Agenda item

The Revenues Manager and the Benefits Manager presented this report on the performance of the Revenues and Benefits section for the final quarter of 2011/12.

Council Tax collection rate

The Revenues Manager was pleased to report that the Council had achieved a Council Tax collection rate of 99.3% against a target of 99.1%. This was the same rate as achieved last year.

Business rates collection

The Revenues Manager stated that the Council had achieved a collection rate of 99.5% for Business Rates, exceeding the target of 99.2%. Last year’s collection rate had been 99.6% and the Revenues Manager explained that the Council had to write off money owing when a business ceased trading. He agreed to liaise with the Finance and Staffing Portfolio Holder outside the meeting regarding unscrupulous organisations which had their debt written off by ceasing trade, and then started up a similar business under a different name.

Rent collection

The Revenues Manager was proud to report that the Council had collected 99.0% of rent for 2011/12, which was the highest ever end of year collection rate for this authority.

Sundry debts collection

The Revenues Manager was pleased to report that the percentage of sundry debtor invoices in arrears was 3.1%, compared to an end of year figure of 3.5% last year. He explained that the number of invoices paid in full this year was a misleading 70.6%, as three invoices totalling over £1,600,000 had been issued in March and were not due before the end of the financial year. Had these invoices been issued in April the end of year figure would have been 91.5%.

The Revenues Manager explained that officers had a holistic approach to debt collection, which reduced the need to contact debtors who had more than one type of debt, more than once.

Processing of new claims

The Benefits Manager explained that the Council had achieved an average time to process new claims of 29 days, missing the target that was 20 days. It was noted that there had been a 4% increase in claims and staff absence had contributed to reduced performance for the first four months of the year of over 30 days. Performance had improved since then, but not by enough to meet the annual target. The Finance and Staffing Portfolio stated that the target should remain at 20 days, as he supported the principle of having aspirational targets and he expressed the hope that allowing claimants to register online would improve performance. The Benefits Manager agreed to compile some benchmarking data comparing this Council’s performance with our neighbours on the number of days to process new benefit claims.

Housing benefit overpayments recovery

The Benefits Manager explained that there had been an increase in the amount of overpayment created by about 66% and although the actual amount of recovery had increased from £861,734 to £948,405, this had been more than countered by the increase of overpayments from £589,063 to £981,407. The process had been complicated by the changes decided by the Department of Work and Pensions. The Benefits Manager agreed to e-mail details of the arrears at the start of the current year to the Finance and Staffing Portfolio Holder.

Fraud

It was noted that the Council’s fraud team continued to perform well, with the target being met and exceeded.

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP)

The Benefits Manager explained that the Council had applied to the DHP to transfer £9,268 of the outstanding grant for 2011/12 to be available for 2012/13. The DHP had intimated that it would allow outstanding grant funding to be rolled over this year, but that this was unlikely to be repeated.

Councillor Edwards praised the efforts of the Benefits and Revenues staff and asked for his thanks to be communicated to all officers in the department. He NOTED the report.