Agenda item

Mr Barber presented the report.

He drew Members’ attention to the Grant Certification Letter in Appendix 1, which reported that for 2017/18 Housing Benefit errors had been detected which were consistent with errors found in previous years, and that errors had been detected in one new area, Working Tax Credit Disregard. The extrapolated financial impact of errors was relatively significant to the total subsidy receivable.

Members expressed concern about the continuing high level of errors.

A Member asked whether actual figures could be used rather than extrapolation. How confident could we be about the extrapolation? Mr Barber replied that the extrapolation methodology was uniform across all councils and had not changed for many years.

A Member suggested that every Housing Benefit error should be categorized and a review conducted of how the probability of a recurrence of that type of error could be reduced, whether by individual training or software changes or something else. The Interim Director – Finance responded that the Housing Benefit team did not just sit back and wait for the auditors to detect errors; if errors were found by the Team then sample testing was carried out to try to ascertain the extent of the errors. The auditors sometimes detected additional errors. The Member asked how, apart from the time of detection, the errors detected by the Housing Benefit Team differed from those detected by the auditors. The Interim Director – Finance replied that the difference lay in the choice of samples tested. Mr Barber said that a review of a sample could sometimes disclose additional errors as did the retrospective rounding of a sample based on the prescribed criteria. The Member suggested that reliance on the training of individual staff did not appear to be tackling the root of problems. At present there were significant clawbacks of benefit subsidy by DWP, and it seemed that an entirely different approach was needed. He thought that what was required was not corrective action but preventative measures. The Interim Director – Finance said that there was to be a dedicated  team within the Council working on the issues and changes to ways of working were being implemented.

A Member suggested that a report on the findings of internal error testing should be presented to the Committee mid-way through the next financial year. Members agreed that it would be helpful if the percentage and type of errors detected were reported to the Committee. A Member suggested that any such report should contain a description of the error testing process. A Member suggested that a report should be made to the Committee after restructuring, to reveal whether or not restructuring had been a success.

The Chair asked about the proportion of errors caused by wrong information provided by applicants and those called by the Council. The Interim Director – Finance explained that excess payments made because of wrong information given by applicants could be recovered from them, and so did not affect the amount repayable to DWP, whereas overpayments made because of errors made by the Council could not be recovered.

Mr Barber presented the External Audit Plans for the Council and the Avon Pension Fund.

A Member asked Mr Barber for how many of the ten members of the Brunel Pensions Partnership Grant Thornton acted as auditors, and whether they were able to share information about issues identified during an audit with other members of the pool. Mr Barber said that he believed that they were auditors for nine of them and that their ability to share information was restricted by client confidentiality.

RESOLVED to note the report.