What we did
In 2008 the Audit Commission took over responsibility for inspecting councils’ housing and council tax benefit services from the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate. We carried out 61 benefit service inspections between 2008 and 2011.
Our inspections were risk based and aimed at services where there were areas of low or falling performance. In addition to being an area of significant spend for councils, these services were also responsible for providing support to some of the most vulnerable people in local communities.
By providing an efficient and effective service, councils could contribute to many other national priorities such as reducing child poverty and improving independence for older people.
The move from the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate to the Audit Commission led to an 80 per cent cost reduction and an annual saving of £6 million.
How we did it
We followed our corporate approach to inspection set out in our Compendium of inspection policy and practice.
Following the introduction of Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) in April 2009, we consulted on a revised inspection framework in January 2010.
Our benefit service methodology sets out our approach.
Inspection results
A list of published benefit service inspection reports is available.
What we learnt
We published 'Testing times: how the recession is affecting benefit services' in December 2009.