Agenda item

The Head of the Revenues and Benefits Shared Services submitted a report to update the Committee regarding the Shared Service in terms of performance reporting, other challenges and the budget outturn.

Members were advised that Officers had achieved very good average performance figures over the year in respect of processing housing benefit claims and change events. The Head of the Shared Service said that this performance was key to minimising waiting times for customers experiencing financial difficulty and also maximised the subsidy the Authority received from the government.

The Head of the Shared Service said that caseloads had been consistently reducing for a number of years and there had been a reduction in post last year although there had been a 30% increase on last year’s figures already this year.

Members were advised that recovery of overpaid housing benefit was a substantial area of activity with significant amounts of money involved. The Head of the Shared Service referred to some comparison graphs and tables for Stevenage and East Herts. She said that Officers had now got to a point where more debt was being recovered than was being raised.

The Head of the Shared Service commented at length about discretionary housing payments and the increasing pressure from people affected by single room subsidies and from those who were struggling even though in receipt of universal credit. She updated Members in respect of Council Tax Support, which was the local scheme that had replaced Council Tax Benefit in 2013.

Members were also updated as regards to Council Tax in that 1000 new properties had been added each year for the last couple of years and the value of collection had increased. There were some people who were just outside the benefits scheme who were now beginning to struggle with payments of Council Tax each month.

The Head of the Shared Service said that universal credit changed frequently which affected the ability of customers to clear liabilities in respect of Council Tax. She said that last year East Herts Council collected £109.5m and Stevenage Borough Council collected £49m.

Members were reminded of the £56m of business rates that East Herts Council was tasked with collecting, subject to a number of reliefs that business could apply for, some of which were mandatory and others were discretionary. The Head of the Shared Service explained that less fraud work was currently being carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) due to pressures related to the impact of Covid-19.

Councillor Goldspink referred to the technical terms in the report asked a question about how overpayments arose for customers. The Head of the Shared Service explained that this often arose due to changes in circumstances that had not been communicated to Officers by customers. She also explained that if the Council did not act quickly to changes in circumstances, this counted against the Authority in terms of the subsidies it could receive.

Councillor Snowdon commented on the debt burden and the issue of locating the right people to collect any outstanding arrears. The Head of the Shared Service said that the Council did have access to HMRC data and this assisted Officers in contacting customers to discuss issues such as instalment arrangements and in supporting Officers to try and locate people. Members received the report.

RESOLVED – that the report be received.