Guidance

LA Welfare Direct 3/2020

Updated 11 December 2020

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

Someone once said: “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. Whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” I don’t know about you but whether you think you are flying, running, walking or crawling, changes in Housing Benefit (HB) keep us all at least on our toes! So what do we have for you in the March edition of the Local Authority Welfare Direct?

Well, I will kick-off with the HB Award Accuracy Indicator. You may have seen our recent correspondence on this; our aim here is to further reduce losses caused by incorrectness in the HB caseload. The indicator will provide us all with a very high-level view to what is happening at local authority level. We are looking to support you to continue to keep claims accurate – we accept this is a complex picture and isn’t an easy thing to crack, but we want to get even better at improving the accuracy of HB awards.

Something else that is new…the Local Authority Data Sharing and IT issues engagement and consultation forum. We have just started to trial this forum and our aim is to look at new ways of working and an alternative/additional route to update local authorities (LAs) on the latest data sharing and IT developments. It is also an opportunity for us to hear about issues that have not been reported to our Local Authority Service Support Team. There is evidence to show some long term problems, had they been reported earlier, could have been solved by the team within a day. If you weren’t part of the recent initial call, which had over 180 participants, then I would urge you to have a listen to the replay of that call.

Next up, please consider our old friend the MGP1LA process…we highlight some changes we are making to the process which we believe will simplify the exchange of information. This can only be good news.

Finally, I mentioned support earlier - my Performance Development Team consultants remain as keen as ever to support you with the challenges of delivering the complex HB business. We are here to help and are always delighted to work with you - whether it is implementing actions to improve the accuracy of your caseload, promoting the benefits of data sharing and automation, maximizing revenue from debt recovery or helping to build capability to support excellence in customer service delivery both now and for the future. We don’t charge for this either so if you want to have an initial chat please drop me an email to: hdd.pdtconsultants@dwp.gov.uk

Many thanks.

Jonathan Bottomer
Head of the Performance Development Team

Housing Benefit Award Accuracy Indicator

1. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wrote to all local authority (LA) Revenues & Benefits managers and Chief Financial Officers on 27 February 2020 to introduce the Housing Benefit Award Accuracy Indicator.

2. It is estimated that Housing Benefit (HB) award inaccuracy costs the public purse £1.3 billion every year. In order to reduce estimated losses, DWP has launched the HB Award Accuracy Indicator. This uses a targeted approach to identify HB cases with the highest likelihood of incurring a change of circumstances.

3. We have introduced the HB Accuracy Award Indicator to:

• raise the importance of HB award accuracy across LAs
• help reduce losses caused by incorrectness in the HB caseload
• support HB performance improvement by balancing delivery of (Speed of Processing (SoP)) information with quality (HB Award Accuracy) information

4. The key driver behind the HB Award Accuracy Indicator is the level of unreported changes of circumstances. HB entitlement can last for several years and the probability that the claimant will have a change of circumstances is very high.

5. If those changes are not reported by the claimant and the LA does not pick up the change through proactive reviews or HB Data Matching, it will result in an inaccurate claim.

6. The Indicator uses a data model to assess the risk of each HB claim. It is expressed as a percentage, which is determined by dividing the actual value of weekly HB reductions by the expected value of HB reductions based on caseload composition of each LA.

7. LAs can improve their HB Award Accuracy Indicator score by identifying more unreported changes of circumstances or Verify Earnings and Pensions (VEP) Alerts that would otherwise not be actioned and would lead to a reduction to entitlement.

8. The HB Award Accuracy Indicator will not be published. Instead, DWP will notify LAs of their HB Award Accuracy Indicator score quarterly.

9. Housing Delivery Division’s (HDDs) Performance Development Team will provide free consultancy support to LAs and help identify opportunities for them to improve their HB Award Accuracy Indicator score.

10. If you have any questions about the HB Award Accuracy Indicator, you can contact: hddhb.fed@dwp.gov.uk

Reminder: LA claimants without a National Insurance number

11. In recent weeks there has been an increase in the number of contacts from LAs reporting on the difficulties some of their claimants, who do not have a National Insurance number (NINo), have experienced when making a claim to social security benefits.

