Agenda item

Decision

RESOLVED to recommend:

1. That Full Council approves the annual report giving details of Housing Benefit Overpayment debt recovery in accordance with the Council’s Debt Recovery Policy, Write-Off Policy, and Housing Benefit Overpayment Recovery Policy.

ACTION:

The technical nature of the report was raised and it was suggested that future reports were written in a more accessible format.

The Portfolio Holder for Housing & Benefits, Cllr W Fredericks, presented the report to the committee and said that she wished to highlight how much the Council’s teams supported residents and always took a compassionate approach.

Cllr Cushing commented it was a challenging report to draw anything from and suggested a more readable and better layout for future versions might be helpful. He asked for the following to be included: how much was paid out in Housing Benefit; the amount of and main causes for overpayment; and what was being or might be done to recoup that money.

Cllr Cushing sought clarification regarding the information set out on Pg.118, commenting that the total overpayment to recover stood at £0.918m whereas on Pg.116 it stated the Council was required to pay back the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) 60% of the overpayment. Cllr Cushing questioned whether the risk to NNDC was £0.550m.

The Assistant Director for People Services explained that the £0.918m was total debt accumulated to the Council, over a number of systems, and increased year on year. The overpayment figure changed throughout the year as, even though the Council was recovering debt, more debt was accumulated as overpayments were discovered. As people migrated to Universal Credit (UC) there was a reduction in housing benefit (HB) being paid out but also a reduction in the means for recovery as the Council cannot recover through ongoing HB benefit payments.

Cllr Cushing asked how regularly the Council paid back overpayments to the DWP and whether HB was still a benefit that the Council was responsible for overseeing. The Asst Director for People Services explained this was through an annual subsidy claim, not a repayment and that the Council would continue to pay HB until the full transition to UC was completed.

Cllr Fredericks confirmed HB was a legacy system as people slowly converted over to UC which pays a lump sum with a housing (costs) element Included.

The Assistant Director People Services clarified that UC was not currently migrating over all HB claimants and explained that pensioners were still able to claim although there were ongoing discussions for housing costs to be included in Pension Credit. The Assistant Director explained that those in Temp. Accommodation and Supported Housing would need to claim and be paid HB as this was not currently part of UC benefit. It was highlighted to the Committee that there were challenges for recovery ahead, as systems changes were introduced, and the Benefits teams work level was not reducing. Although the number of claims was going down the high level of HB being paid was due to number of vulnerable customers and the many ‘Change in Circumstances’ for existing HB and UC claimants as these changes could affect CTS.

In response to the Chairs question regarding benchmarking across Councils in Norfolk, the Assistant Director People Services explained that the demographics of claimants was very different in each area, with North Norfolk having many older claimants compared to perhaps Norwich which had more working age and homeless claimants, The team collaborated with neighbouring authorities where possible. She added that the Benefits team had just been nominated for the team of the year in National IRRB awards.

RESOLVED to make the following recommendations to Full Council:

1. That Full Council approves the annual report giving details of Housing Benefit Overpayment debt recovery in accordance with the Council’s Debt Recovery Policy, Write-Off Policy, and Housing Benefit Overpayment Recovery Policy.