§ 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 Milton Keynes 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.
In 2002–03, Milton Keynes council administered some £48.3 million in housing benefits, about 18.5 per cent. of its gross revenue expenditure. BFI inspected Milton Keynes 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 benefits service had been given low priority within the council in the past and performance overall had been poor. However, several significant changes had taken place over the past two years, including a complete service restructure and the replacement of its benefits IT system.
The December 2002 comprehensive performance assessment classified the council as poor. Since then progress had been made across many areas of the performance standards. The claims backlog had reduced considerably since 2002 but it was still having an impact on claims processing times. Times taken to process new benefit claims and changes of circumstances were reducing but still did not meet the performance standards. Processing times for new claims had reduced to an average 49 days from 68 days compared with the performance standard of 36 days. The council processed changes of circumstances in 13 days, compared to the standard of nine days.
The council's counter-fraud performance was strong, with successful sanctions against benefit fraudsters and excellent relations with the Department's counter fraud investigation service. However, the council needs to develop procedural guidance for investigators and do more management checks.
The council did not have an overpayment policy or debt recovery strategy. However, actions plans, developed with the support of BFI's performance improvement action team, had been in place since March 2003 and these were having a positive impact on the recovery of overpaid benefits.
18WSThe council further demonstrated its commitment to improvement by entering into a public private partnership agreement, in January 2004, to deliver a number of its services, including benefits.
The major challenge for the council now is to continue to improve its benefits processing performance. This will be helped by a more systematic approach to planning, backed up by improvements to its management information and reporting systems.
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.