12. It is not compulsory to have been allocated a NINo before making a claim to a social security benefit, this includes online applications such as Universal Credit (UC).

13. Claimants wishing to make a claim to a social security benefit should make their application through the normal channels. Once entitlement to benefit has been established, DWP will contact the claimant to invite them to a Benefit Inspired NINo Evidence of Identity interview.

14. Therefore, claimants wishing to make a claim to benefit should not be advised to apply for a NINo before making their claim as this builds in an unnecessary delay.

15. If you have any queries about the NINo application or the content of this article you can contact: elizabeth.mccabe1@dwp.gov.uk

LA Data Sharing and IT issues consultation and engagement forum

16. HDDs Data Sharing Team hosted a trial of a new Data Sharing and IT issues consultation and engagement forum with LAs on 14 February 2020.

17. As explained in LAWD2/2020, as result of feedback from HDD and LA staff, whilst there has been a lot of improvement within the last two years, there were still things we could do to improve communications. This forum was being trialled to improve on these, look at new ways of working and also as an alternative/additional route to update LAs on latest developments.

18. This forum was also an opportunity for HDD to hear about issues that we may not be aware of being experienced by LA staff that have not reported to HDD’s Local Authority Security and Support Team (LASST). There is evidence to show some long term problems in individual LAs, had they been reported to LASST earlier, could have been solved by LASST within a day.

19. During the forum, there was a lot of good discussion and updates on recently delivered, upcoming/future planned projects all prompting a lot of questions. You can find more information about these projects and questions and answers raised at the forum in Annex 1.

20. 180 participants dialled into the forum from across the UK. If you would like to hear a replay of the call, send an email to:
la-sst.hdd@dwp.gov.uk who will provide you with the dial-in reply details - available until 13 March 2020.

21. We would really appreciate if you could send your feedback about the forum to: la-sst.hdd@dwp.gov.uk

22. Depending on feedback we receive, we may hold these calls on a quarterly basis. Also, do let us know what you would like to hear about on these calls.

Forthcoming audit/compliance check of Employee Authentication Service–Replacement

23. A replacement of the previous Employee Authentication Service (EAS) EAS-Replacement (EAS-R) was introduced in 2018. At the same time a number of new organisations were added and are now using the new streamlined process.

24. Prior to this, it was a mandatory requirement for DWP to audit the EAS-R predecessor in order to satisfy the accreditation requirements needed to continue to use the service.

25. Now that the replacement service has had time to embed, DWP are required to commission an independent audit/compliance in order to demonstrate the adequacy and security of the controls in place to safeguard customer information.

26. DWP are in the process of commissioning the audit and this will be performed by an independent company with recognised auditing skills. Partner organisations will be selected and will be required to provide information to inform the audit/compliance process.

27. The audit is anticipated to take place between 9 and 27 March 2020. It is the intention of the auditors to conduct this audit with minimal impact on the new EAS user community.

28. The organisation being used is tScheme. They are independent of both DWP and HM Government, with an established track record of validating Trust Framework operations within both public and private sector initiatives.

29. Their expertise and impartiality provides reassurance that access to government information systems is subject to checks and balances, as well as independently verifying that agreed practices are being followed by all.

30. The audit/compliance check will be on the creation of new users onto EAS-R and the subsequent account and token management of their accounts to ensure correct protocols are being followed. It is not an audit of the services accessed through EAS-R.

31. In order to ensure that correct procedures are being followed, auditors will choose which LAs to audit. DWP have no say in the selection process. We will notify selected LAs as soon as we know.

32. There will be some activity conducted within the selected LAs, this should take around half a day. Details will be clarified later with selected LAs.

33. The auditors will visit sites to see how the creation of new users’ process and management of user accounts are being complied with. This will include reviewing how individuals are initially enrolled onto EAS-R, how their accounts are updated and managed and how tokens are stored and used securely.

34. We appreciate that many users transferred over from the old system. While this audit will be focusing on new users enrolled since EAS-R became live, there may be some checks performed on the accuracy of data that was added by users to their account on migration.

