.

The verification framework proved to be both costly and caused significant delays in processing.  It had to be applied to all claims and there had been little scope for local discretion.  Although it had been abandoned in 2006 by DWP, most Council’s including AVDC had continued to use at least some of the guidelines set out in the framework.

In 2011, the DWP had allowed a limited number of Councils to pilot a different type of scheme to try to reduce fraud and error; based on Risk Based Verification (RBV) principles.  This concentrated on the risk profile of each claimant which then allowed resources to be targeted at the higher risk groups where most of the fraud and error occurred. It was an approach used by many public services as well as businesses in the commercial world; from finance to the chemical industry, the police and immigration authorities. The pilots had been a success and the DWP had confirmed that all Councils could now adopt this approach (Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Circular HB/CTB S11/2011 attached at Appendix C).

It was intended that RBV would apply to new Housing Benefit claims, Council Tax Reduction and Changes in Circumstances.  However, once implemented it could be used for reviews and overpayments.

The Benefits Service had conducted a Fundamental Service Review over the last year.  The implementation of Risk Based Verification was a recommendation from that process.  This was to reduce the burden on customers to provide excessive evidence, and reduce the cost of administering claims by reducing the correspondence with customers in chasing evidence, and the scanning of that evidence.  It was intended that RBV would be implemented for new claims by the Council from 1 October 2017.  It was believed that this process would provide an improved service for customers and contribute to a significant reduction in costs.

Detailed information on the background (AVDC had to adhere to Housing Benefits legislation), the risk based verification methodology and how AVDC intended to apply it were included in a report to be considered by Cabinet on 6 September  which had been appended to the Committee report.

The Cabinet report contained information on how the policy would be recorded and monitored.  Training would be provided for all officers using Risk Based Verification to ensure the agreed processes, procedures and guidelines were adhered to. Discussions would take place with all internal and external stakeholders including Investigation staff, Housing staff, Social landlords and the Voluntary sector so that they were fully aware of the change.

Members sought clarification on a number of general issues, including the assessment criteria, the numbers of claimants and the possible future use of new technology in determining applications, after which it was,

RESOLVED –

That Cabinet be advised that this Committee was fully supportive of the introduction of the proposed process using Risk Based Verification for verifying Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction claims.