31 January 2005 - Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) Focused Inspection Report: Breckland District Council
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Alan Johnson has today published a focused inspection report by the BFI on the administration of processing of claims by Breckland District Council.
Breckland District Council was selected for inspection as it had demonstrated the capacity to steadily improve its performance for processing new claims.
New claims were being processed within an impressive 25 days at the time of the BFI inspection in September 2004. The inspection sought to identify the good practices behind this dramatic improvement.
In 2003/04, Breckland District Council administered some £21 million in housing benefits, about 48 per cent of its gross revenue expenditure.
In August 2003, Breckland District Council had formed the Anglia Revenues and Benefits Partnership with Forest Heath District Council to deliver a Revenues and Benefits service to customers of both councils.
The partnership incorporated the co-location of Forest Heath and Breckland Benefits staff, a clear corporate vision and objectives which had been translated successfully into paying claims quickly and accurately.
The report identified a number of good practices in the areas of management checking, target setting and monitoring.
BFI found that the quality of claims processing was consistently of a very high standard, particularly in verifying claims.
BFI is an independent unit within the Department for Work and Pensions that reports directly to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the standard of benefit administration and counter-fraud activity.
Chris Pond, Work and Pensions Minister announced the publication of the report in a written ministerial statement.
Notes for editors
- The process for the inspection at Breckland District Council included an initial fact finding stage, an on-site visit, and production and clearance of the report. The on-site visit took place during September and October 2004.
- The Minister for housing benefits, Chris Pond announced in January 2004 that shorter more focused inspections, designed to provide for quick improvements in performance in specific areas of benefits administration, would be undertaken by BFI.
- Each BFI inspection report is considered by the Secretary of State who decides whether any further action is appropriate. The Secretary of State has powers to issue directions to a local authority to secure acceptable or minimum standards in performance.
- In its response to the Housing Green Paper of November 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The HB/CTB Performance Standards, published in April 2002, enable local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. These are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expects local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.
- The Department for Work and Pensions has not set a timescale for when the standards need to be met by local authorities.
- This report only looked at those elements of Strategic Management, Processing of claims and Customer services in the Performance Standards that BFI considered to have a direct impact on the speed of processing new claims for HB and CTB.
- The HB/CTB Performance Standards can be downloaded from: www.dwp.gov.uk/housingbenefit/publications/2003.asp
- Media copies of the BFI inspection report can be obtained from the Department for Work and Pensions Press Office on 020 7238 0866.
- All BFI inspection reports can be found on the BFI website – www.bfi.gov.uk
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