Guidance

HB Direct issue 182: March 2018

Updated 4 September 2018

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Editorial

We have reissued the schedule for next year which sets out the funding available across as many funding lines as possible. This updates the interim schedule we sent out in December 2017 to try to give as much notice as possible of the money available. Quite a few of the numbers needed reworking in light of the changes to Universal Credit (UC) Budget measures but it remains our intention to get information out to support your planning as soon as we can.

Obviously, we are still in a period of financial constraint and there has been an efficiency applied to the Housing Benefit (HB) administrative subsidy. We are very conscious of the challenges the funding position presents and are doing what we can to help reduce costs, improve efficiency, support income generation and provide targeted funding to tackle fraud and error. For example, in this edition you will see that we are working to reduce the number of nugatory Automated Transfer to Local Authority Systems (ATLAS) referrals. We are also aiming to rollout our debt tracing solution which has had excellent results in testing. We will also be providing funding to tackle earnings related fraud and error, building on the Right Benefit Initiative so that you can maximise the use of Verify Earnings and Pensions (VEP) alerts. We hope to issue guidance for this in the week commencing 12 March 2018.

Also in week commencing 12 March, we will be issuing guidance on the Transition to UC Housing Costs and the removal of temporary accommodation from UC along with the associated New Burdens payments. As you know, we have been working flat out since the Budget in November 2017 to make sure we can implement these measures as quickly as possible. Key to getting this right is the consultation and collaboration we have with local authority (LA) partners. This includes the support we have had from LAs in testing the debt tracing solution, the advice we have been given on the Employee Authentication Service Replacement project, the testing of the VEP service and the critical role of the Practitioners’ Operations Group in testing out policies, ideas and draft guidance. Without your help we would not be able to continue to deliver HB as well as we do.

As well as consulting LAs in policy development, we also have a small number of LA secondees working within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The insight and connections they bring is invaluable and they also speak very highly of the experience they get while with us. This month we are again asking if you would be interested in coming to work within DWP.

Our Performance Development Team is also supporting a number of IRRV led regional workshops throughout March; updating delegates on developments in the areas of HB debt recovery, HB fraud referrals and the new VEP alerts. And I’ll be giving an update on the latest developments in HB and UC at the HBINFO conference in London.

Clare Elliott
Head of Housing Delivery Division
Send distribution and newsletter enquiries to:
[email protected]

Cascading of our Housing Delivery Division communication products within your local authority

In May 2017 Housing Delivery Division’s (HDDs) Communications Team carried out an exercise to streamline and refresh our mass mailing database contact lists in order to reduce related costs/resources and ensure our products were better targeted. In line with this we limited the number of local authority (LA) staff to receive our products as follows:

• Ad-hoc letters to Chief Executive Officers (1 name only but sideways coped to Revenues and Benefits Managers)
• Ad-hoc letters to Chief Finance Executive Officers (1 name only but sideways copied to Revenues and Benefits Managers)
• Ad-hoc letters to Revenues and Benefits Managers (1 name only)
• Adjudication, Subsidy and Restricted circulars (Revenues and Benefit Managers and 3 others)
• Urgent and General Information Bulletins and HB Direct newsletters (Revenues and Benefits Managers and 3 others)

At the time we asked that the recipients of our products cascade them internally as appropriate.

Recently, some LA Housing Benefit (HB) administration staff have raised concerns that they are not receiving some pertinent communications in relation to their work, in particular the HB Administration and Subsidy circulars. These circulars are intended to be read by all HB staff involved in the administration of HB.

So, this has led to a number of direct requests for our products and an increase in the number of queries requesting information that has already been communicated to LAs. Therefore, can we remind you that it is the responsibility for the main recipients of our products to cascade our communications as widely as necessary within each LA.

If you have any questions regarding this matter please contact: [email protected]

Nugatory Change of address referrals

For quite some time now LAs have raised issues/concerns around Nugatory Change of Address referrals via the Automated Transfer to LA Systems. These are referrals where there is only a minor change to claimant details for example ‘Street’ to ‘St’ or vice versa. HDD have commissioned and funded LA software suppliers to design, build and release a solution to this on-going issue.

Release dates, expected to be within the next 3-6 months, are supplier dependent and they will be in touch with you in due course. We will also notify you via Glasscubes, to let you know when solution is available and to outline its capabilities.

