Guidance

HB Direct issue 179

Updated 5 December 2017

Editorial

There has been a lot of media attention over recent weeks on the Department for Work and Pensions and welfare reform which I’m not going to dwell on here but, sufficed to say, we continue to work to impact changes and put in place any relevant communications and products to support you in the continued delivery of Housing Benefit (HB). On which the latest published statisitics for the speed of processing for Q1 17/18 show the national average performance is being maintained for both new claims and change of circumstances. This is testament to your efforts, particularly with so much change going on and more complexity in the caseload than ever. Do note that due to methodological changes the next release of HB entitlement reductions (Caseload Management Information) statistics has been delayed.

Some of the team have been out and about with you over the last few weeks taking part in Right Benefit Initiative workshops. These were well attended and I hope you found them useful. I know we have and we’ll be coming out to you soon with next steps on the outputs. The Wider Use of Real Time Information Project are also considering the findings in the design of the alerts service; more on that below.

Also in this month’s packed issue we have a number of reminders – I don’t want you to feel that we’re are badgering you but these are important and the actions are to ensure you have the best service and interaction with us as possible. On the back of Neil Couling’s letter to you regarding the next stage of Universal Credit rollout expansion, we have good news around further improvements to data sharing for HB stop notices and Local Council Tax Reduction which should help further smooth the transition and actions you need to take. You’ll also spot we have had to change our publishing format for products placed on GOV.UK. Whilst this may not be ideal we hope the impact is minimal and have included some guidance here to help.

Speaking of publications we’ve published the latest minutes from the Practitioners Operation Group this week. This group along with the LA Welfare Steering Group (new GOV.UK page and minutes of those meetings coming soon) are a vital part of the process in making sure changes are shaped appropriately and are effectively delivered to you. In recent months they have been called on extensively to provide input and advice on a number of areas on your behalf which, although not always visible, they do a sterling job and, I for one, am most grateful.

Have a great November.

Clare Elliott
Head of Housing Delivery Division

Send distribution and newsletter enquiries to [email protected].

Reminder: Discretionary Housing Payments mid-year monitoring returns 2017/18 from English and Welsh LAs

As requested in bulletin HB G9/2017, this is a reminder for English and Welsh local authorities (LAs) to report on their Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) expenditure from 1 April 2017 to 30 September 2017. No returns are needed from Scottish LAs.

We would also like to confirm again that the DHP monitoring returns should include payments made to both Housing Benefit (HB) and Universal Credit (housing cost) claimants.

Please complete and return the Excel sheet monitoring form as soon as possible. Returns and any queries regarding the form should be sent to [email protected].

Replacement of the Employee Authentication Service

A letter, providing an update on the replacement of the Employee Authentication Service (EAS) was sent to all LA Chief Finance Officers and copied to Revenues and Benefits Managers on 25 October 2017. Your LA’s response to that letter will make sure your access to required Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP), HM Revenue & Customs’ (HMRC) and HM Government’s services will continue without any break in service.

We ask that you reply to the letter by 3 Nov 2017 following its instructions. By responding to the letter you will continue to have uninterrupted and secure access to your required services, which are:

• Customer Information System (CIS)
• Verify Earnings and Pensions service
• Tell Us Once

If your LA has not received the letter, or you wish to learn more about the replacement of EAS project, please contact the DWP Local Government Data Sharing Transformation Team.

Reminder: Automated Transfers to Local Authority Systems Awareness Pack

We would just like to remind you that there is an Automated Transfer to Local Authority Systems (ATLAS) Awareness Pack for LAs available on Glasscubes via the LA Data Share (all LAs) workspace. This contains lots of information on the different types of ATLAS notifications that we share with LAs including good practice and recommendations on the types that can be automated and is a very useful reference guide.

Just click on the files tab and scroll down to ATLAS Awareness Pack. The current version is 7.1.

If you have any queries you can email the Local Authority Data Sharing (LADS) team at [email protected].

