§ 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 London Borough of Barking and Dagenham 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 expect local authorities to aspire to and achieve in time.
In 2002–03, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council administered some £65.4 million in housing benefits, about 16 per cent of its gross revenue expenditure.
BFI inspected London Borough of Barking and Dagenham 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.
The report finds that the council's benefits service, part of the revenues services, was embarking on a major programme of change that included improving its performance management, planning the replacement of its benefits IT system, planning the procurement of an electronic document management system, and reviewing its staffing structure.
There was no structured approach to staff training and development of staff, and there were no documented procedures to support staff and ensure consistency of approach. Managers had limited access to performance reports and did not make routine use of those that were available. The IT systems were inadequate and required high levels of manual intervention, hindering rather than supporting the benefits service.
The report finds that the average time taken to process new benefit claims was 43 days, compared to the performance standard of 36 days and 90 per cent. of new claims were processed within 14 days of receiving all 6WS information. However, there were delays in dealing with changes of circumstances and appeals and there was no management checking of work.
The council's telephone service was poor with 54 per cent. of calls not being answered. Customers were often required to attend the offices on more than one occasion because they had not been asked to provide all the necessary information at the first point of contact. There were weaknesses in the management of documents with staff being unable to locate paperwork, resulting in further unnecessary contact with customers. The council's benefit claim forms and decision letters needed to improve to give clearer guidance and information to customers.
The report also finds that all areas of the council's counter-fraud activity were weak. The council had no management information concerning fraud referrals, and very limited investigation activity had been carried out. New investigation staff had been appointed in 2003 but there were inadequate systems in place to allow them to progress investigations promptly.
The council was unable to provide verifiable performance information relating to overpayments of benefit, and no single officer had overall control of overpayment recovery. Also the council did not use the full range of recovery methods available.
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.