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LA efficiency – Improving value for money in delivery of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit

DWP support for LAs

This section of the website aims to help local authorities (LAs) reduce the cost of delivering Housing Benefit (HB) and Council Tax Benefit (CTB) services – and let them know what the DWP is doing to support them in that role.

We wrote to all Chief Executives in June 2007 about likely changes to the HB/CTB administration grant we pay to LAs. Our Circular S4/2007 also detailed individual allocations set on a reduced baseline for the administration grant by 5 per cent (in real terms) per year for the whole of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) 2007 period. This was in line with the Department’s own spending review settlement.

By now you will have received Circular S4/2008 which details individual allocations for 2009/10.

DWP’s work programme to deliver both strategic changes and direct support to LAs, aims to facilitate improvements in HB/CTB administration and help LAs decide what action to take to reduce costs and deliver their HB/CTB services efficiently and effectively.

Our developing work programme covers two main areas of work, as outlined below.

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Strategic changes – The HB Information Flows Programme

The overall objective of this project is to: collectively realise the vision of secure, robust and cost-effective infrastructure and processes for the collection, verification and timely transfer of accurate HB/CTB-related data between LAs, DWP and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

This comprises a variety of projects to improve the flow of HB/CTB-related information between DWP, HMRC and LAs to improve customer service and reduce workloads in LAs, including:

You can find out more in the HB Information Flows Programme section of this website.

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Programme to help LAs reduce the cost of HB/CTB administration

Over the coming months, this section of the website will be updated to include further information as the programme of work develops.

This programme of work offers support to LAs on the efficiency of their HB/CTB services and focuses on those areas where we believe we can add most value. The programme includes:

If you're from an LA and have implemented any local initiatives that have delivered improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of your Benefits service over the last 3 years we would like to hear from you with a view to sharing your successes and lessons learned with other local authorities through this website. We would also welcome future input from LAs looking to implement initiatives over the CSR07 period.

For further details please contact Darren Baker.
Telephone: 0207449 5375
Email: Darren.baker1@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

There is already advice available to LAs relevant to the efficiency and effectiveness of their HB/CTB services, through the revised Performance and Good Practice Guide. This is regularly updated with additional material to further support efficient working using the latest evidence. We use HB Direct to let you know when we have placed any additional guidance on the website.

The Performance Standards Fund

We no longer have a fund available for LAs to make a bid for specific service improvements. However, we did fund several national products, as well as individual LA projects, through the Performance Standards Fund. The fund invested £184m over a four year period from April 2003 to March 2007.

The National Products which have been rolled out to a number of participating local authorities include the development of electronic claim forms, automated forms processing, performance management software, training material and facilitating the tracing of persons who have live HB/CTB claims with other local authorities.

Here is a list of all National Products funded by DWP and which includes the contact details for each lead authority.

If you are unable to access any of the lead authorities using the links contained in the list, please contact the Performance Framework Team at:
Performance-Framework@dwp.gsi.gov.uk.

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Value for money checklist

By value for money we mean achieving the same outputs for less resource or additional outputs for the same resource. In many ways an efficient service equates to an effective one - streamlining processes and reducing waste.

The checklist is not exhaustive or prescriptive by any means, you may already be applying some of these things successfully, in which case we’d be really interested to learn from your experience and share it with others. You may have considered them and rejected them; as they may not be appropriate to you. We fully recognise that there is no one size fits all solution for all benefits services. We have prepared the list so you can go through it and consider if any of the initiatives may be useful in helping improve the value for money of your HB/CTB services.

The list includes links to case studies and hints & tips with details of where efficiencies have already been achieved in some instances and we will add to the list over the coming months. A greater level of detail can be found in the revised Performance and Good Practice Guide which contains further information on many of these areas.

If, after considering the checklist, you want to know more about how DWP can help, please contact the Performance Development Team (PDT) who can provide support in the areas listed below, or put you in touch with others who can help.

Accommodation
Can accommodation costs be reduced through the release of property? Home working, mobile working, hot desking, and sharing facilities with other services can reduce your requirements for accommodation.
Appeals
You can help minimise the volume of appeals received and eliminate reworking through ensuring that customers fully understand their benefit entitlement. This can be achieved through having clearly worded, plain English decision notices and specific appeals/reconsideration forms which encourage customers to provide full reasons for any dispute. Leaflets which make it clear the difference between an appeal and a request for reconsideration could also help reduce the volume of unnecessary appeals received.
Benchmarking
You may wish to consider benchmarking with other comparable LAs and include costs per claim information and compare the level of resources dedicated to HB/CTB in order to share good practices on efficiency. You could also make maximum use of available information such as the DWP’s HoBOD when selecting LAs to compare against.
Business process re-engineering (includes LEAN and systems thinking)
Focussing on adding value to the customer and addressing essential front and back office functions might highlight areas of your processes where savings could be made. There are also a range of tools available to help you do this including the Business Improvement Package (BIP) published by the Regional Centres of Excellence and the CLG in spring 2007. It is a store of knowledge for change management, providing practical tools for process improvements and collaboration on services. The Package is available on the BIP website. Or, for PDT hints and tips on BPR you can view the PowerPoint presentation below:

Customer service
Providing a variety of channels for customer contact such as home visits (including mobile assessment), on-line and telephone claims and extended opening hours can help ensure that claims are dealt with effectively the first time, reducing work and driving down costs. You can use customer feedback to identify opportunities to improve the service further and promote the most effective channels your customers can contact the service through. We published an article on telephone claims in HB Direct in June 2008.
Efficient Processing
Consider ways that you can maximise the opportunities to obtain all information needed to process claims the first time, such as well designed claim forms and educating customers on the benefits of producing all their information at the first point of contact. This can minimise re-working and double handling.
E-enabling
Consider using innovative IT solutions which can help reduce the time taken to gather information and remove reworking, such as: on line calculators/claim forms and character recognition software for reading data off claim forms.
Home working
Having flexible working arrangements such as home working can help reduce turnover, absenteeism and training and accommodation costs and can increase productivity and customer service. Here’s a recent PDT report on home working:

IT systems
You can evaluate the systems you have in place and consider whether they support your current and future needs for improved efficiency. Working in partnership with your software suppliers can improve the value for money received, systems performance and facilitate change. Joint procurement of systems with neighbouring LAs can provide economies of scale and if using the same system; can provide for flexible joint working arrangements.
Learn from others
Through peer support and the sharing of good practice. You can utilise tools available through improvement agencies such as the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships, IDeA, CIPFA, IRRV, see here to go to our Useful links page.
Maximising the effectiveness of your workforce
A workforce that is empowered to develop and implement solutions can lead to performance improvements and the efficient running of the service. This can be achieved through:

  • Providing staff with meaningful objectives that support the LA’s objectives.
  • An effective communication infrastructure to keep staff updated on all changes within the department and LA (staff bulletins for example).
  • Holding workshops to facilitate staff ideas. This can break down barriers between staff, teams and management and drive through change from the bottom up.
Overpayments
You can minimise overpayments through prioritising documents such as end of entitlements and changes of address notifications. Reviewing your overpayments policy can improve your recovery rates, reduce write offs and help maximise subsidy income. You may consider using DWP’s Debt Management Service.
Partnership/Joint Working
Joint working with other LAs can achieve economies of scale. Joint procurement of services such as training, recruitment and IT systems can generate efficiencies. Consider working in partnership with other LAs, Jobcentre Plus and The Pension Service on fraud and other benefit-related initiatives.
Payment of HB
Paying by direct payment can reduce the costs of printing and the posting of cheques.
Performance and Workflow Management
Simplifying the use of your document management system can reduce the number of documents requiring work by assessors. Ways of doing this include reducing and reviewing the number of document types for scanning. Here’s a PDT case study:

Plan effectively to introduce new policies
For example: Local Housing Allowance, Government Connect, HB Information Flows Programme, unitary status.
Planning
Can HB/CTB services feature in your LA’s business plans where possible? This can be underpinned with a HB/CTB service specific business plan that includes; objectives for efficiency savings and value for money/performance improvements and has regard for changes to the HB/CTB scheme (e.g. Local Housing Allowance). Make your staff aware of these plans, including how their roles and responsibilities can contribute to achieving the aims and objectives of the plan and those of the LA as a whole.
Shared services
Economies of scale can be achieved from working with others. For PDT hints and tips on shared services view the PowerPoint presentation below:

Take-up work
If you are planning take-up work, consider what wider resources could be drawn on to do this and how this might be combined with other LA promotional work to reduce costs. Consider working with your stakeholders and voluntary organisations, take-up can be linked with other strategies such as health, social services and free fares.
Visits
Visiting officers should have a good level of HB/CTB knowledge in order to minimise the number of follow-up requests for information required.

Performance Development Team – improving performance, increasing efficiency

The PDT comprises 15 performance specialists and works with individual and groups of LAs to help them become more efficient and improve performance.

PDT help is free, but LAs have to invest the time and resources needed to achieve improvements. LAs are responsible for delivering improvement plans. In return for our investment, the PDT simply asks that authorities keep DWP informed of progress so that it can be sure improvements in the delivery of public services are realised.

The PDT is available to assist LAs in areas such as:

For further information or to request help, contact Cheryl Weaver
Telephone: 020 7449 5414 or 07771 844 175
Email: cheryl.weaver@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

Alternatively, you can write to:
Cheryl Weaver
Performance Development Team
Department for Work and Pensions
1st Floor, Caxton House
6-12 Tothill Street
London SW1H 9NA

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Links to other organisations

We are looking to ensure that what we do reflects the wider local government efficiency agenda across England, Scotland and Wales - and the more generic guidance and advice that supports this. There are a number of different organisations that:

A full list of links to these organisations’ websites and many others can be found on our Useful links page.

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