35. We know from previous activity the auditor will want to check the records of a number of your users. We expect they will want to check that:

• information held on the account is accurate and up to date (name, date of birth, home address and the dates that Baseline Personal Security Standard and Right to Work checks had taken place)
• the access granted on EAS-R matches the business need of the user
• tokens are stored and used safely, both by the authority and the person using them
• the appropriate action has been taken on any user who has left the organisation or changed duties that no longer require access. They also check that action has been taken on short term and long term absences.

36. As EAS-R is a DWP system used by its partner organisations it is important that access and controls adequately protect information. The purpose of the audit/compliance check is to confirm this. Where any practices compromise this, these are highlighted and addressed.

37. We have worked to ensure the records are as accurate as possible before the auditor commences their sampling/on-site activity.

38. If you consider that any information on EAS-R may have been incorrectly recorded, please take remedial action as quickly as possible.

39. Annex 2 provides some useful information from previous audits that you may want to consider.

40. If you want any further information or clarification, please contact: brian.brighouse1@dwp.gov.uk

MGP1LA enhancements

41. From 1 April 2020 DWP are making changes to the MGP1LA process when an LA receives an HB stop notice. An LA will only have to return a MGP1LA to the UC service centre when there is something to tell us.

42. The MGP1LA has been updated so that there are four drop down options available. The latest version of the form can be found on Glasscubes. This will significantly reduce the number of MGP1LA forms that are returned to the UC service centre.

43. The LA should complete the MGP1LA as follows:

• select the appropriate reason for completing the MGP1LA from the email subject header menu. There are four email subject header options which can be selected to indicate the action taken. When an option is selected this will pre-populate the subject header field of the return email:

– overlapping Housing Benefit – HB closed official
– supported exempt/specified – HB not closed official
– temporary accommodation – HB not closed official
– Severe Disability Premium in payment – HB not closed official

44. The MGP1LA should be completed and emailed to the UC service centre within 5 days of receipt. The subject field of the email must have the appropriate heading as selected from the drop down menu or this could delay the process.

45. These changes will be reflected in the next version of the DWP Support pack for local authorities sent to LAs.

Update: Housing Benefit Matching Service

Changes to the frequency of Housing Benefit Matching Service referrals

46. HDD has been working to make changes on the frequency that un-actioned Housing Benefit Matching Service (HBMS) referrals are re-presented again to LAs.

47. Currently if a HBMS referral remains un-actioned and not included in the clerical HBMS spreadsheet sent back to DWP, it can be as long as a year before the referral is generated again and resent to the LA for action.

48. We have therefore made system changes which will shorten the time period, to around six months, before a non-actioned referral will be re-presented again to an LA.

49. These changes will take place from week commencing 9 March 2020 and is likely to result in an increase of HBMS referrals for each rule; particularly where LAs have not been actioning the rules promptly and/or taking corrective action to resolve highlighted discrepancies.

No change in Self-employed earnings rule

50. In LAWD2/2020 we informed LAs about another new rule which would be added to the self-assessment portfolio and delivered through the usual HBMS route from March 2020.

51. The rule (HBHB405) is a permanent replica of the ‘one off’ scan that we issued for the ‘no change to earnings’ funded review that ran in 2018 to 2019. It will identify HB cases where there has been no change to declared self-employed earnings held on the Single Housing Benefit Extract (SHBE) over a 12 month matching period.

52. This rule will be available to LAs from week commencing 9 March 2020. The first delivery of referrals will produce not only high volumes but also some potential duplication against HBSA003 and HBSA004 in the short term.

53. In April a further two improvements will be made to the Self-Assessment portfolio:

• we will move to match against the 2018-19 tax year; resulting in more timely data to support identified referrals in HBSA002, HBSA003 and HBSA004 rules
• restrict duplication of referrals in HBSA003/0004 rules by removing any cases that have been included in the no change in earnings rule in the past six months

Re-launch of four HBMS rules

54. We advised in LAWD7/2019 that referrals for HBJS104, HBJS212, HBES105 and HBPC105 would be temporarily stopped.

55. This was to allow any cases that contained a false declaration for an HB claim to be removed and referred directly to Counter Fraud Compliance Directorate for fraud investigation.

