BOROUGH OF POOLE

COMMUNITY SUPPORT OVERVIEW GROUP

Tuesday 25 November 2003

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 consider:

i)  the result of the self-assessment of the Housing Benefit Performance Standards (Appendix A);

ii)  the Housing Benefit Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) 2003 (Appendix B).

iii)  to inform Members of the Performance standards bids process.

2.  DECISIONS REQUIRED

2.1  Members are asked to:

i)  nominate Members to a working party to work with Officers to achieve full compliance with the required performance standards;

ii)  approve in principle bids for Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Performance funding;

iii)  note the contents of the CPA report.

3.  PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

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

·  Strategic management

·  Customer Services

·  Processing Claims

·  Working with Landlords

·  Internal Security

·  Counter-fraud

·  Overpayments

3.2  The results of the assessments produce a graphical display (Appendix A). This indicates that in many areas the service is at or close to standard. Of the 629 elements, the self-assessment shows Poole to be at standard in 537, some 85%. However, there are some areas that need investigation and consideration. In particular attention needs to be given to areas within the strategic management function if the standard is to be met.

3.3  In order to consider this, Officers would wish to work with a small group of Members to consider how best to achieve the standards required.

4  Performance Fund Bids

4.1  The Performance fund was set up 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 Last year, Poole was successful in obtaining funding for a number of projects. These included new entrant training, staffing, a new laptop and provision for a new training room. We were praised by the DWP for our approach to training, leading a consortium of 7 colleague authorities in the area and using a private sector provider to undertake the training at our Creekmoor site.

4.2  For 2004/05 the DWP has allocated a budget of £70 million for performance fund bids. Officers would wish to make bids for the following projects:

·  work flow and home working;

·  training analysis project, which will lead to the continual development of all benefit staff;

·  take-up, to encourage maximization of all benefits by Poole citizens, this hopefully can be achieved by working with local partners and advisors;

·  improved verification of claims by working with the new Job Centre Plus.

4.3  Also working with the national user group for our computer software it is proposed that the group submit bids to:

·  Produce an on-line claim form

·  Improve decision letter to “Plain English” standards

·  Provide training material.

4.4  It is hoped that an application can be made by the end of November with the results known in January 2004.

4.5  The DWP have a £90m fund for the following financial year and it would be appropriate for Officers to work with small group of Members will help identify areas for bidding in future rounds.

5  CPA Results

5.1  The results of the assessment are provided in a written report (Appendix B). The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate uses a 5 point scale to measure performance, Poor, Fair, Fair to good, Good and Excellent. The assessment is based on the seven functional areas in 3.1.

5.2  Poole has been classified as providing a ‘Fair’ service. This is the same result as the previous year. Encouragingly the report highlights many areas where improvement has been made and that on those improvements the result would have been “Fair to good”. However the results of the Best Value performance indicators, in particular processing claims, were not as good as 2001/02 and this has given us this year’s result.

5.3  Members will recall that on 30 September, the 2002/3 performance figures were presented to Members. The main issues preventing improved performance were: Staff recruitment, retention and training. These areas have been addressed with additional staffing resources, a revised salary structure to assist retention and a new training regime. Funding for this has been received from Central Government.

5.4  The CPA provides some positive statements about the service and concludes that in several areas the service is at or close to the standard that have been set by the DWP Performance Standards.

John Springett

Head of Revenue and Benefits Service

Contact Officer

Brett Jones

Benefit Manager

Tel 633143

Background papers

DWP circular HB/CTB S6/2003

Appendices to this report are not available electronically

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