Agenda item - Grant Thornton Certification Work Report 2016/17 (Housing Benefit Subsidy Audit)

Agenda item

Grant Thornton Certification Work Report 2016/17 (Housing Benefit Subsidy Audit)

Minutes:

Neil Preece, from Grant Thornton, presented the Grant Thornton Certification Work Report 2016/17 (Housing Benefit Subsidy Audit) report.  During the presentation of this report the following matters were highlighted for Members’ consideration:

 

·                There was a statutory requirement for the external auditors to produce this report.

·                The external auditors had to complete the audit in respect of Housing Benefit subsidy claims in accordance with guidance issued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

·                The DWP also required the external auditors to undertake additional audit work in respect of any errors that were identified.  The purpose of this was to try to secure consistency of approach across the country.

·                The Council had been working hard to try to reduce the potential for errors to occur. As part of this process training had been provided to staff.

·                In 2016/17 the Council had been approving claims that would not strictly have been permitted if the Council had complied in totality with the guidance issued by the DWP.  This had resulted in the need for Grant Thornton to undertake additional work, resulting in a further audit fee.

 

Following the presentation of the report the Head of Customer Access and Financial Support highlighted a number of points for Members’ consideration in relation to the Housing Benefit subsidy claims:

 

·                The Council had recently received correspondence from the DWP advising that some of the issues raised in the qualification letter had since been discounted.

·                The Officers working on Housing Benefits had a complicated job, and they needed to ensure that they recorded the work quickly but accurately.

·                In accordance with the guidance Officers had to complete specific workbooks.  Unfortunately these had not been completed exactly in line with the auditor’s requirements.

·                Experienced staff had been trained to complete the workbooks, which were complex to fill out.  However, due to heavy workloads the experienced staff had been diverted to work on other matters so that less experienced employees had been completing the workbooks resulting in some errors.

·                Training had been introduced recently in respect of accuracy and this had been welcomed by the team.

·                The Housing Benefits subsidy audit enabled officers to identify areas where changes needed to be made.  As a consequence the Council always introduced an Improvement Plan after the audit had taken place in order to ensure lessons were learned.

 

The Committee discussed the report once this had been presented and a number of matters were raised during this debate:

 

·                The numbers of applicants and the extent to which these numbers had increased during the period.

·                The data logged on the measures dashboard which revealed that the overall claim caseload had remained the same in recent years, though there had been a spike in 2010/11.

·                The impact that the rollout of Universal Credit would have on the data available to the Council moving forward.  Members were advised that as people moved onto Universal Credit the authority would lose sight of this data as cases would be processed by the DWP.

·                The work that the Council would deliver on behalf of the DWP to ensure that customers received personal budgeting support where needed.

·                The additional work that had to be undertaken by the Council following the discovery of errors during the Housing Benefits Subsidy audit.

·                The average value of the errors discovered during the audit.  Members were advised that the average error was valued at £3,000 at Bromsgrove District Council.

·                The impact of errors with the Housing Benefit subsidy on residents’ finances.

·                The need for staff to consistently review entitlements to Housing Benefit subsidy due to changing circumstances.

·                The reduction in the budget for the Housing Benefits subsidy and how this was calculated.

·                The additional audit fee that had been charged for the Housing Benefits subsidy work and the reason this fee had been charged.  Members were advised that the Council’s audit fee was calculated by PSAA and was based on work undertaken by the external auditors 2 years previously.  Any extra work on top of this was subject to an additional fee.

·                The 2 large overpayments recorded of over £200,000.  Members were advised that this would have been based on data entry errors on the system and was not paid to the customers as Officers had noticed that the fee was unrealistic.

·                The error rate of 8 per cent recorded for the Council, which had been recorded as higher than expected, and the level at which the external auditors would expect to identify errors.  The Committee was informed that the external auditors did not anticipate any errors.

·                The performance of other Councils in terms of error rates and how this compared to Bromsgrove District Council.  Members were advised that error rates varied, with some larger authorities recording an average error rate of £50,000.

·                The potential to benchmark the Council’s performance compared to other local authorities.  Members were advised that there was no national database and the DWP did not provide statistics in respect of error rates. 

·                The potential for the external auditors to provide comparative data for other district Councils that it audited.

 

RESOLVED that

 

1)        The contents of the Audit Letter be noted; and

2)        The ongoing plans of the service to continuously improve the quality and accuracy of assessment and data input be noted.

 

Supporting documents: