§ 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 Castle Morpeth Borough Council was published on 29 July 2003 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.
The BFI inspected Castle Morpeth Borough Council against the Performance Standards. The report finds that the council is not at Standard for any of the seven functional areas of the Performance Standards—strategic management, customer services, processing of claims, working with landlords, internal security, counter-fraud, and overpayments.
The council needs to make considerable improvements if it is to achieve standard in any area, and there was little awareness at senior management or member level of the key areas.
Management information was very limited and there was little awareness of the issues affecting performance. There were significant backlogs in claims processing and overpayments, with claims taking on average 82 days to process. There was little deterrence to potential benefit fraudsters.
In July 2002, the council began to replace its existing IT systems. This was done with very little additional resource and has had an adverse impact on the council's housing benefit and council tax benefit performance, which was already poor. The council's ability to recover overpaid benefits has been hampered by a lack of effective management and IT problems.
The council assured BFI that it would act on the report to bring the benefits service up to standard. It had submitted bids for additional resources to the Department for Work and Pensions' Performance Standards Fund and Help Fund. In 2001–02, Castle Morpeth Borough Council administered some £3.8 million in housing benefits, about 29 per cent. of its total gross revenue expenditure.
19WSThe report makes recommendations to help the council address weaknesses and further to 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 BFI's findings and recommendations.