If you have any questions regarding the content of this article you should email:
[email protected]

Urgent reminder: Request for LA nominated Champions for the HB Debt Service project

We emailed all Revenues and Benefits Managers on 8 February 2018 to ask them to nominate Champions to act as main contact points for the HB Debt Service project in each LA.

Thank you to those authorities who have responded so far; we have received over 300 LA nominations.

We are holding a conference call on 8 March 2018 (13:00-15:00) to discuss preparations for go-live and invites will be issued to all Champions by Tuesday 6 March. Therefore, if you have yet to provide a HB Debt Service Champion then please respond to the original request by 12:00 on Tuesday 6 March at the very latest.

The project will also provide the Champions with all relevant information to help ensure a successful implementation and go-live of the service. We are running a working group and have set up a Glasscubes space, which we’re aiming to expand to include all authorities over the coming weeks. All Champions will be invited to join Glasscubes.

Your Champions will need to link up with your Data Hub users (if different) so that you can start to consider the processes you might want to adopt to ensure you can best utilise the HB Debt Service.

The 6 authorities involved in the initial Private Beta phase have reported excellent results so far. It’s too early to provide a complete synopsis but many debts have already been fully recovered as claimants have made voluntary payments in full, whilst others have entered voluntary payment arrangements. A number of other cases have resulted in a direct earnings attachment being applied.

The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWPs) IT suppliers are on track in their design and development of the Data Hub solution and the service will be available from April 2018.

We will keep updating you through HB Direct, the working group, General Information Bulletins, email and Glasscubes. If you have queries in the meantime, you can write to:
[email protected]

Update: Verify Earnings and Pensions service alerts

We wrote to LAs on 28 February 2018 to advise that, for 2018-19, £25 million has been allocated to support the administration of the Verify Earnings and Pensions (VEP) service alerts; with a similar amount available in 2019-20. This will reduce thereafter in line with Universal Credit (UC) rollout plans and migration.

Rollout of VEP service alerts will commence in Quarter 1 2018-19 with alerts replacing the mandatory and optional Real Time Information (RTI) referrals. This will be a phased implementation approach, with LAs continuing to receive RTI referrals until the alert service is made available within your LA.

It is expected that the funding you receive will enable you to maintain or increase the capacity/resources you currently have for processing Bulk Data Match and/or the optional RTI referrals. This will enable the retention of resources from April 2018 to action either the VEP alerts or the RTI referrals planned for the intervening period. During this time the two sets of referrals previously issued as RTI BDM and Optional RTI will be combined and you should expect to receive only one RTI file each month, named ‘RTI file’, until the VEP alerts are switched on.

Letters will be sent to your LA providing details of the funding allocated to your LA, our plans for rollout and business readiness activities, which we intend to provide through guidance and interactive sessions; similar to those delivered during 2017 to support the rollout of the VEP service.

Please look out for information coming your way. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact [email protected]

The LA Insight Survey is now live

The LA insight survey went live on Monday 26 February 2018 and all Revenues and Benefits Managers should have received a hard copy invitation letter and email link to the survey from our research contractors NatCen. So, if managers have not received their letter or email they should contact:
Catherine Flynn on 0113 251 9047 or at [email protected]

This time, we are asking for your views on:

• Fraud and Error in HB (including questions around Customer Management Information and VEP)
• the effects of reducing the time HB claimants can spend abroad to four weeks
• changes to your LA’s structures and services, in order to deliver Welfare Reform

Revenues and Benefits managers are asked to collate responses from other colleagues or organisations if they don’t have all the information needed to answer the questions themselves. So, if you’re not a Revenues and Benefits manager, you might be asked to answer some of the questions.

If you have any questions about the survey please email Catherine Flynn on the details given above.

Replacing the Employee Authentication Service

HDD’s Local Government Data Sharing Transformation team is providing business leadership to the Employee Authentication Service Replacement project. We are:

• transforming the administration of users accessing government systems by simplifying and enhancing the role; providing greater autonomy to LAs to manage access
• acting as ‘the customer’ for those providing the Customer Information System (CIS), VEP and Tell Us Once (TUO) Change Reporting System (CRS) services
• providing product vision and ownership to the project and its partners

The working group

We’ve been running a working group of around 40 member organisations. The working group has had a chance to see prototypes for the:

• end-user migration journey
• set-up of local administration
• Administration Portal

The working group has provided really useful support and feedback for the design of each of the above stages.

