Agenda for Overview & Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, 21st March, 2017, 7.30 pm

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Conference Room, Civic Centre, Silver Street, Enfield, EN1 3XA. View directions

Contact: Elaine Huckell 

Items
No. Item

413.

WELCOME & APOLOGIES

Minutes:

The Chair welcomed attendees to the meeting.  Apologies for absence were received from Tony Murphy and Alicia Meniru.

 

The Chair explained that this meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee had been arranged to look at the issues that had been raised regarding the Processing Times for Benefit Change in Circumstances, previously discussed as part of the Quarter 2 Performance Report, presented to O&SC at its meeting on 17 January 2017. This meeting would give Members the opportunity to discuss this matter in more detail and seek clarification on any concerns from the Officers in attendance.

414.

DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

Members of the Council are invited to identify any disclosable pecuniary, other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests relevant to items on the agenda.

 

Minutes:

No declarations of interest were put forward.

415.

PROCESSING TIMES FOR BENEFIT CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES (TO FOLLOW)

Following the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 17th January, Sally McTernan, Assistant Director, Customer Services, Libraries and Council Assessments and Sally Sanders, Head of Financial Assessment will provide a briefing.

Minutes:

RECEIVED an update from Sally Sanders, Head of Financial Assessment.

 

NOTED:

 

(i)              The performance for processing times for Benefit Change in Circumstances (average number of days) is green and progressing well;

(ii)             The target to process benefit changes in circumstances is set nationally at an average of 7 days. The number of days for 2016/17 as at 22/2/17 is 6.66 days

(iii)            This represents 91,757 changes being processed from 1/4/16 to 22/2/17 of which

·       71,896 (78.35%) took 7 days or less to process, the quickest being 1 day.

·       19,861 (21.65%) took more than 7 days to process, the longest being 135 days.

(iv)           Possible reasons for the delays include:

·       Evidence of change not being provided at the time;

·       Evidence of the change being requested late

·       After evidence is received for the change reported, discrepancies are found that need further investigation.

(v)            Potential improvements to the % age taking longer than 7 days to process include:

·       Change in circs part of benefits is still to go live on Enfield Connected. In future when a change is reported on Enfield Connected the system will automatically ask for the evidence required if applicable, cutting down the time taken in asking for the evidence. Members were advised however that this part of the Enfield Connected system was in the very early stages and testing would commence in mid-April. It would go live only when there was 100% confidence that the product is  working efficiently and correctly;

·       The amount of evidence being asked for is also being reviewed and where information can be sought elsewhere this evidence will no longer be asked for. This is also part of the changes to go live on Enfield Connected;

·       HMRC changes during 2017/18 will provide earnings and information changes online for Housing Benefit claimants, ensuring earnings information is provided and processed quicker.

 

The following questions/issues were then raised:

 

Q.      If 22% of cases are taking more than 7 days, is there an average/medium spread time wise?

A.       This could be anything between 8 days and 135 days. This would have to be looked into further to come up with an average time scale spread.

Action: Sally Sanders

 

Q.      How does the process work from beginning to end?

A.       Customers are provided with the time limits in which to provide the required evidence and information. This is usually a two week period. Further contact is then made to prompt the customer again for the requested evidence. If after this nothing is still received then the case is closed.

 

Q       Information provided by the Citizen Advice Bureau (CAB) states that the biggest cause for concern is online applications. Why is this?

A.       The online system CAB refer to is not unique to Enfield. The method of application is always the greatest concern.

 

Q.      Figures were provided from a Government Website in relation to the number of days for the turn-around of Change of Circumstances cases across the London Boroughs. This showed Enfield as 19th out of 32 London Boroughs.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 415.

416.

OVERVIEW & SCRUTINY WORKSTREAM 2017/18

Members to discuss the range of workstreams for 2017/18

Minutes:

Final workstream meetings for 2016/17 were now taking place.  Committee Members were therefore invited to consider new workstreams for the next Municipal Year, 2017/18.

 

Members were provided with a list of potential workstreams, taken from headline topic/subjects that had been looked at by other Boroughs as part of their Scrutiny process. This list was by no means exhaustive and Members were encouraged to give some further thought to this matter and advised to email Andy Ellis, Governance & Scrutiny Officer with any questions or suggestions for future workstreams.

 

The object was to then finalise and agree the 2017/18 workstreams at the next business meeting on 27 April 2017. 

417.

AGENDA PLANNING AND WORK PROGRAMME pdf icon PDF 399 KB

To note the work programme and confirm the agenda for the next business meeting.

Minutes:

NOTED the following agenda items for the O&SC business meeting on 27 April 2017:

 

·       Adoption Regionalisation

·       HR Issues – How do we recruit and support people with disabilities and mental health issues

·       Care Act/Better Care Fund (including delayed transfers of care)

·       Town Centres & Inward Investments

·       Further discussions on the proposed Workstreams for 2017/18

418.

MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 23 FEBRUARY 2017 pdf icon PDF 118 KB

To agree the Minutes of the meetings held on 23 February 2017.

Minutes:

 AGREED the minutes of the meeting held on 23 February 2017

419.

DATES OF FUTURE MEETINGS

To note the dates of future meetings as follows:

 

Provisional Call-Ins:

Wednesday 12 April 2017

 

Business meetings

Date to be confirmed

Minutes:

NOTED the dates of future meetings:

 

Provisional Call-Ins:

Wednesday 12 April 2017

 

Business meetings of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee will be held on:

Thursday 27 April 2017