§ 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) follow-up inspection report on the London Borough of Hackney 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.
The BFI inspected the London Borough of Hackney Council against the performance standards to assess progress since the first BFI inspection report published in March 2001, and a direction update report published in March 2002.
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. However, the council had made real progress since the first inspection but had much work to do, particularly in the area of speed of claims processing.
The BFI was impressed with the professionalism and enthusiasm of staff and the support members showed for the benefits service. The council had fully or partly implemented 67 per cent. of the recommendations made in the first BFI report.
The report finds that the council's average number of days to process housing benefit claims has improved by 34 per cent. since the first inspection but it was still taking on average 136 days to process a claim. Performance for processing renewal claims without a break in payment had improved from 19 per cent. to 55 per cent. but this still falls well below the performance standards target of 83 per cent.
Performance for customer services and working with landlords was commendable and overpayments work had improved significantly since the first inspection. In 2002–03 the council recovered £3 million through its debt recovery work. This represents a major improvement on its previously poor performance in this area.
26WSIn 2001–02, the London Borough of Hackney Council administered some £181.4 million in housing benefits, about 21 per cent. of its total gross revenue expenditure.
The 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 the BFI's findings and recommendations.
In October 2001, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State applied a direction on the benefits service of the London Borough of Hackney Council. The BFI published a direction update report in March 2002 confirming that the direction had been met.