§ Ms BuckTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what plans he has to require local authorities to spend a greater proportion of their budgets on Housing Benefit exceptional hardship payments; and if he will make a statement; [130241]
(2) what plans he has to prevent local authorities from retaining money unspent from their Housing Benefit exceptional hardship payment budgets; and if he will make a statement; [130242]
(3) what plans he has to introduce an independent element to the review process for local authority Housing Benefit exceptional hardship payments; and if he will make a statement. [130245]
§ Angela EagleUsing provisions in the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill, we propose, from April 2001, to replace the current system of exceptional hardship and exceptional circumstances payments with a new scheme of purely discretionary payments to meet housing costs, which are not part of the Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit schemes.
Under these provisions, local authorities will be provided with a sum of money from central Government towards this expenditure, and we propose that they will be required to return any of the money that is not spent. Since local authorities will not be able to keep anything they do not spend, this should encourage them to use the money for the purpose intended.
Although claimants will not be able to appeal the decisions made by local authorities on these discretionary payments, they will have an internal right of review. Local authorities will be able to revisit decisions and take account of representations made.
Once these provisions are in place, we will be involving the Local Authority Associations in discussions on how we can ensure that the right criteria for payment are set and claimants made aware of their entitlement.
§ Dr. IddonTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 10 March 2000,Official Report, column 843W, on housing benefit, (1) what assessment he has made of the impact of the introduction of the housing benefit verification framework on delays in paying housing benefit; and if he will make a statement; [130068]
(2) what plans he has to monitor the impact of the introduction of the housing benefit verification framework on delays in paying housing benefit; and if he will make a statement. [130069]
§ Angela EagleThe verification framework sets out what local authorities should be doing to safeguard the gateway into benefit.
We recognise that implementing the framework may create some short term administrative delays in those local authorities which have not previously operated an adequate verification or checking system.
The Department has commissioned in-depth research to provide more information on authorities' experiences of setting-up and operating the framework. This will include information on the impact on the time taken to determine claims.
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§ Dr. IddonTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what assessment he has made of the difficulties that claimants may have accessing Housing Benefit offices during their opening hours in order to comply with the requirements of the Housing Benefit Verification Framework; and if he will make a statement. [130065]
§ Angela EagleThe administration of Housing Benefit is the statutory responsibility of local authorities. The provision of adequate access to services is a matter for individual local authorities.
The Verification Framework does not require that clients must attend a benefit office in order to verify their entitlement to benefit. The Framework is flexible enough to allow each authority to provide the services most appropriate to its own area and clientele. These can include dealing with evidence gathering by post or by visiting, as well as by clients calling at an office. It is open to councils to provide alternative venues for clients who wish to produce documents in person. For example, some councils have trained staff in neighbourhood offices and libraries to collect and verify evidence on behalf of their benefit colleagues.
§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to his answer of 4 July 2000,Official Report, column 155W, what estimate he has made of the (a) cost, (b) technical difficulties and (c) improvement in accuracy of increasing the sample size of the area benefit reviews. [130175]
§ Angela EagleThe estimated cost of the current Housing Benefit review programme is £1.5 million for 1999–2000. This represents set up costs of the project and costs associated with staff recruitment. The project is expected to cost £2.1 million per year thereafter at current prices.
Real terms (1999–2000 prices) £ million 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 Child Benefit 7,048 7,095 7,190 7,477 Lone Parent addition within Child Benefit — — — 334 One Parent Benefit 333 347 344 5 Family Credit 1,661 1,949 2,262 2,456 Working Families Tax Credit1 — — — — Children's Tax Credit2 — — — — Estimated Income Support expenditure on children3 2,271 2,353 2,345 2,269 GDP 792,228 810,915 833,333 862,671
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1998–99 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 Child Benefit 7,481 8,216 8,344 8,401 Lone Parent addition within Child Benefit 306 141 108 75 One Parent Benefit — — — — Family Credit 2,491 1,957 — — Working Families Tax Credit1 — 900 4,792 5,152 Children's Tax Credit2 — — — 1,622 Estimated Income Support expenditure on children3 2,215 2,380 2,905 3,120 GDP 882,095 903,761 925,183 944,602 Technical difficulties are being overcome by incorporating Housing Benefit into the Benefits Agency's Area Benefit Review (ABR) programme. The ABRs are a rolling programme of benefit reviews, which provide estimates of losses due to claimant fraud and error. This procedure is well established and will use the technical expertise the agency has acquired over a number of years.
We plan to sample 5,010 additional cases each year to estimate the level of fraud and error in standard Housing Benefit. This gives us a level of accuracy around the central estimate of between ±10 and 20 per cent. of the central estimate. For example if incorrect expenditure was estimated to be 10 per cent. of total expenditure we would expect the actual value to between 8 and 12 per cent. Increasing the sample size produces diminishing improvements in the accuracy of the estimates. For example, doubling the sample size to 10,000 cases would produce an estimated 25 per cent. improvement in the accuracy of the estimates, i.e. the level of accuracy would then be 7.5–15 per cent.