56. These changes have now been made and allows the revised rules to be reintroduced from the beginning of April 2020.

57. If you have any queries regarding the content of this article please email: hdd.strategyteam@dwp.gov.uk

DWP Support pack for local authorities

58. Last year HDD took over responsibility for communications and engagement with LAs regarding UC from the UC Programme. This included ownership and maintenance of the DWP Support pack for local authorities, (previously named the Universal Credit Support Pack).

59. We used this opportunity to carry out a full review of the content and design of the product to ensure it was fit for purpose, up-to-date and continuing to meet needs.

60. LAs The support pack has been re-designed and is now produced in Microsoft Word (rather than Adobe). This allows us to update the pack faster and, in turn, will increase the frequency that we can issue updates.

61. We have included wider content relating to Welfare Reform issues (that impact on UC and affects LAs) and a new change control sheet so you can clearly identify any changes/updates made.

62. We sent out the new look pack via email to each LAs single inbox on 3 February 2020 and, as we have reduced the file size, we have been able to place it on Glasscubes.

63. We hope you have found this pack an improvement and continue to find it useful. Do note it does not replace any existing guidance; its purpose is to help you develop your own learning and development material in order to support new or existing staff whose job roles are impacted by UC.

64. Any feedback you have on this product is welcomed, as we are constantly looking for ways to improve the support we provide to you.

65. If you have any feedback or questions about the pack you can email: housing.correspondenceandpqs@dwp.gov.uk

Reminder: Rents for Social Housing from 2020-21 and the impact on HB subsidy for LAs in England

66. As advised in HB S11/2019, the disapplication of the HB Rent Rebate Subsidy Limitation (RRSL) scheme for England only comes into effect from 1 April 2020.

67. All registered providers of social housing will be required to comply with the Rent Standard set by the Regulator of Social Housing. The Regulator consulted on this new Rent Standard in 2019. The Rent Standard has been set in accordance with a direction from government (which was issued after a consultation carried out in 2018).

68. If you have any questions you can contact: hb.nonsubsidy@dwp.gov.uk or telephone Martin Spencer on 01253 331671

Publication of HB Speed of Processing statistics

69. We published HB SoP statistics and associated data for the quarter 2 (Q2) period July to September 2019 on Wednesday 29 January 2020. Here are some key points:

New claims

• the average time taken to process new HB claims in Q2 of 2019-20 was 17 calendar days, this is five days lower than in the same quarter of 2018-19
• in Q2 there were 100,000 new HB claims. This represents a decrease of 2,000 (2%) since the last quarter and a decrease of 92,000 (48%) since quarter 2 of 2018-19

Changes of circumstances

• the average time taken to process changes of circumstances to existing HB claims in Q2 of 2019-20 was 6 calendar days, this is two days lower than the same quarter of 2018-19
• for Q2 there were 1.9 million changes of circumstances to HB claims. This is a decrease of 710,000 (28%) since last quarter and a decrease of 440,000 (19%) cases since Q2 of 2018-19

To note

• the statistics show the processing time for new HB claims is on average 5 days lower than the same period last year, decreasing from 22 to 17 days. An average of 17 days for processing new HB claims is the lowest it has been but comparisons with previous years should be done with caution. It is believed that at national level the number of days to process will reduce over time as a result of changing caseloads following the move to Universal Credit.

70. See Housing Benefit statistics on speed of processing 2019 to 2020 for full details.

LA Welfare Steering Group and Practitioners’ Operational Group

71. The next meeting of the LA Welfare Steering Group (LAWSG) will take place on 25 March 2020. Agenda items will include topics on LA Welfare issues log and an update from the LA Funding Group Meeting.

72. See summary for minutes the LAWSG October 2019 meeting

73. The Practitioners’ Operational Group’s (POG) minutes for the November 2019 were not produced due to the upcoming general election restrictions.

