Guidance

LA Welfare Direct Bulletin 8/2019

Updated 4 March 2024

Contact

If you have queries about the:

• technical content of this bulletin then contact details are given at the end of each article
• general content and distribution of this bulletin, contact

housing.correspondenceandpqs@dwp.gov.uk

Who should read

All Housing Benefit staff.

Action

For information.

Editorial

The last time I wrote this editorial I mentioned some developments in our approach to LA engagement which include Universal Credit (UC) since taking that function over from the UC Programme. You’ll see an article below asking for your views on the next set of engagement events we want to hold in the Autumn. Please take the time to provide your input, so we design them to meet your needs.

I also mentioned I would be attending the Welsh IRRV conference in Llandrindod. I firstly wanted to thank the institute and Lisa Hayward and Matthew Evans for inviting me to speak. It was great to meet a number of Welsh local authority benefit teams outside of the office and, thankfully, I was treated gently in my session!

Staying with the ‘out and about’ theme; this week I visited Highland council at their offices in Inverness along with a couple of UC expert colleagues. We talked through a number of UC related issues including their data sharing processes; focussing on Local Council Tax Reductions. We had a helpful exchange of ideas around what may help improve things in this regard and we provided some clarity around why some things are not possible in this space in regards to how and what we collect from the UC claimants. The added bonus was Inverness is a beautiful part of the world and I highly recommend a visit. Many thanks to Sheila, Alasdair and Gill for making us feel welcome.

Whilst it’s great to take teams and get out to meet you in this manner, it’s simply not practical to do that for all LAs; hence the importance of the next set of engagement events I mentioned earlier. They give us all the opportunity to meet face-to-face and clarify issues, exchange ideas and meet local counterparts and further afield colleagues. So having plugged those enough now I hope to see more of you in person over the coming months.

Enjoy your summer breaks.

Darren Baker
Leader, Change and Communications, Fraud, Error and Debt Team
Housing Delivery Division

Changes to the Apollo Register process

1. The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Housing Delivery Division (HDD) carried out a review to establish whether the current Apollo Register process presented risks to customer data security.

2. As a result of the review, from 2 September 2019, the LA Security and Support Team (LASST) will take over responsibility from DWP Pension Centre Liaison Officers for managing, collating and submitting local authorities’ (LAs) changes to the Apollo Register.

3. In order to improve security and compliance surrounding the Apollo Register process, LASST will:

• request quarterly mandated returns allowing LAs to review their complete register of names. Reducing the probability of LAs not removing staff who have no right to obtain information.
• suspend Apollo Register access for each LA who fails to submit a quarterly return (following consultation with the impacted LAs).
• conduct audit/system checks against DWP system records to ensure LAs are regularly reviewing names on the register.
• new staff added to the Apollo Register will be required to sign up to terms and conditions that adhere to legislation and outline their responsibility when gathering claimant information from DWP
• increase the frequency that LAs can update the Apollo Register to every 2 weeks. This will allow LAs to submit a return in real time and, in turn, increase security of the register by removing staff in a more timeous manner

4. If you have any queries around this new process, you can email la-sst.hdd@dwp.gov.uk. However, more details surrounding the process change will be notified through Glasscubes. LAs can email the LASST team with a point of contact for Apollo if they would like the communication via email.

5. We intend carry out a further review in the near future and will keep you updated through the normal communication channels.

Update: National Fraud Initiative Digital Economy Act pilot

6. The National Fraud Initiative’s (NFI) Digital Economy Act (DEA) pilot sought to better target potential existing and emerging fraud by matching, analysing and disclosing data held by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) against a number of NFI datasets, including Housing Benefit (HB). The pilot utilised HMRC data relating to:

• earnings and employment from real time information (RTI), and self-assessment (SA)
• household composition (HHC)
• property ownership (PO)

Phase 1 – initial pilot

7. All pilots under the DEA are subject to review by the DEA Review Board. The DEA covers public bodies in England only.

8. The NFI pilot was approved in November 2018 and involved 10 LAs in England:

• London borough of Southwark council
• Oxford City Council
• Royal Borough of Greenwich Council
• Wolverhampton City Council
• Bristol City Council
• Birmingham City Council
• London borough of Waltham Forrest Council
• Derby City Council
• Manchester City Council
• Westminster City Council

9. During February and March 2019 the NFI released the following match types to the above LAs:

• HB to PO
• HB to HHC

1. Outcomes from the initial pilot indicated the potential for significant outcomes for HB fraud, with over 21% of the HB matches that were reviewed estimated as likely to result in a fraud or error outcome. The pilot included several measures to reduce false positives and feedback from the pilot enabled the NFI to further refine the match rules prior to phase 2 of the pilot. All outcomes were reported to the DEA review board in May 2019. In July 2019 the board approved phase 2 of the pilot, which will involve releasing matches to all LAs in England.

Phase 2 – release of matches for LA action

11. On 14 August 2019, NFI will release both HHC and PO matches to all LAs in England, through the secure NFI web application.

12. Match volumes will vary according to each LA. The NFI has limited the number of HB HHC matches to a maximum of 500 per LA, although many LAs will have far less matches than this. DWP expects LAs to manage these referrals as they see fit based on resources and risk.

13. It is critical that LAs only review matches in line with the purposes approved by the DEA Review Board, which is to specifically identify potential fraud in relation to:

• HB
• housing tenants
• Council Tax Reduction Scheme
• residential care homes
• Right to Buy
• personal budgets
• Council Tax Single Person Discount

If you have any queries about the content of this article you can email marie.cave@dwp.gov.uk.

