Agenda item

(Director of Resources) to consider the attached Report.

The Assistant Director, Benefits, Ms J Twinn, introduced her report on Housing Benefit Fraud and Compliance. The meeting noted that from 1 October 2015, the responsibility for the investigation of Housing Benefit fraud was transferred from the Authority to the Single Fraud Investigation Service (SFIS) which was part of the Fraud and Error Service within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Responsibility for Local Council Tax Support fraud remained within the Authority and was investigated by the Corporate Fraud Team.

Four of the existing Benefit Investigators were transferred to the DWP under TUPE like legislation. Three of these were transferred to the Harlow DWP office and the other was transferred to the Basildon DWP office. The former Benefit Investigation Manager was now the Manager of the Council’s Corporate Fraud Team and was the only member of the former Benefit Investigation team who remained with the Authority. The transfer went smoothly.

If a referral was passed to SFIS for investigation, it could be allocated to any SFIS team and would not necessarily be investigated by the SFIS team in Harlow. As they had no documents relating to Housing Benefit, the Council were requested to provide all the documentation that it had. However, this had proved problematic as the Council needs to send the documents electronically but the DWP’s IT system could not accept the file size that the Council needed to send. This has emerged as a problem for all Authorities which the DWP has not yet resolved.  The Council either has to split it up into a lot of smaller emails or hand over the paperwork physically, but the amount of work this was causing was becoming a problem.

Any investigation that had been commenced prior 1 October 2015 was transferred to SFIS and re-allocated to the Officer who had commenced the investigation. 31 cases in total were transferred. Of these 4 have been closed, prosecution proceedings were being taken for 3, a Pension Credit decision was awaited for 3, 2 had been referred to the Compliance team, 3 had been transferred to the SFIS teams at Braintree, Hoxton and Stevenage, and the rest were ongoing investigations.

A Compliance team was created to carry out initial enquiries and clarify/obtain information relating to applications for Housing Benefit/Local Council Tax Support, and Liaison Officer posts were created with part of their duties being the liaison point between the Authority and SFIS.

Traditionally communication with the DWP was difficult because their staff were frequently moved to different roles and/or offices. It was therefore not possible to build any relationship with regard to any particular project or work stream. Communication with the SFIS team in Harlow had been good with regard to the cases that were transferred, but only because three members of the former Benefit Investigation team were currently based there. However, two of those are now transferring out of the Harlow office which means that future communication may not be so effective.

The Council’s working practices have been changed to adapt to the lack of control over Housing Benefit fraud investigation and officers would continue to monitor the situation and make further changes if necessary. However, it was too early to determine exactly how effective the transfer to a single fraud investigation service would be in reducing fraud in the Housing Benefit system in the future.   

The Chairman commented that prevention was better than prosecution for stopping problems getting into the benefits system. Ms Twinn said that they now tended to make a lot more decision up front.

The Chairman noted that the DWP saga had been dragging on for years and we should applaud our prevention strategy.

Councillor Stavrou said that this was the third year of our Compliance Scheme, set up with Essex County Council. It was now working with the DWP who were getting the funding for it. Ms Twinn added that this Council was now doing the work without the staffing or the funding.

RESOLVED:

That the current situation in regard to Housing Benefit Fraud and Compliance was noted by the Select Committee.