Issue - meetings

The report outlined the performance of the Benefits Service provided by Liberata between 1 December 2021 to 31 March 2022.

The Revenues and Benefits Manager introduced the report alongside Darren Keen and Melissa Vickers representing Liberata.  With regard to a requirement within the Exchequer Services specification for the contractor to ensure that financial errors were found in fewer than 4% of the cases checked by the Authority’s monitoring team, the Chairman noted that performance had been considerably higher and proposed a soft target of 3% be introduced which was supported by the Committee.  A Member queried why the performance standard for processing both new Housing Benefit claims and changes to existing Housing Benefit claims was set at 100 days and was advised that this was for historic reasons and primarily related to delays in claimants providing necessary information.  In light of the progress made by Liberata in this area, the Revenues and Benefits Manager agreed that in future, reporting would be undertaken on the basis of cases processed in excess of 80 days.

In response to a question from a Member about Universal Credit, the Revenues and Benefits Manager confirmed that the reduction of households in Bromley claiming Universal Credit during the period under consideration was due to increasing levels of employment.  The Member expressed concern that plans to introduce a new housing element of Pension Credit to replace pensioner Housing Benefit from 2025 could create delays in payment.  The Revenues and Benefits Manager advised that the planned migration was being led by the Department for Work and Pensions and that it was likely that the new arrangements would initially be brought in for new claimants with existing claimants migrated as their circumstances changed.  The Member raised a further query on the arrangements for payment of Housing Benefit for claimants moving between Housing Associations and the Revenues and Benefits Manager explained that such cases were unlikely to show in the statistics but could be investigated on an individual basis as they arose.

RESOLVED: That:

·  The information contained within Report FSD22038 and the letter provided by Liberata detailed in Appendix 1 be noted; and,

·  A soft target of 80 days be introduced for processing new Housing Benefit claims and changes to existing Housing Benefit claims.