Report of the Head of Revenues and Benefits

This report enables the Committee to note the performance of the Revenues and Benefits sections for 2014/15.

The Committee received a report of the Head of Revenues and Benefits which provided details of the performance of the Revenues and Benefits sections in 2014/15.

The Head of Revenues and Benefits informed Members that the volume of changes in circumstances had almost doubled since 2012/13, as shown in paragraphs 2.6 and 2.7 of the Appendix to the report.  This was in addition to other work imposed on the service, for example data matching.  The current direction of travel was positive.  He added that Three Rivers District Council and Watford Borough Council were the best performing service in Hertfordshire during the first three quarters of 2014/15. 

Richard Lawson commented that when he had first started auditing Watford, the Revenues and Benefits service did not meet deadlines.  A great effort had been put into the service since then.  This work had a positive impact on the Council’s financial resilience. 

Councillor Williams noted that the Head of Revenues and Benefits had commented on the challenges to the service including IT.  He felt it was important that the service had a stable IT platform to carry out its work. 

The Head of Revenues and Benefits advised that between January and March IT had been at its most stable since he had started working for the authorities.  He was currently involved in a significant number of IT projects.  He attended regular meetings with Capita and it had been agreed to de-prioritise some works to ensure that larger jobs would be completed. If the service lost one hour of processing time, that meant he had 64 members of staff unable to work.  He was confident, however, that he had the right team in place.

Councillor Khan asked whether officers were able to provide any details of overpayments, as this information had not been included in the report.

The Director of Finance replied that the information was included in the closure of accounts.  The overall figure had been reduced; the total debt provision had reduced.

The Head of Revenues and Benefits added that some benchmarking had been carried out with the other 10 districts in Hertfordshire in relation to overpayments resulting from datamatching with Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs (HMRC).  The current amount of overpayments generated in Watford, had been a tenth of those authorities who had responded.

The Fraud Manager commented that the Council had no control over claimant errors or fraud.

Councillor Khan said that previously local authority overpayment errors had been provided to Members.  The benchmarking at that time had shown Watford to be one of the worst performing authorities.  He said that this information helped him to identify any trends. 

In response to a question from Councillor Silver, the Director of Finance informed the Committee that most overpayments would be recovered. If fraud had been clearly identified then that money would not be classed as an overpayment and would be forwarded to the Fraud Manager and his team. She explained that overpayments could be recovered by adding an attachment of earnings or benefits.

Following a further question from Councillor Silver, the Head of Revenues and Benefits said that as processing times improved there were fewer overpayments. In addition the value of each overpayment had reduced, which meant it could be recovered quicker. 

Councillor Khan repeated his request for comparisons with other local authorities on overpayments.

RESOLVED –

that the performance of the Revenues and Benefits sections for 2014/15 as shown at Appendix 1 to the report be noted.

ACTION: Head of Revenues and Benefits