§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond)On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the benefit fraud inspectorate (BFI) inspection report on Portsmouth city council was published today and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.
34WSFollowing the housing Green Paper "Quality and Choice: A Decent Home for All", published in April 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions developed a performance framework for housing benefits. The performance standards for housing benefits' allow local authorities to make a comprehensive self-assessment of whether they deliver benefit effectively and securely. They are the standards that the Department for Work and Pensions expects local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.
The BFI inspected Portsmouth city council against the performance standards for housing benefits. The report finds that the council is not at standard for any of the seven functional areas of the standards.
There were some significant strengths in strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, internal security and working with landlords. However, in the areas of counter-fraud and overpayments, the council has much to do to improve its performance.
Although not at standard for customer services, the council delivers a comprehensive range of customer services throughout eight area housing offices, and the work in encouraging take-up of benefits through the access point initiative was particularly commendable. The council also produced comprehensive and well-documented procedures for selecting suitable landlords. New benefit claims were taking an average of 38 days to clear compared with the national target of 36 days.
Portsmouth city council needed to improve its counter-fraud work by revising its prosecution policy, developing procedures for counter-fraud officers and improving its management of investigations.
The council could not accurately report performance for benefit overpayments, and the areas of decisions, calculations and recovery of overpayments needed to be critically addressed.
In 2002–03, Portsmouth City Council administered some £61 million in housing benefits, about 14.6 per cent. of its total gross revenue expenditure.
The report makes recommendations to help the council address weaknesses and to further improve the administration of housing benefit and council tax benefit, as well as counter-fraud activities.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is now considering the report and will be asking the council for its proposals in response to the BFI's findings and recommendations.