Universal Credit Live Manual Payments

From early November 2017, DWP will start sharing 2 new types of Universal Credit (UC) payments named ‘advance payments’ and ‘arrears payments’.

These payments are currently paid to UC claimants clerically, through a separate payment portal and were, therefore, not included in the current data share. These payments will now be included in the UC Live Local Council Tax Reduction (LCTR) files.

Please note that the arrears and advance payments will only be shared where applicable.

UC Live HB Stop Notice

We have been working with UC and your LA IT Suppliers to improve the delivery of the UC Live HB Stop notice notifications. For the first time, you will start to receive the UC Live HB Stop Notices through the Data Hub and you’ll be able to upload these directly into your LA systems.

The email process that is currently in place for the return of the UC413 will not be changed and will remain clerical.

We anticipate the solution to be available by mid November 2017. Your LA IT Suppliers will advise you of the date of implementation.

Further details on the above is included in the UC Live Service – A Guide for Local Authorities.

If you have any queries regarding the Manual Payments and HB Stop Notices you can email [email protected].

UC full service – automation of LCTR notifications

We are pleased to announce that we have been working with your LA IT Suppliers to develop a solution to automate the LCTR notifications for UC full service. This means you will be able to upload them directly into your LA Systems, as you currently do with the UC Live LCTR notifications.

We anticipate the solution to be available to all LAs by the end of December 2017. Your LA IT Suppliers will advise you of the date of implementation.

If you have any queries regarding the above, contact [email protected].

Housing Delivery Division’s products to be published on GOV.UK in HTML format only

As advised by GOV.UK, publishing in HTML format should now be the first consideration as is easier to read on mobile devices, better optimised for searching and more accessible for people who use assistive technology.

In light of this, and going forward, we will be publishing all our products including our communications in HTML format instead of PDF format. We are also intending to convert our products that are already placed on our HB pages on GOV.UK at some point in the future.

Unfortunately we are unable to publish in both formats as this would take too much time to do and delay issue of our publications.

Following our website team’s test publishing of HB Bulletin G9/2017 in HTML only format we did receive a few queries raising concerns related to printing, sharing and system storage. However, they have all been easily resolved.

However, we do appreciate that this new format will initially mean an adjustment as to how you save and share but, ultimately, the benefits of publishing in HTML outweigh those of publishing in PDF considerably.

Here’s some general guidance to address some common issues you might face initially with our HTML format only products:

• Unable to print – You can print HTML from any browser and, in fact, HTML prints more neatly than a PDF version. You will normally find the print option within the ‘cog’ icon at the top right hand corner of your browser.

• Unable to save and share as before – You can share the email that contains the link as opposed to the actual publication. Emails containing the link can be saved to staff’s ‘shared area/drive’ removing any issue with inbox auto-deletion. Alternatively the publication can be printed, scanned and shared.

• Concerns with broken links – Broken links should not happen as GOV.UK redirects. However, we will remove this risk by issuing links to a particular publication’s content list rather than directly to the publication itself.

If you have any questions you can email: [email protected].

LA Practitioner’s Operational Group

The joint DWP and LA Practitioners’ Operational Group (POG) discusses operational issues relating to HB and UC. It meets on a bi-monthly basis and summary minutes of those meetings are published on our HB pages on GOV.UK.

If you have any questions please email [email protected].

Update from the Wider Use of Real Time Information Project

From 6 October 2017 the Wider Use of Real Time Information (WURTI) service was renamed the Verify Earnings and Pensions (VEP) service. Please note that the Project name will remain as the WURTI Project.

The VEP service has now rolled out successfully to all LAs. And we are making the usual post-implementation calls to all sites that have recently gone live confirming they are able to use the VEP service successfully and offering support if required.

An alerts service is being developed, that will use HMRC payment data to trigger an alert to LAs as and when there are certain changes to a customer’s earnings and pensions information during the life of an HB claim.

There will be two alert categories:

• ‘Start’ alerts (date reported for new employment earnings and non-state pensions)
• ‘Fluctuating’ alerts (financial value of fluctuation since previous payment for employment earnings and non-state pensions)

We have been working closely with LA representatives since April 2017 to develop and redefine the rules for alerts. We are also currently testing with 10 volunteer LAs to inform the design.

