Work and Pensions Minister Chris Pond launched the new streamlined 2005 Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Performance Standards. The changes are designed to focus more clearly on the speed and accuracy that benefit is paid, rather than the process of administering Housing Benefit.
Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Performance Standards, published in April 2002, enable local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. The Standards were in seven functional areas:
The 2005 Performance Standards replaced these seven functional areas with four themes covering:
The 641 Standards have been replaced with 19 performance measures and 65 enablers.
Local authorities will be asked to report quarterly to the Department for Work and Pensions against the measures and carry out an annual self-assessment against the enablers. The new scoring methodology will give higher weighting to those parts of the Standards that underpin delivery of the Public Service Agreement targets for improving the speed benefit claims are processed, and reducing the level of fraud and error.
The 2005 Performance Standards will first be used in inspections starting at the beginning of April, as well as later in the year during the Comprehensive Performance Assessments to be undertaken by the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate.
A programme of workshops for all councils is underway, to ensure understanding of the new arrangements.
The Local Government Ombudsman issued a report on the investigation of a complaint about Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit against Waltham Forest LBC.
Mr and Mrs M are tenants of a registered social landlord. Mr M is seriously ill and Mrs M is his full-time carer. They submitted a new claim for Housing and Council Tax Benefits, on 16 April 2004, asking for their current claim to be reassessed due to a change in circumstances. The Council did not process the claim.
The Council sent Mr and Mrs M a reminder about their outstanding council tax on 28 May 2004. On 3 June Mr and Mrs M contacted the Council to advise that their Council Tax Benefit claim was outstanding. The Council put a hold on recovery action until 3 July 2004.
The Council subsequently started recovery action, and on 22 July 2004 the Magistrates' Court issued a Summons. Mr and Mrs M went to the local Disablement Information Advice Line (DIAL), and a complaint was submitted, to the Council, on their behalf, dated 28 July 2004. The Council treated this as correspondence, rather than passing it to its Complaints Team, and then did not reply. Consequently, no hold was placed on the Council Tax recovery action.
The Council wrote to Mr and Mrs M on 18 August 2004, after the Magistrates' Court hearing, to advise that the Court had issued a Liability Order warning them that the debt would be passed to the bailiffs if they did not pay within 14 days. A bailiff's letter followed on 2 September 2004.
DIAL again submitted a complaint on Mr and Mrs M's behalf, at stage two of the Council's internal complaints procedure, on 6 September 2004. On receipt of this second complaint the Council put a hold on the recovery action.
The Council determined Mr and Mrs M's claim on 3 November 2004. It then withdrew the recovery action, wrote off the costs, paid Mr and Mrs M the resulting credit balance in the account, and offered to pay £500 as compensation.
The Ombudsman's report found that the Council's delay of almost six months, in assessing Mr and Mrs M's claim for Housing and Council Tax Benefits, was unreasonable. The report also found other instances of maladministration by the Council:
The Ombudsman's report welcomed the Council's offer to pay £500 as compensation. It recommended that the Council reviews how it can best ensure that recovery action is suspended until any relevant benefits claim has been dealt with fully, and reports of its progress within six-months. It also recommended that the Council monitors closely the processes in place for the identification of incoming complaints to the Revenues and Benefits section.
Report No. 04/A/10401
