No housing benefits shortcuts for council
Richard Cutcher • Published 17 Feb 2012 12:00
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A ROYAL Borough councillor has moved to allay fears that shortcuts could be made to hit housing benefit targets.
In the council's latest performance review, the time taken to process housing and council tax benefit claims was highlighted as failing to hit the target in 17 out of 19 months.
The desired time to complete a new claim is 11 days, but from September to December the average time varied from 13 up to 17 days.
The officer's report recognises that delays in processing are often the result of time needed for customers to provide further evidence in support of a claim, but it also states: "New measures are in place which have reduced the level of verification of documentation required which will reduce new claim processing times."
But councillor Richard Kellaway, lead member for finance, said: "What we are trying to do is speed it up as quickly as we can by using telephone and email.
"In the past, if you just communicated by post then you had 30 days to respond.
"The key thing we are trying to achieve now is processing a new claim within 24 hours. When they walk into the building can we process their claim there and then?
"You might think this is an affluent borough, and it is, but the number of people claiming housing benefit is huge. One in 12 people in the Royal Borough is claiming housing benefits."
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