Agenda item

Purpose of Report

To provide the Joint Committee with an update on the recovery of housing benefit overpayment.

Decision

(1)       That the report be noted.

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

Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

None.

Reason for Decision

As at 2017/18 outturn, the value of outstanding overpayments for the City of Lincoln Council and North Kesteven District Council were £4,219,349 and £1,824,908, respectively. The recovery of overpayments could be at different stages and these were usually broken down into either live Housing Benefit claims or Sundry Debtor.

For live Housing Benefit claims the amount of Housing Benefit awarded was reduced each week by a certain amount, known as an ongoing deduction. This amount was used to reduce the outstanding overpayment until it was cleared. Sundry Debtor overpayments were those where the customer was no longer in receipt of Housing Benefit and the customer was invoiced for the outstanding debt, with the customer then required to set up an arrangement to pay.

In April 2018 the Department for Work and Pensions’ Housing Delivery Division Performance Development Team conducted an end to end review of the Shared Service Housing Benefit overpayment and debt recovery process. The review was structured to include:

·         an analysis of the existing debt provision;

·         specific case sampling;

·         interviews with staff;

·         process observations;

·         prevention of debt;

·         information feedback.

A report detailing the findings and recommendations of the review was attached at Appendix 1 to the report. Some good practices were identified whilst conducting the review, such as:

·         identifying old debtors – reviewing the status of recovery and moving the recovery stage forward;

·         filling the expression of interest for a Housing Benefit overpayment recovery officer;

·         identifying debtors suitable to be referred to the Department for Work and Pensions as part of their debt service pilot.

Of the eleven recommendations put forward, as set out in paragraph 15 of Appendix 1 to the report, nine had been included in the Housing Benefit Overpayment Recovery Action Plan which were:

·         a review of the current timeline for issuing of reminders;

·         a review of the diary dating process;

·         putting a process in place to review the level of benefit claw back;

·         consideration of claimant capital as a recovery method;

·         the introduction of a telephone rota within the recovery team;

·         analysis and understanding of management information;

·         targeted activity for highest and oldest debts;

·         communicating the importance of recovery to all staff so they understood their role;

·         collaboration between staff and the Housing Benefit recovery team to share achievements and discuss areas for improvement.

Those recommendations not included in the Action Plan were purposely omitted as they related to quality checking for which there was a separate ongoing project in place.

It was emphasised that the issue of Housing Benefit overpayments was national and not specific to the City of Lincoln or North Kesteven.