Agenda item

To provide the Joint Committee with an update on the recovery of housing benefit overpayments, as agreed on 5 September 2017.

Decision

(1)       That the report be noted.

(2)       That plans to continue with the Housing Benefit Overpayment Action Plan in relation to the areas outlined in this report for 2018/19, including reallocation of resources to undertake this work, be supported.

None.

Appendix 1 to the report showed the outstanding housing benefit overpayments by status for both council and private tenants. It was noted that housing benefit overpayments could occur for a variety of reasons, including the following:

·         customers not promptly notifying of a change of circumstances affecting their entitlement to housing benefit;

·         delays in reassessment of housing benefit once a change had been reported to the Benefits Officer;

·         fraudulently-claimed housing benefit;

·         errors made in assessment of housing benefit by the local authority;

·         errors made by the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty Revenues and Customs in one of the benefit or incomes used in the assessment of housing benefit entitlement.

Due to the nature of the relatively large amounts of housing benefit being paid over an extended period, individual overpayments could be sizeable and for some debts could take many years to recover at standard weekly rate deductions from ongoing housing benefit entitlement and Department for Work and Pensions benefits.

As at the end of October 2017, the value of outstanding overpayments for the City of Lincoln and North Kesteven were £4,135,753 and £1,868,246 respectively. The recovery of overpayments could be at different stages and they were usually broken down into ‘live housing benefit claims’ or ‘sundry debtors’. To provide a context in relation to these figures, as per the mid-year estimate for 2017/18, the total estimated housing benefit to be paid by the City of Lincoln Council and North Kesteven District Council was £31,190,713 and £17,101,374 respectively. Less than 3% of these figures were subject to overpaid housing benefit.

Benefits Officers undertook specific actions with regards to the recovery of overpayment, with an explanation of the subsidy arrangements set out in paragraphs 4.5 and 4.6 of the report. The most effective methods of recovery included:

·         reduce or offset the overpayment from arrears of housing benefit that become available;

·         deduction from ongoing housing benefit;

·         transferring the rent account where the customer is a council tenant.

It was noted that, with the introduction of Universal Credit, there would not be as much opportunity as there currently was to recover overpayments through housing benefit. In terms of priority recoverable debts, the status of housing benefit overpayments was in the process of being confirmed but it was likely that these would be classified between fourteenth and sixteenth in line. It was therefore key for authorities to tackle this legacy debt urgently.

The Chair acknowledged the significant workload associated with housing benefit overpayments and, referring to paragraph 8.1 of the report, asked whether increasing resources by one full time equivalent would be sufficient. It was noted that this represented a realistic proposal, taking into account the need to continue with the processing of other day-to-day benefits work alongside addressing overpayments.

The Joint Committee recognised that the Shared Service’s statistics in relation to housing benefit overpayments represented a national trend and was not a local issue. Details relating to the Shared Service’s Housing Benefit Overpayment Action Plan 2018/19 were set out in paragraph 8.1 of the report with updates scheduled to be submitted to the next meeting of the Joint Committee.