Agenda item

[Report of the Director for Customers, Transformation and Resources. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Corporate and Civic Services.]

This report seeks approval for Haringey’s Risk Based Verification Policy as the means by which the Council processes claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction.

The Cabinet Member for Corporate and Civic Services introduced this report, which sought approval for Haringey’s Risk Based Verification Policy as the means by which the Council processes claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction.

The Cabinet Member noted the FOBO programme was initiated in September 2018 to modernise the Council’s services, reduce the number of unnecessary contacts and simplify the experience for residents and businesses when using our services. Introducing Risk Based Verification (RBV) into the Benefits service would allow the Council to deliver on all the programme’s objectives.

The Cabinet Member highlighted that RBV would mean that over 30% of our residents in receipt of Housing Benefit would need to provide less evidence to support their claim than they are currently required to do. This would result in the process to claim Benefits being significantly quicker and easier for them. For Council staff, it would mean sending significantly fewer requests for further information before a claim can be assessed. This would allow staff to spend more time making assessments and checking more high-risk cases rather than asking all our customers for more information.

The Cabinet Member noted the intelligence-based software used to apply RBV meant that only those claims, which were more likely to result in fraud, or error would be subject to the additional checks, which were currently applied to everyone. The result was a better service and experience for our customers and an improvement in our fraud and error detection rates. The RBV software was already being used successfully in 65 other local authorities and introducing it in Haringey would help bring our service in line with the service provided at other local authorities.

In response to questions from Cllr Bull and Cllr Connor, the following information was provided:

• It was too soon to forecast whether new applications and changes to circumstances would be processed in a quicker timescale, the service would be measuring impact on a monthly basis. Although, as risk approach was being taken forward for the verification of documents, those deemed less risk were expected to progress through the system at a faster pace. The impact would be neutral or improved depending on whether a claim was low or high risk Corporate Committee also had considered this issue and scrutinised the details.
• It was noted that the EQIA cannot indicate the particular demographic and protected characteristic group which will be impacted as this decision as claims  were on an individual basis. However, part of the service monitoring would be on a month by month basis and this will allow groups which are at high or low risk.
• It was noted that the DWP set the parameters for the software, an example of low risk will be someone on a pass-ported benefit. At the moment the Council would still ask for proof of benefit. However, going forward the Council would not need to ask for this, as DWP will give this a low risk score.

Further to considering the exempt information,

RESOLVED

To approve Haringey’s Risk Based Verification Policy - Appendix A [exempt] as the means by which the Council will process claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction having regard to the Equalities Screening Tool (set out in Appendix B)

Reasons for decision

To help reduce fraud and error in the processing of Benefit claims by targeting our resources to those claims which provide a higher risk of fraud and error. The software company has confirmed that those claims that carry the very highest risk rating in the high-risk group have a 40% chance of error.

A case study in Bolton found that since the introduction of RBV, error detection rates had increased by 13.4%.

Reduce processing times for customers whose claims are at low risk of fraud and error. The software company has confirmed that low risk category claims see improvements in processing times up to an average of 10 days per claim

A case study in Bolton found that since the introduction of RBV processing times for all claims reduced from 24.8 days to 17 days, and for low risk claims, it reduced to 5.4 days.

Alternative options considered

Do Nothing

Without targeting our resources to those claims, which pose a higher risk, we will not be making the most of our limited resources and are potentially delaying payments for customers with low risk claims. Our average processing times for 2018/19 was 18.14 days. We are also not in a position to identify and focus on those claims, which are highly likely to have an element of fraud or error.