Agenda item

The Divisional Director – Customer Services presented the report.

He said that the amount of Housing Benefit paid out was reducing as working age claimants were moved on to Universal Credit. However, it was estimated that £38.8m would still be paid out in Housing Benefit this year. Housing Benefit was a complex area; the Government had already issued seven circulars this year changing the rules. At one point last year it did seem that Bath and North East Somerset would exceed the LA error threshold and lose subsidy. This was because the Council’s document management system had been changed, and evidence could not be produced to substantiate a number of original claims. However, subsequent work done with the DWP and the Council was able to show that though some original records were not available, this did not cast doubt on the accuracy of the claims, so the Council remained under the threshold.

He outlined the safeguards implemented to reduce the risk of subsidy loss through errors in future. These are detailed in section 5 of the report. He could not give assurance that the issues had been fully resolved, but measures had been put in place to make errors less likely. The administration of Housing Benefits would remain a risk to the Council: Housing Benefit administration was not a career that most new Council employees would wish to follow, and it was not known when migration to Universal Credit would be completed.

A Member noted the statement in the Divisional Director’s letter to DWP (agenda pages 17-18) that only one of the undocumented claims would have resulted in an error. He suggested that it was hardly worth worrying about such a tiny amount. Mr Morris replied that the external auditors had extrapolated a sum for overpayments and underpayments based on sample testing. The Member replied that he remained concerned about the amount of time and effort expended to identify such small errors.

A Member said that he believed at this time of unprecedented financial stringency the Council should take the possible loss of subsidy very seriously. The Divisional Director of Customer Services agreed. A lot of work was being done to identify overpayment of Housing Benefit and underpayment of subsidy. The Council is able to recover overpayments. The Council’s Housing Benefit system had been overhauled and staff from other Councils came to see how it had been done. It was recognised that some claimants had difficulties with completing online forms. Some returned paper forms late. A lot of time was spent with claimants at the front end to ensure that the Council had correct information.

A Member asked about staff training and the input of DWP into training. The Divisional Director of Customer Services replied that the service had a dedicated training officer, and there were also a number of experts within the team, so a lot of training was designed in house. Other Councils had been interested in the training provided by B&NES. Mr Henderson had provided training on managing subsidy. Staff attended forums where best practice was shared. A joint training course with DWP staff about the implementation of Universal Credit had been attended by all frontline staff. The Member asked whether sufficient resources were available to develop training. The Divisional Director for Customer Services replied that Government grants to administer Housing Benefits were decreasing year on year, so resourcing was an issue. Another issue was that it was difficult to recruit people with relevant expertise, because it was not an attractive career choice for people. It was also difficult to find the time for training. The Member asked whether there was a proactive training plan to ensure that staff were equipped with relevant skills to deal with issues that might arise, rather than only historic issues. The Divisional Director for Customer Services said there was. Two members of the team provided briefing to staff on changes to rules. If training was appropriate, this would be done proactively rather than reactively.

A Member asked why there was no documentation for a number of claims. The Divisional Director for Customer Services explained that when the new document management system was introduced, for some reason some records had not been copied across from the old system to the new. This had not been noticed at the time. All those 2,500 cases had been reviewed. A report was now run regularly on all cases, which revealed any cases where information was missing. Replying to a question from a Member he said that the amount of Housing Benefit paid out had reduced by something like 35-36% since May 2016 when the migration to Universal Credit had begun.

RESOLVED to note the report and to note with pleasure the progress made.