§ The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Chris Pond)On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the benefit fraud inspectorate (BFI) third inspection report on Sandwell metropolitan borough council was published today and copies of the report have been placed in the Library.
Following 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.
In 2002–03, Sandwell metropolitan borough council administered some £106.3 million in housing benefits, about 12.5 per cent. of its gross revenue expenditure.
BFI inspected Sandwell metropolitan borough council against the performance standards for housing benefits, and concludes that the council's benefits service had not reached Standard in any of the seven functional areas—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud and overpayments.
This was the third BFI inspection of Sandwell metropolitan borough council, instigated because of a deterioration in the performance of the council's benefits service.
The report finds that the council's benefits service had failed to fully implement 54 per cent. of the recommendations made in the earlier follow-up inspection report, published in March 2001. This led to poor performance in key areas including customer services, processing of claims and overpayments.
Since the follow-up inspection in 2001, the council had embarked on an ambitious programme of change. There had been an improvement in the verification of supporting information before benefit was paid, following implementation of the verification framework. However, BFI has concerns about the council's speed of claims processing and its lack of quality checking. New claims were taking an average 86 days to clear compared with 61 days in 2001 and the performance standard of 36 days. Between January and September 2003, the 26WS council had failed to comply with regulations when it made awards of benefit in a significant number of cases when it did not have a claim for the period in question. And in early 2003 it decided to implement changes of circumstances from a current date instead of the date of change.
Customers experienced real difficulties in accessing the service, either through the council's call centre or in person at the enquiry counters. Limited performance monitoring of this area made it difficult to identify performance issues and target resources effectively.
There was insufficient training on overpayments and a lack of monitoring. The range of management information collected on overpayments was poor.
The report finds good practices in the council's counter-fraud work including a history of high levels of sanction activity against benefit fraudsters, publicising its counter-fraud policy and having accurate staff guidance.
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.