End-user migration

Over a thousand end-users from the working group LAs migrated in the 2 weeks up to 2 March 2018 for CIS and VEP. The Champions’ (our main points of contact) end-user migration experience has been extremely positive with feedback such as:

• “Very helpful, easy to follow, no complaints from users”.
• “It’s all been easy and smooth”
• “absolutely no issues, on-screen instructions very easy to follow”

Next steps

We’re aiming to start migrating TUO end users in week commencing 12 March 2018. We’ll be inviting working group Champions to access the web service that will enable them to set up the administrative system within their LA. After that, in early April, we’re aiming to release the first version of the Administration Portal, which will enable a much greater degree of autonomy and self-governance for LAs accessing government systems. Following a period of evaluation, we will rollout to hundreds of other LAs and central government departments. The project team welcome any questions about anything mentioned in this article. You can contact them by emailing: [email protected]

Transition to UC Housing Payments and the removal of temporary accommodation from UC

On 23 November 2017, following representations from LAs, the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced changes to how temporary accommodation would be administered.

From 11 April 2018, housing costs for new cases will be met via HB. This is a temporary measure designed to ensure that LAs are better able to recoup the costs associated with providing this essential support.

DWP plan to issue the guidance associated with these changes week commencing 12 March 2018 and is working through the various scenarios to ensure the guidance meets LA requirements.

New Burdens are currently being assessed and discussed with the UC Programme. LA consultation on the amount/allocation methodology of New Burdens funding will take place with the Practitioners’ Operational Group (POG) in early March 2018, ready for appropriate financial approval and distribution in April 2018.

The measure will be included in the Spring update to the fiscal forecast. The impact of this change has been modelled and the table below sets this out. The numbers illustrate that, as a result of the policy change, local government is forecast to recoup £25 million more in 2018-19 and £90 million more in 2019-20 than would have been the case if temporary accommodation remained under UC. In later years these numbers also capture small differences in entitlement stemming from differences in how rules are administered in legacy HB and UC but these will be negligible up to 2019-20. We anticipate that this is short-term measure and DWP is working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to develop a strategic solution to temporary accommodation to place funding on a sustainable footing.

Estimated impact on public finances of removing temporary accommodation from UC

Forecast impact	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23
Forecast impact on DWP welfare spending	£0m	£0m	£15m	£30m	£50m
Forecast impact on amounts recouped by LA	£25m	£90m	£125m	£145m	£155m
Total	£25m	£90m	£140m	£175m	£205m

If you have any questions regarding the content of this article you can email: [email protected]

LA Welfare Steering Group and POG

The next meeting of the LA Welfare Steering Group (LAWSG) will take place on 7 March 2018.

Agenda items will include topics on LA funding, 2017 budget update, Universal Support, HB Fraud, Error and Debt strategy and the MHCLG Feasibility Study – Impact of Welfare Reforms on Homelessness.

Summary minutes for the LAWSG January 2018 meeting and for POG’s November 2017 and January 2018 meetings have been published on the www.gov.uk

If you have any questions regarding either of these DWP/LA consultation groups you can email the Secretariat at: [email protected]

Publication of HB Speed of Processing statistics

DWP published HB Speed of Processing (SoP) statistics and associated data for the 2017-18 quarter 2 (Q2) period July to September 2017 on Wednesday 31 January 2018.

Here are some key points:

New Claims

The average time taken to process new HB claims in Q2 was 22 calendar days. This is the same as Q2 of 2016-17.

In Q2 there were 257,000 new HB claims. This represents a decrease of 3,000 (1%) since the last quarter and a decrease of 29,000 (10%) since Q2 of 2016-17.

Note: The roll out of Universal Credit (UC) full service means that new HB claims are no longer accepted in some UC areas. This may have an impact on the SoP figures at an LA level; namely that the number of new claims will fall in these areas and the processing days for new claims may change. We are monitoring the impact of this.

Changes of Circumstances

The average time taken to process changes of circumstances (CoC) to HB claims for Q2 of 2017-18 was 9 calendar days. This this is the same as it was in Q2 of 2016-17.

In Q2 there were 2.80 million CoC to HB claims. This is a decrease of 0.74 million (21%) since the last quarter and a decrease of 188,000 (6%) cases from Q2 of 2016/17.

See full details of HB Speed of Processing statistics

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 comprises 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 two 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.