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HOW QUICKLY COUNCILS PROCESS HOUSING BENEFIT
Councils are to be made more accountable to the public as DWP publishes, for the first time, figures for how quickly they process Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. Hammersmith and Fulham Authority takes 69 days to process new claims and they are accurate in 98% of the cases.
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Hammersmith and Fulham performance: Average of days to process new
claims: |
Overall performance
improving but Minister raps councils for taking over 100 days on
Housing Benefit claims. Housing Benefit Minister Malcolm Wicks said: "Publishing these statistics is part of our strategy for reforming Housing Benefit. It is right and proper that the public see how well or how badly their council is doing. Housing Benefit is a vital weapon in our attack on poverty and our Welfare to Work programme. Good Housing Benefit performance can have a significant impact in tackling poverty and providing opportunity, whereas poor performance restricts opportunity and leaves people facing financial problems. We are using these statistics to challenge poor performance." "It is unacceptable that the worst performing councils take up to five times longer to process claims than the best performers. Council Leaders and Chief Executives need to take responsibility where there are serious performance failures and act to improve delivery. We are working with councils to improve efficiency." Statistics for the first two quarters performance of 2002/03 are published today. In the future they will be updated every three months. These figures based on a selection of performance indicators show that nationally the time taken to process new claims has improved by around 4 days to an average of 8 weeks. But they also highlight widespread variations across individual councils. For example, In the second quarter of 2002/3: · Over 100 councils were processing new claims for Housing Benefit within 34 calendar days on average, while the worst performing councils were taking up to 162 days · Changes of circumstances were being handled in around 3 days in some councils, but in excess of 100 days in others · The target of 14-days for issuing decisions on claims in which all the necessary information has been supplied, was being met in 100 per cent of cases in some councils but in only 20per cent of cases in others. Mr Wicks announced the publication of this data during a visit to Pendle Borough Council where he praised the authority's performance in administering new claims in 34 days. Mr Wicks told Pendle Council that they were a good example of how personal support and commitment from the Chief Executive could drive improvements in the Benefits Service. Department for Work and Pensions Web site |