Decision details

Cabinet considered a report seeking approval to proposed changes to the verification of evidence to support Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support claims.

On 9 March 2015 Cabinet had approved the implementation of a Risk Based Verification (RBV) process to administer new Housing Benefit (HB) claims and Council Tax Benefit Support (CTS) as the number of new claims to HB and CTS had been steadily rising. RBV provided an opportunity to improve administration and reduce the burden on claimants to provide as much evidence to support their claims. There was also the potential to drive out fraud and error by targeting higher risk claimants to provide more evidence in support of their claims.

A new system to implement the RBV process had subsequently been procured and on 1 April 2015 RBV had been implemented.

In 2015/16 the number of new claims received had peaked to over 11,000 per annum and RBV allowed the Authority to process these claims without the need to request large amounts of evidence from claimants. This had improved administration and the speed of processing claims had improved from an average of 32 days for HB in 2014/15 to 24 days in 2015/16.

From November 2015 the Authority had been part of the national roll out of the Universal Credit Live Service, and in May 2018 Universal Credit Full Service had been implemented. Both changes had had an impact on the number of new claims to HB that the Authority dealt with as working age claimants now claimed housing costs through Universal Credit.  Alongside this, the number of new claims for CTS was also reducing. In 2018/19 the overall number of new claims the Authority dealt with annually had reduced to less than 8,000 and was expected to drop further up to and following full migration of working age claimants to Universal Credit.

The profile of new claims for HB the Authority dealt with was changing and the majority were now from pensionable age claimants, with the remaining working age claims from those in supported or temporary accommodation or claimants entitled to a Severe Disability Premium.

Since the implementation of RBV in 2015 the Authority had also seen significant improvements in the access to data provided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This allowed the Authority to verify the state benefits of claimants and receive direct notification from DWP systems when incomes changed. For CTS claimants receiving Universal Credit, DWP also provided a notification to the Authority of the income they had used in awarding Universal Credit including details of earnings. A further recent development now meant the Authority also had access to earned income and private pension data held on Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) systems.

These improvements in access to data, the reducing number of new claims, and the change in profile of new claims, had led the Service to consider whether there was still a need for RBV and whether the Service could still process claims effectively without risk to the Authority, without using it. The number of new claims processed had been tracked since RBV was implemented in April 2015 as shown in Table 1 – Claims Data in the report. This showed that the number of claims had started to reduce from 2016 but that in 2018 the reduction was considerably higher and additionally the first three months of 2019/20 also continued to show a significant reduction.

The systems that provided the Authority with data direct from DWP and HMRC had also been examined, and it was considered that because of developments in these systems, they now provided sufficient accurate information that was reliable for assessing entitlement to HB and CTS and there was often no need to request evidence from the customer in most cases. 

Fraud and error in claims had also been examined and it was found since 2015/16 the creation of overpayments had reduced over the years but there was no conclusive evidence to suggest it was down to RBV. This was because there had been a number of DWP initiatives over the years that had improved accuracy of data and notifications of changes so there was less scope for error to occur.

Whilst it was considered that there was no real value to continue to use RBV in benefit processing, the Authority still needed a framework in which to ensure that evidence in support of claims was verified to a standardised process to ensure accuracy and accountability.

Prior to moving to an RBV the Service had used a standard approach to verify income, which was similar to that applied to the high-risk group under RBV for HB claims. This involved requesting original evidence. This would be now appropriate to use in HB cases as the reduced number of claims and change in profile of new claims made this now a more manageable option (CTS cases would still follow medium risk under RBV which allowed photocopies as well as originals). The improved access to data on DWP and HMRC systems provided quicker, more accurate information and removed the need to verify income with the customer in the majority of cases; only in a very limited number of cases would there be a need to request the customer to provide supporting evidence. Many Authorities used this approach so North Tyneside would not be out of line with what others were using to verify incomes.

Cabinet considered the following decision options: to adopt a different approach to Risk Based Verification to verify claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support claims as set out in the recommendations at paragraph 1.2 of the report, or, alternatively, to not approve the recommendation and request that the Service consider an alternative approach. 

Resolved that the Authority replaces its current Risk Based Verification approach to verifying incomes of those claiming Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support in line with Option 1 as set out in paragraph 1.2 of the report.

(Reasons for decision: performance will not be affected; the reducing number of claims and the changing profile means there is no longer a need for an RBV approach to verifying income; the access to data from DWP and HMRC has improved the availability of accurate and reliable data to confirm claimants’ incomes so an RBV approach is no longer required; and there may be savings to Engie as there will no longer be a need to pay for RBV software.)