74. If you have any questions regarding either of these DWP/LA consultation groups you can email the Secretariat at: carolyn.pollard@dwp.gov.uk

HB decisions by the Upper Tribunal

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

• CH/858/16, CH/847/16: Appeals dismissed. No substantive dispute between the parties
• CH/2773/18: Self-employed earnings. Appeal dismissed. Tribunal correctly addressed the period of assessment used in the calculation
• CH/257/18: Claimant appeal upheld. Meaning of shared ownership tenancy clarified
• CH/845/16: Appeal dismissed. No substantive dispute between the parties

76. A selection of decisions of the UT are published on their website. Do be aware that there is an undefined time lapse between decisions being issued and their appearance on the website.

77. If you have any queries about cases before the UT Judges or courts, please contact us by email at: quarryhouse.dmaleedscustomersupportservices@dwp.gov.uk

New Legislation

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

• 2020 No. 102 The Employment and Support Allowance (Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2020. Came into force on, 27 February 2020
• 2020 No. 152 The Universal Credit (Work-Related Requirements) In Work Pilot Scheme (Extension) Order 2020. Came into force on 19 February

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

What’s new on our HB pages on www.gov.uk

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

Document Type	Subject	Link
LAWD 2/2020	Editorial Housing Benefit Matching Service automation Update: New HBMS rule Reducing your LAs HB student income errors Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman: Focus on Housing Benefit report Performance Measurement review process Update: Pension Strategy Computer System solution Check Employment Information Collection of Internet Protocol address data for HB claimants Update: Payment Deduction Programme review Update: 2020-21 Discretionary Housing Payments government contribution for English and Welsh LAs 2020-21 Verify Earnings and Pensions LA funding Post DWP/LA engagement events feedback and analysis Pensions Credit campaign launch HB Cases with the Upper Tribunal New Legislation What’s new on our HB pages on www.gov.uk	LAWD2/2020
Circular HB A1/2020 (2nd revision)	Housing Benefit: Uprating 2020-21(2nd revision)	A1/2020 2nd revision
Circular HB A2/2020	War Pensions: Uprating 2020-2021	A2/2020
Circular HB A3/2020	Changes to the Severe Disability Premium process	A3/2020
Circular HBS1/2020	2020-21 Housing Benefit administration subsidy arrangements for English, Scottish and Welsh local authorities	S1/2020

Annex 1: LA Data Sharing and IT Forum

Update on recently delivered projects

Customer Information System Interest Automation

• this is in a good place – 345 LAs are now live. Many of the others have known reasons for not being live
• if you feel that you are not getting enough support from HDD, we are here to help
• we are keen for you to use Customer Information System (CIS) Interest Automation as there are administrative savings to be realised for LAs

Pension Strategy Computer System Automation

• addresses the annual burden of manual uprating
• the software is now available
• CIS automation needs to have been done first
• test feedback was really positive, solving this longstanding problem

Self-employed Self-Assessment data matching rules

• this has been a big area of financial loss for the taxpayer
• a number of new data matching rules introduced recently
• one more rule to come shortly, as well as the updating of the rule to include the latest full tax year’s information (2018-19) from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)

Concurrent HB and UC Housing costs data matching rule

• a new data matching rule went live with LAs on 17 February 2020
• this has been needed for a long time so will hopefully be useful

2019-20 Security Memorandum of Understanding

• major improvements to readability and clarity
• updates driven by impact of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
• will be reviewed and updated regularly in the future

Future projects

Further improvements to Self-Assessment income rules

revised risk model to be included in the HBMS rules suite

various policy changes to UC have made automation difficult – improvements will be going live in March 2020

Housing Benefit Debt Service

– was only ever an interim solution
– work has begun on strategic, more automated solution – should be delivered in first half of 2020, but more important to get it right, so may be later than that

IP addresses for on line HB claims – coming very soon

– addressing of claims from abroad or from the same computer in the UK, which may not be genuine claims
– detecting potential fraud

Blue Badge data sharing

– this has been on the backlog for many years
– savings of £43 million per annum across the UK
– will be delivered at some point in next 6 months