Starting in February 2018, there will be a controlled rollout of the alerts service during the first half of next year. We hope to minimise issues and their impact and it is proposed that the alerts will eventually start to replace the current referrals (Bulk Data Matching/Optional RTI).

More details regarding the alerts rollout approach and alerts functionality are to be confirmed and will be provided in the coming months.

If you have any questions regarding the content of this article please email [email protected].

Apollo Register

LAs are reminded that LA staff who require access to DWP information should have access to CIS and should be using this facility as the first port of call for DWP information. LA staff recorded on the Apollo Register should only be contacting Pension Centres or Benefit Centres if there is a dispute or if the information they require is not available on CIS.

LAs are reminded to review their staff members who have access to the Apollo Register regularly, informing their Pension Centre Liaison Officer (PCLO) of any changes which require updating.

If you have any queries regarding the Apollo Register, please contact [email protected].

The Performance Development Team’s support with debt recovery

The Housing Delivery Division (HDD) remains very keen to support LAs with debt recovery and HDD’s Performance Development Team (PDT) routinely publicises the consultancy support on offer from the team.

We are always keen to understand how LAs network across sites. We would be particularly interested in any debt recovery networks that exist in the LA community. If you are part of a network we’d appreciate your contacting: [email protected] with details.

More generally, if you would like to discuss the opportunity for PDT to support your teams in debt recovery, or any other area of HB administration, contact [email protected].

One key area of overpayment recovery is the introduction of the Payment Deduction Project (PDP). In advance of its rollout, we issued circular HB A6/2016 to notify LAs about the changes and to provide further advice. We now intend to cover some key aspects of the PDP in November’s HB General Information Bulletin.

Secondment Opportunities: DWP HDD

The department is currently undertaking a huge programme of welfare reform. Working with LAs, who are one of our major stakeholders, continues to feature heavily and for this reason we value the expertise and knowledge that LA HB experts can bring to the team. These secondment opportunities will in turn provide an opportunity to gain an insight and experience of policy development and workings of central government.

HDD has had a programme of bringing HB experts from LAs in to work alongside Data Sharing, Subsidy, Change and Performance teams on secondment. We are now looking to register your interest for further secondment opportunities over the coming months.

HDD is made up of approximately 100 staff. The division is responsible for overseeing the performance of LAs in their delivery of HB (circa £24 billion), allocating HB administration subsidy (circa £260 million) and DHPs (circa £125 million). HDD monitor a range of performance data including how quickly and accurately HB is paid and the prevention and detection of fraud and error. HDD offer support and challenge to those LAs not meeting performance expectations.

It also supports a large program of data sharing activity that is paramount in helping LAs pay the correct amount of HB and is heavily involved in managing change activity supporting the welfare reform agenda.

This is an exciting opportunity to play a leading role in maintaining and improving stakeholder relationships between DWP and LAs and in designing innovative opportunities for closer working during this busy and complex period of welfare reform.

Personal requirements

Candidates should possess the following:

• good understanding of HB procedures and regulations
• good drafting and communication skills
• ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with LAs and other stakeholders
• ability to work with people at different levels in the organisation and to work as part of a team to achieve results
• ability to deliver work at pace and with successful, quantifiable outcomes

Further information

Secondment posts would be offered for 6 months initially but this would be reviewed at the end of the period and could be extended for up to a maximum of 2 years. The posts would be full time and based across the country, although no moves at public expense would be considered. These opportunities will be determined by business need so your CV will be kept on file and you will be contacted once a suitable opportunity arises.

If you are keen to register your interest and are at S01/S02/SO3 and Pay Band level 4 or equivalent, (roughly equates to civil service HEO/SEO/G7 grades) please:

• check with your LA that you could be released; and then
• send your CV by email to [email protected]

If you would like to have a chat about this opportunity you can telephone Phil Sharples on 0113 23 24905.