Correct process for calls to the benefit cap enquiry line

14. It has been brought to our attention that some LA staff are directing claimants to call the DWP benefit cap enquiry line to request that the benefit cap is removed or adjusted when there has been no change in the claimant’s circumstances. The benefit cap team are only responsible for providing the benefit cap calculation for the LA to implement the cap.

The correct process

15. The benefit cap team provide LAs with details of all the benefits that the claimant is claiming and this is all included in the benefit cap calculation. If a claimant calls to query the benefit cap, the LA staff should check that the information that has been provided by the benefit cap team is still correct. If the information is still correct then LAs should not direct any queries to the benefit cap team as no further action can be taken and the benefit cap will still apply.

16. If the claimant states the information is incorrect, or they have had a change in circumstances since the information was provided, LAs should notify the benefit cap team by sending an email to their dedicated inbox. The benefit cap team will advise on any action taken within 72 hours. The claimant can also contact them directly on the benefit cap helpline (0800 169 0145) if they wish to report a change in circumstances themselves.

17. If you have any general questions regarding the content of this article you can email hddchange.managementoffice@dwp.gov.uk

New email address for Payment Deduction Programme revisions (Capita and Civica LAs only)

18. As explained in HB G11/2017, the Payment Deduction Programme revision process for LAs using Capita and Civica IT suppliers was changed due to issues with the revisions sent through the interface. These LAs must send an email to Debt Management to request a genuine revision. If this is not done revisions are not processed.

19. This article is to advise, that with immediate effect, the new email address to request a genuine revision is dwpdm.larevision@dwp.gov.uk.

20. LAs should contact the Debt Management Operations Command on 0800 916 0647 for any other general case management queries.

LA engagement events

21. HDD is now responsible for the delivery of engagement events for English and Welsh LAs. The current arrangements of working with COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities) will continue for Scottish LAs.

22. The aim is to build on the success of previous events by ensuring we create an open forum to communicate what’s happening across DWP, HDD and the Universal Credit (UC) Programme.

23. We held 12 engagement events between October and December 2018 which included leadership messages, technical information and facilitated ‘break out’ style discussions. Over 83% of attendees rated the events positively.

24. Our plan is to hold a similar number of events across several locations in Autumn 2019 and, as with previous events, we intend to bring together LAs and Partnership Managers. As 2019 is a year of consolidation for UC, the events will focus on wider Welfare Reform changes impacting LAs.

25. We’re committed to getting your thoughts on what to include in these future events. So, if have any suggestions please email us at uclocalauthority.liaisonteam@dwp.gov.uk. We are also looking for venues to hold these events, so if your LA is able to offer us a suitable room for one of them we’d be extremely grateful.

Update: Transfer Your File

26. We are pleased to announce that the rollout of Transfer Your File (TYF) is now complete.

27. The data hub was switched off on 31 July 2019. All DWP and HMRC files which were previously sent to LAs through the data hub are now available on TYF.

28. Thank you to all those LAs who have provided useful feedback and suggestions during rollout which we will be taking into consideration over the coming months.

29. In the meantime, we have updated the TYF guidance and other supporting documents to address the issues raised so far. The revised documents are available on Glasscubes.

30. If you have any:

• general questions about TYF you can contact LA Data Sharing Delivery team lads.deliveryteam@dwp.gov.uk
• incidents or problems when using TYF please contact la-sst.hdd@dwp.gov.uk

HB/CTB decisions by the Upper Tribunal

31. Decision Making and Appeals (DMA) Leeds is aware of the following HB cases that have been decided by the Upper Tribunal (UT):

• CH/2424/18: Misunderstanding about diminishing capital rule did not affect amount of recoverable overpayment
• CH/1625/18 and CH/1624/18: Remitted - Adjournment consideration - unfairness resulting from the First-tier Tribunal not having had sight of the claimant’s email in relation to not being well enough to attend the hearing

32. Decisions of the UT are published on their website

33. If you have any queries about cases before the UT judges or courts, you can contact us by email at fldmdma.customersupportservices@dwp.gov.uk or fax on 0113 232 4841.

Statutory Instruments

34. The following Statutory Instruments (SIs) have been laid:

• 2019 No. 1152 The Universal Credit (Managed Migration Pilot and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019
• 2019 No. 1135 The Welfare Reform Act 2012 (Commencement No. 33) Order 2019

35. The following Statutory Rule (SR) of Northern Ireland has been laid:

• 2019 No.152 The Universal Credit (Managed Migration and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2019, made on 22 July 2019

36. Copies of SIs can now be downloaded from www.legislation.gov.uk

What’s new on our HB pages on GOV.UK

37. The following items can be found on the website link shown:

Document type	Subject
LAWD7/2019	Editorial New Housing Benefit Matching Service rules Removal and improvement of HBMS rules Refresh of rule HBPD001 – prisoners in England and Wales Clarification of HBMS results process Reminder: Maintenance of the DWP/LA Tool Update: Transfer Your File Benefit cap in UC Workshops to improve the HB guidance for supported accommodation Shared services teleconference events Reminder: Revisions to HB Adjudication and Subsidy circulars Reminder: HDD communications now sent to a single in-box address only HB subsidy workshops for LAs in 2020 Revised circular HB A5/2019 Cases with the Upper Tribunal New Legislation What’s new on our HB pages on GOV.UK
LAWD7/2019 Lite	Improvements to the Verify Earnings and Pensions Alerts service Reminder: Sign-up to benefit from improvements to the Third Party Deduction service Removal of duplicate HB Stop notifications to LAs Reminder: The process for completing the MGP1(LA) for return to UC New DWP UC Regulations announced Questions and answers: Move to UC pilot
Circular HB A9/2019 (Revised)	Mixed age couples: further guidance