Trial of sharing care home data in real time

– idea is to make it easier for over and underpayments not to happen at vulnerable time for individuals and their families
– we will need to ensure trial works well before we even consider national rollout

Legality of using HMRC data for alternative purposes

– much closer to being able to communicate to LAs, but not quite there yet

Searchlight test checks

– we recognise that this is a problem
– we are working on it. No definitive fix yet but we will get this to LAs as soon as we can

VEP

– data to be more real time and so improve hit rates
– phased national roll out from April to September 2020

Glasscubes

– small change just introduced based on feedback from LAs
– we will continue to look into further improvements

HBMS data matching improvements

– various new data sources to be introduced over next 12 months, all piloted first, before national rollout

SHBE (Single Housing Benefit Extract) returns

– looking at ways of making them more automated and more real time

Scottish Government devolution changes

– various changes coming over next 12 months

LA Data Sharing and IT Forum questions and answers

UC data share

Question 1:
For LAs who use Capita, after a new UC claim record is received, a second new claim record containing further data is now imported as a change of circumstances, so it is difficult for Capita to allocate it to the correct record type. Consequently, over 1,000 new claims have been missed over the past year.

Answer 1: HDD are aware of this issue, which is specific to Capita; HDD have seen no evidence of this issue from other suppliers. HDD advised Capita in 2016 that this change would happen. HDD will take the issue off line and work with the LA and Capita to gain a shared understanding of how it can be fixed.

VEP MI

Question 2: VEP MI cannot be downloaded into spreadsheet form, so gathering statistics is a very manual process. It is difficult to meet DWP’s targets because of the problem. LAs are being very closely monitored by DWP but they cannot easily get the MI. Is there any likelihood of improvements in MI for VEP?

Answer 2: The VEP development team are focussed on a number of other things first, of greater priority, before they can address this. The VEP project is separate to Paul Selby’s team, but when it becomes business as usual - which should be in September 2020 - we will then be responsible for the data share. If the issues have not been fixed by then we will look into it in more detail to see how we can help.

Searchlight management checks

Question 3: Cannot run Management checks on Searchlight. How can this be resolved?

Answer 3: A work around was published for this on Glasscubes in December 2019.

Blue Badge Searchlight access

Question 4: Benefits teams currently have to go via the Apollo list to obtain data for DWP benefits. For Blue Badge applications, will they be able to look records up themselves on Searchlight rather than having to go through Apollo? When the eligibility checks have been built for Blue Badge, will that only be for LAs that are using the national form or will there be Application Programming Interface (API)’s or anything similar for LAs that have their own application form on line for Blue Badge?

Answer 4: HDD guarantee that we will give a comprehensive solution on a Searchlight based Blue Badge solution in the next 2-4 months. It is not something we can do immediately, for security related reasons. It will not be as automated as we all wanted because various cross government security issues exist that we have not been able to overcome.

The eligibility checks for Blue Badge will be separate from the national form. HDD are looking at getting the right data on to Searchlight so there will be no need to use the Apollo register.

HB Debt Service

Question 5: HDD have mentioned that they are looking to introduce a strategic automated solution around the first half of 2020. What does that solution entail?

Answer 5: LAs currently only have one day a month when they can submit information on a clerical spreadsheet and if they miss that date they have to wait another month. The spreadsheet does not always work and creates problems at sending and receiving ends. Also, data received back can be up to a month out of date because the matching process adds in a time lag. The strategic solution to overcome these issues is that the LA will be able to obtain the information they want for any claimant at any time in genuine real time. We are not able to give the specific detail of what it will look like but this is the high level principle of what is being aimed for.

LAs should continue to use the current monthly spreadsheet process until the new solution is in place. HDD are about to go out with a timetable for this existing process, extending beyond March to probably May, June or possibly even July in case there are difficulties rolling out the new solution. But the real hope, based on what HDD have been promised, is that the solution will be in place in first half of this year.

CIS test checks for people who have left

Question 6: There have been issue with CIS test checks, so many checks have been missed. What do we do with outstanding test checks for people who no longer work for the LA?

