Agenda Item
Executive Member for Resources and
Advisory Panel
17th October 2005
Report of the Head of Public Services
BENEFITS SERVICE – PERFORMANCE AGAINST NEW
STANDARDS
Purpose
1. To advise members of the performance of the Benefits Service against the
new Performance Standards introduced by the Department for Work and
Pensions (DWP) in March 2005.
2. To seek Member approval to complete a growth bid for an additional post
to carry out the Management Checking of benefit claims (see paragraph
13 and 14).
Background
3. Members were previously apprised of the introduction of the new
Performance Standards on 16 May 2005. The report described how the
standards outline what needs to be done to administer Housing Benefit
effectively and securely, and address all aspects of administration. They
form an integral part of Benefits Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) inspection and
Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) work.
4. Since the last report to members the Benefits Service has undertaken a
self-assessment exercise against the new Standards. The BFI have
reviewed this self-assessment and will produce a formal report later in the
year. The report prepared by the BFI will be passed to the Audit
Commission and will contribute towards the Council’s 2005 CPA score
published in December 2005. The Benefits CPA score for 2004 was 1
(Poor).
5. The Benefits Service performance is assessed in two ways:
• against 12 quarterly performance measures (see paragraph 6
below); and
• against the 65 enablers (see Annex A for some examples).
In total the Standards have 19 measures but for the CPA 2005 round only
12 of these are used in the assessment. To satisfy the enablers the
service must provide supporting documentary evidence in each case. It is
this evidence that is reviewed by the BFI.
6. The Standards are split into themes and each theme carries a different
weighting. Descriptions of the themes and their weightings are shown in
Annex B.
Performance Measures
7. Part of the CPA 2005 assessment is based on the Council’s scores against
the performance measures for the first quarter of 2005/06. The scores are
shown in the table below. Members may note that some of the measures
replicate the Best Value Performance Indicators that are reported in the
Council Plan.
Ref.
PM1
PM2
PM3
PM4
PM5
PM6
PM10
PM11
PM12
PM17
PM18
PM19
Description
Average days to process new claims
Percentage of new claims o/s > 50 days
Percentage of claims decided within 14 days of
receiving all information
Percentage of new rent allowance claims paid on
time or within 7 days of a decision
Average days to process changes of
circumstances
Percentage of cases for which calculation of
amount of benefit is correct
Percentage of interventions with review action
commenced in the quarter
Percentage of data matches resolved within 2
months
Percentage of visits carried out
Percentage of reconsiderations/revision actioned
and notified within 4 weeks
Percentage of appeals submitted to Appeals
Service in 4 weeks
Percentage of appeals submitted to Appeals
Service in 3 months
OVERALL SCORE
4 = excellent
3 = good
2 = meeting minimum requirements (fair)
1 = not meeting minimum requirements (poor)
Result
45 days
9.4%
71.62%
Score
3
4
2
75.06%
2
32.49
1
96.8%
2
19.4%
4
100%
4
51.62%
35%
4
1
36.36%
1
72.72%
1
3
8. The overall score of three was partly helped by the low levels of work in
progress and new claims prioritisation. Also the Interventions team have
maintained their targets for undertaking claim checks and visits. The
performance on appeals is a matter for concern. Over the summer months
efforts have been made to ensure the appeals workload is considered
fully. We will also undertake to review our processes and procedures to
deal more effectively with reconsiderations, revisions and appeals with the
aim of improving measures PM17 to 19 by the end of the year.
9. The performance on dealing with changes of circumstances shows a
marked drop when compared with last year’s outturn of 19 days. This has
been affected by two factors:
(a) legislation changes on the abolition of benefit periods in 2004
means that some changes previously treated as new claims are
now treated as a change of circumstances, e.g. change of address
within the City of York area; and
(b) system changes in late February 2005 mean that we must now
more accurately record both the date the change was initially
notified to the benefits service and the date that the last piece of
information was received. Increases in this average days figure
were also experienced by other councils using the same software.
The DWP have previously indicated that they may reconsider the national
standard for this PI. In a circular issued in April they stated that “the 9 day
standard will be kept under review until our analysts are satisfied with the
consistency of the data being received from local authorities”. In the
meantime the Benefits service is working with the BFI’s Performance
Development Team (PDT) to review the way that changes of
circumstances documents are handled and processed with the expected
outcome of improvements in the average days figure.
10.Since the first quarter figures were compiled some of the key indicators
have shown an improvement as at the end of August:
• new claims average days (PM1) is 43 days;
• new claims outstanding over 50 days (PM2) is 4.9%;
• new claims decided within 14 days of all information (PM3) is 75%;
and
• changes of circumstances (PM5) is 30 days.
Enablers
11.As part of the self-assessment process the Benefits service provided
evidence to support two-thirds of the enablers. The remaining third were
either not achieved or only partially achieved. The breakdown by theme is
shown below:
Theme
Claims administration
Security
User focus
Resource management
OVERALL SCORE
% Achieved
31.25%
85.71%
85.33%
87.50%
66.56%
Weighting
35%
35%
15%
15%
Score
2
4
4
4
3
Any score within the range 51-75% is considered to be Good (3).
