Action Plan – Housing & Council Tax Benefit Service
Target
Activities Needed to Achieve
Target
Officer
Achieve
Responsible by
Any Further Comments
Customer Care
Every customer to
have their individual
needs in relation to
race, culture, faith,
gender, age,
disability and sexual
orientation
sensitively
considered wherever
possible when
interacting with the
council.
Develop and deliver cultural
awareness training programme for
frontline staff to improve enquiry
handling through sensitive customer
interaction
Revenues
and Benefits
and Service
Manager
LW to discuss with personnel and
the Equality & Diversity group to
ensure a corporate approach
Customer Care
(cont)
Ensure race equality and diversity
issues covered in internal and
external customer care publicity
campaigns
Services
Manager
Dec 06
Ongoing
All Managers
Address Race equality and diversity
issues in telephone skills training
programme material
Ensure all frontline and visiting staff
are aware of the use of Language
Line. Mini Com systems , Loop
systems
Dec06
Customer
Services
April 07
LW to discuss with personnel and
the Equality & Diversity group to
ensure a corporate approach
Maureen And Paul to identify staff
and produce and plan training. To
be implemented by April 07
Ensure race equality and diversity
issues are addressed in forth
coming process reviews and the
revenues & Benefits counter
integration project
Provide accessible information for a
full range of users/ potential users of
the revenues and benefits service
Review existing publicity material
Written/ web based
Fraud
Assess the
outcomes of
prosecutions to
ensure that BME
communities are not
disproportionately
given more severe
sanctions
Identify monitoring data to be
collected.
Implement a system for recording
the data collected
Train staff on the new procedure for
collecting data
Complete an impact assessment of
the Counter Fraud and Prosecution
Policies
Spring 07
ongoing
Revenues
and Benefits
and Service
Manager
Customer
Service
Team
Leader/
Service
Managers
Revenues
and Benefits
and Service
Manager
The review will highlight priority
areas and form part of this action
plan
Dec06
Upon completion of review any
actions will be added to this plan.
March 07
Complete any historic data
gathering exercise.
Ongoing work for analysis
Fraud
Services
manager
Systems
Dec 06
Administrator
Impact assessment for HBMS
checks and interventions
Housing and
Council tax benefit
The council will
ensure that the
administration of
Housing benefit
supports race
equality aims
Identify monitoring data to be
collected
Redesign application form to include
CRE categories for monitoring.
Amend Civica system to record data
Implement a system to record data
pending the implementation of
windows
Revenues
and Benefits
and Service
Manager
Activity complete see ethnic
monitoring
Nov 06
Activity complete
Systems
Nov 06
Administrator
Nov 06
Systems
Administrator
Train staff on procedure for
collecting and recording data
Carry out an initial equality impact
assessment for
 Overpayments Policy
 Corporate Debt collection and
Recovery Policy
 BVPI Benefits survey
 Implementation of the
interventions software
Nov 06
Dec 06
Benefits
Manager
Dec 06
Dec 06
Revenues
and Benefits
and Service
Manager
March 07
Spring 07
Civica contacted this is not
possible in the current character
version. Functionality will be
available in the windows release.
NNDC 07/08
Spreadsheets set up for HB/CTB
new claims. MPs letters/complaints

Implementation of BACS
Visiting function
BHATS
Interventions Officers
Dec 06
Dec 06
Ethnic Monitoring
Categories
The categories used
will be the ones
recommended by
the CRE
Assess the
complaints handling
process for adverse
impact on race and
other equalities
issues
Complaints, MPs letters
Customer
Service
Team
Leader
Assess accessibility
of BHATS service
and impact on race
issues
BHATS Visits
Benefits
Manager
Assess accessibility
to the service for
ethnic groups
New Claims
Ongoing
Ongoing
ongoing
Benefits
Manager
Appeals
ongoing
Start Dec 06
Personal Callers to the counter
Benefits
Manager
Quarterly Review of statistics
Identify Comino maps to be
amended to capture monitoring
information
March
2007
Customer
Service
Team
Leader
Amend maps
Ethnic Monitoring
Corporate
information
Assess information
collected from other
sources to inform
the service on %
and types of ethnic
groups
Establish what other sources of
data available on ethnic groups
Human Resources
The council will
record all current
Establish a procedure for collecting
current employees ethnicity
Investigate if support networks exist
ongoing
Nov 06
March 07
Revenues
and Benefits
and Service
Manager
Human
Resources
Manager
Dec 06
Timetable to be agreed when
maps agreed and work vol defined
In the interim spreadsheets will be
used to capture the information.
To discuss with K Sullivan on her
return.
employees ethnicity
The council will
record all new job
applicants ethnicity
data
Establish a procedure for collecting
new job applicants ethnic origin data