Housing benefit (HB) is a service that many councils struggle to deliver well. Poor performance can have a drastic impact on claimants' lives, leading to increasing hardship, stress and the threat of eviction.
Too few authorities meet the best standards; although some can process new claims within 20 days, others take 100 days or more on average. Much of the 9 per cent increase in complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman in 2000/01 was the result of complaints about HB administration.
This report follows the Audit Commission's paper Housing benefit administration: Learning from inspection, published in October 2001.
Included in this report:
- Liaison and partnership arrangements: recognising that fundamental change to the HB system would take time, this report first describes how the current system can work better if there is better joint working with statutory agencies, the voluntary sector and landlords, and better partnership with the private sector and with other councils.
- Simplifying the regulations, especially those that define who is entitled to benefit and how their benefit will be assessed; these regulations have become increasingly complicated over time, and have caused problems and confusion for both claimants and councils.
- Improving the funding regime through which central government departments subsidise some of the costs that councils incur in administering the scheme and paying claimants, including the penalties and incentives that it includes.