§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Malcolm Wicks):We are publishing today the quarterly performance statistics for local authority administration of housing benefit and council tax benefit (HB and CTB). These statistics are for the first two quarters performance of 2002–03; in the future they will be updated every three months. A copy of the quarterly statistics for all local authorities in Great Britain has been placed in the Library and has been published on the Department for Work and Pensions website at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/other_stats.html.
This will make councils more accountable to the public as we publish, for the first time, figures for how quickly they process housing benefit and council tax benefit.
Publishing these statistics is part of our strategy for reforming housing benefit. It is right and proper that the public see how well or how badly their council is doing. Housing benefit is a vital weapon in our attack on poverty and our Welfare to Work programme. Good housing benefit performance can have a significant impact in tackling poverty and providing opportunity, whereas poor performance restricts opportunity and leaves people facing financial problems. We are using these statistics to challenge poor performance.
It is unacceptable that the worst performing councils take up to five times longer to process claims than the best performers. Council leaders and chief executives need to take responsibility where there are serious performance failures and act to improve delivery. We are working with councils to improve efficiency.
These figures, based on a selection of performance indicators, show that nationally the time taken to process new claims has improved by around 4 days to an average of 8 weeks. But they also highlight widespread variations across individual councils.
For example, in the second quarter of 2002–03:
Over 100 councils were processing new claims for housing benefit within 34 calendar days on average, while the worst performing councils were taking up to 162 days.Changes of circumstances were being handled in around 3 days in some councils, but in excess of 100 days in others.The target of 14-days for issuing decisions on claims in which all the necessary information has been supplied, was being met in 100 per cent of cases in some councils but in only 20 per cent of cases in others.The statistics cover the following areas of performance:
- average time for processing new claims
- average time for processing changes of circumstances
42WS - percentage of renewal claims processed on time
- percentage of cases calculated correctly
- percentage of new claims decided within 14 days of receipt of the local authority receiving all necessary information
- percentage of new Rent Allowance claims where the first payment is made on time.
The statistics are unaudited and are provided quarterly by local authorities to the Department.
The latest annual audited Best Value performance information for English local authorities is for 2001–02 and was published by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister on 12 December 2002 on the Best Value Performance Indicators website at http:// www.bvpi.gov.uk/home.asp. A copy is available in the Library.
The most recent corresponding data for local authorities in Wales are for 2000–01. This is published on the Audit Commission website at http://www.auditcommission.gov.uk/pis/pi_data 01shtml. A copy of the relevant extract from this site is available in the Library. The Local Government Data Unit for Wales intends to publish audited performance information for 2001–02 by the end of this financial year.
The most recent corresponding data for local authorities in Scotland are for 2001–02 and are in the Accounts Commission publication "Performance Indicators 2001/2002: Benefits, Finance and Corporate Issues", a copy of which is available in the Library.