12.The overall self-assessment score is determined by the combination of the
weighted enabler score and performance measure score. This is
summarised as follows:
Theme
Claims
administration
Security
User focus
Resource
management
Overall Score
Performance
Measures
2
Enablers
Overall Score
2
2
4
1
-
4
4
4
4
1
4
3
3
3
On the basis of the self-assessment this indicates a marked improvement
in performance from last year, moving from Poor to Good.
The above is subject to formal confirmation by the BFI.
13.Whilst it is very pleasing that a large number of enablers were supported
by documentary evidence, the Benefits service is aware tha t several
significant enablers were not satisfied and will remain so until such time as
some major issues are addressed. These items are already incorporated
into the BFI Action Plan and the Benefits Service Workplan and include:
•
•
•
Management checking - the requirement to have a risk-based
process for pre-payment sample checking. This provides
management assurance and improves the accuracy of claim
calculation. This will require additional resource to implement.
Management of overpayments - needs further development to
ensure accurate reporting on the level and type of overpayments
and to maximise income to the authority. This has already been
partly addressed and the service is working with the PDT on this.
Training plan - a need for a structured and resourced training
policy and plan. This will aid the proficient use of IT, enhance
legislative knowledge, promote staff development and retention
with the ultimate aim of improving our customer service and
response times. Again this has significant resource implications.
14. Currently the Benefits service carries out some checking of claims, but
does not do a sufficient number to satisfy the DWP minimum standards,
and also does not have an approved risk based process in place. The
DWP minimum standard is to check at least 4% of all benefit calculations
prior to any award of benefit being made. This would mean that we
would need to check a minimum of 30 calculations per week. Each of
these checks is very involved, as it considers the whole end to end
process, including any subsidy implications. In addition to this there is a
need to monitor the results from the exercise and ensure that any
training or system development needs are identified and actioned. It is
estimated that this work would take 1 x full time equi valent post and it is
proposed that the appropriate grade (subject to HR consultation), would
be at scale 5/6, and therefore an estimated cost of £17,922 - £21970,
plus on costs.
It is essential for the continuing improvement of the service, and to
protect, and potentially improve, the CPA score that this post is in place.
The service realises the importance of this work, but with current
resource levels can not move someone to do it without impacting on the
performance of the service and the time taken to pay benefit to our
customers and therefore Members are asked to consider supporting a
growth bid for this post.
CPA 2005
15. The BFI will submit their findings regarding the self-assessment (and other
supporting evidence) to the Audit Commission. The overall authority CPA
score will be published by the Commission in December 2005 together
with the summary from the BFI’s report on the Benefits Service. The full
report will be formally issued to the Council.
Recommendations
16. The Advisory Panel is recommended to advise the Executive Member to:
(a) Note that the Benefits service has undertaken a CPA selfassessment which has demonstrated a Good rating
(b) Note that the self-assessment is subject to verification by the BFI
and the Audit Commission and that a full report and confirmation of the
CPA rating will be issued in December 2005.
(c) Consider and support the need for a growth bid for one additional
post as outlined in paragraph 14.
Author
Andrew Walmsley
Chief Officer responsible for the
report:
James Drury
Business Manager
Tel: 552929
Head of Public Services
Tel: 551161
ANNEX A
EXAMPLES OF ENABLERS
Claims Administration
Ref E1
Does the LA hold information at team or section level about the volume of
work received, work actioned and work outstanding each month, if not more
frequently?
Does the LA monitor trends and patterns in workloads and adjust work
priorities and resources to prevent and/or manage down backlogs?
Security
Ref E21
Does the LA provide a publicised dedicated telephone service (or National
Fraud Hotline), which is staffed during office hours, for the public or
employees to report suspicions with an answerphone service available
outside working hours?
User Focus
Ref E39
Does the LA carry out ta rgeted campaigns on under-claiming sections of the
community ensuring that assistance is given to eligible customers to make a
claim and does it evaluate the results?
Resource Management
Ref E50
Does the LA set targets that are comprehensive in scope, include the
statutory Performance Indicators, are stretching and provide a baseline of
current performance?
ANNEX B
TABLE 1: PERFORMANCE STANDARD THEMES
Themes
Claims administration
Security
User focus
Resource management
Components
claims processing, accuracy, overpayments
security of administration, counter-fraud
activities, sanctions
take-up, customer service, appeals/complaints
strategic management, value for money,
assurance
TABLE 2 : PERFORMANCE STANDARD WEIGHTINGS
Theme
Claims Administration
Security
User Focus
Resource Management
Performance
Measure Weighting
50%
35%
15%
-
Enabler
Weighting
35%
35%
15%
15%
Enablers
TABLE 3 : RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEASURES AND ENABLERS
Performance Measures
1
2
3
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
3
3
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
2
3
4
4