Agenda item

The interim Revenues and Benefits Manager gave a presentation on how the service was progressing, its relevance, financial plans, performance and moving forward.

·          The completed aspects of the 06/07 service plan were detailed. The Benefits Self Assessment was discussed by the panel. The council had achieved a score of 3 (good) for two years, despite the raise in assessment standards. Those areas that had not been achieved were corporate fraud, a written customer service policy for benefits and a separate costing structure.

·          The separation of revenues and benefits was under review but this was difficult given the lack of adequate time monitoring.

·          The panel was concerned that the revenues and benefits services was being marked down in assessment because of a lack of a corporate policy on fraud. The officer explained that the section needed to take ownership of this and work with the human resources section to include suitable training through staff induction. 

·          The national performance management framework was now live and provided an interactive benchmarking tool.

·          Ongoing work included a benefits training programme, customer survey, implementing electronic access and review of impact of completed projects, which would feed into the second gateway review. 

·          Further work was outstanding on electronic access (modernisation). Business process re-engineering had not yet started because planning and waste services were still being completed. The chairman reinforced the point that no service should be moved into the customer service centre until all processes had been established.

·          Upon questioning from the panel, the officer explained protections in place against risk.

·          In terms of the plan’s relevance, the new plan needed to include reference to stakeholders and stronger links to the council’s and national priorities.

·          The Welfare Reform Bill was currently going through parliament and this would require several changes to the service. It had been proposed, and was being piloted elsewhere, that local housing allowance would be paid to customers and not landlords.

·          There had been a shortfall in anticipating some Gershon savings. Savings had been achieved in discretionary rate relief, but this was because of its de-prioritisation, not a Gershon saving.

·          The original service plan stated that joint working with South Holland would be evaluated. The officer explained that a date had still not been agreed.

·          The officer outlined performance which, overall, was good, especially as the service plan had been very ambitious. Future work would involve a complete structure review, investing in risk areas, establishing key links with other services and setting the budget around business objectives.

·          Performance information on processing new claims and change of circumstances was presented and explained.

Conclusion:

The Resources DSP made the following observations on the revenues and benefits service plan:

1)     Information on benchmarking from the national performance management framework to be provided for gateway review 2.

2)     Any impact on benefits claims from the increase in EU immigration to be investigated and reported back.

3)     The implications of the Welfare Reform Bill to be reported in more detail to the DSP at an appropriate time. A briefing paper to be circulated to all members, including an anticipated implementation timescale.

4)     To ask the portfolio holder to explain why there had been no progress with joint working with South Holland, as per section 6.2 of the service plan.

The DSP also concluded to recommend that other DSPs ensure the robustness of Gershon efficiency savings in their scrutiny of service plans.

The DSP decided to include on its work programme: fraud performance measures from Department for Work and Pensions to be scrutinised in January or when published if later.

Revenues and Benefits to continue to liase with the scrutiny section to ensure relevant issues are included on the panel’s work programme.