Audit Commission

The benefit service provided by Westminster City Council is a ‘fair' service that has ‘promising' prospects for improvement, according to an independent report released today by the Audit Commission.

On a scale from zero to three stars the Audit Commission inspection team gave the service a 'fair' one star rating. This is because customers receive an accessible and accurate service and changes are dealt with adequately. However, the service processes benefits slowly for those who are making a new claim and the strategy to increase take-up of benefits has not been evaluated to see whether it is working effectively. The City Council has a strong record in delivering improvements in service delivery. The benefits service works within a corporate culture that continually seeks improvement. It has made some significant changes that directly improve customers' experience such as introducing a fast track system and it has worked with the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) to introduce a debt management service that people can access to help them through the recession.

Jackie Barry-Purssell, Audit Commission Senior Manager, said:

"The benefits service in Westminster is vital for the most vulnerable in the City. The Council has done well in making improvements to the service over the past years. The recommendations within this report aim to help the service deliver further improvements. The Council is well placed to deliver on these given its strong track record."

Strengths include:

• Customers are told what level of service they can expect and performance standards are published so customers can see how the service is performing against these.
• There are no backlogs of work and customers get a responsive and accurate service for processing complaints and appeals.
• The service has a good track record of delivering change and improvement.
• The City Council has a strong performance ethos and longer-term plans for the service are being coordinated with the rest of the City Council.

Weaknesses include:

• Claims are not followed up effectively when all the information is not provided.
• Benefit take-up initiatives are not evaluated for their effectiveness.
• The 100 per cent checking process has not been fully evaluated to know how much fraud and error is saved by this method.
• The improvement plan does not have priorities and milestones.

To help the service improve, inspectors made a number of recommendations. These include:

• Improving the amount of time it takes to inform the customer of the outcome of their benefit claim.
• Analysing the effectiveness of the 100 per cent determination check to calculate the amount of error and fraud that has been kept out of the system.
• Targeting take up of benefit work effectively by making use of the demographic information available.
• Proactively seeking out benchmarking partners to identify how it is performing against other services in order to learn and implement new ideas that will benefit local people.

The Service has been outsourced since 1999 and is administered by external contractors.

The Service in Westminster pays out around £260 million per year to 27,772 people.

Notes to editors

1. The Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone.
2. Our work across local government, health, housing, community safety and fire and rescue services means that we have a unique perspective. We promote value for money for taxpayers, auditing the £200 billion spent by 11,000 local public bodies.
3. As a force for improvement, we work in partnership to assess local public services and make practical recommendations for promoting a better quality of life for local people.

For further information please contact: Chloe Morales Oyarce, Regional Communications Manager (London) on 0844 798 2095.