Answer 6: Please disregard these as there is no follow up action that can be taken.

Pension Strategy Computer System uprating

Question 7: The LA is live with CIS uprating and the API is working. The LA has a Capita system. Connection testing for Pension Strategy Computer System (PSCS) in December failed. The LA sent trace reports through to the LADS team two months ago and followed these up but they have had no further responses as to why the connection tests might fail. The connection test is from a terminal linked directly to DWP so it doesn’t use the system provided by Capita. Is there a problem with the test the LA was asked to perform?

Answer 7: This was a very specific problem to the individual LA. (We asked them to contact us directly again so we could seek to resolve). Apologies that this has not been addressed before.

PSCS customer data mismatches

Question 8: An LA is over half way through PSCS uprating. They have a circular going back to 2016, but can they have updated clarification on how to notify DWP when there are NINo, date of birth or name mismatches and the LA think that their information is correct?

Answer 8: There is more recent guidance. We asked the LA to send their details in through LASST so we could have a separate conversation with them and make sure that they were up to date with the guidance.

Legacy benefits and UC

Question 9: Legacy benefits details are coming through for UC claims. Legacy benefits are weekly and UC are monthly. There is a work around, especially for first payments, but wondered whether any other LAs were coming across this?

Answer 9: We have asked this LA to email lads.deliveryteam@dwp.gov.uk the question so we could look into it.

UC automation

Question 10: Do changes to UC automation include sharing additional data items specifically relating to tariff income on minimum income flow?

Answer 10: No they do not. When HDD carried out a UC data sharing review in summer 2018, there were 22 data items suggested, either in addition to the existing data share, or that were problems with the existing data share. After thorough investigation there were only 8 of these 22 items that we could possibly share in addition to what the current data share includes. The other 14 items either did not exist, or were problems that we have subsequently resolved. The UC automation improvements referenced at the start of the call, being introduced in March 2020, do not include the additional variables, although they are still on the UC backlog to be added at some point. But there are a whole range of improvements to be delivered to UC systems across DWP. We are sorry, but currently the 8 additional variables for LAs aren’t at the top of the priority list.

HMRC data for Council Tax only

Question 11: Are we still looking at whether we can use HMRC Pay As You Earn (PAYE) earnings information for Council Tax (CT) only claims?

Answer 11: Currently, we absolutely cannot extend the use of HMRC PAYE earnings data to CT only because it is not a DWP benefit. HDD will come out with crystal clear clarity on what you can and cannot re-use the HMRC data that DWP share with LAs for, at some point in the next few months. However, there is a separate piece of work ongoing with HMRC working through the Digital Economy Act Board with individual test LAs about whether a separate data share can be put in place in relation to CT.

Payment Deduction Programme

Question 12: Is there any update on the Payment Deduction Programme (PDP)?

Answer 12: There has been a PDP review going on from late 2018 and through 2019. Some recommendations were made to DWP Debt Management in December 2019 and January 2020. These were communicated to POG on 20 February 2020 for them to quality assure. The intent is to do wider communications shortly after that.

CIS interest automation

Question 13: CIS interests are being removed when customers come off UC, but when they become entitled to UC again LAs don’t get the new UC record because their interest has been ended. There have been a few posts on Glasscubes about this but the question hasn’t really been answered.

Answer 13: HDD are very aware of the problem and have been investigating it. It seems to be varying across different LAs as to at what stage they close their Local Council Tax Reduction (LCTR) claims down. The rapid reclaim issue happens because DWP do not ask the LCTR claim question on the reclaim gather. We are looking to see whether that question can be included in the reclaim gather question set. It is a question of prioritisation. We are doing everything we can behind the scenes, but we cannot give a definitive answer as to when there will be a solution.

Question 14: Can anything be done outside the system to notify the customer that they need to contact the LA when they make a rapid reclaim?

Answer 14: We don’t know what we can do at this stage so we are unable to answer this question at the moment.

UC and Housing costs

Question 15: When people apply for UC, do UC staff do checks to verify the details of the declared Housing costs?

Answer 15: This is not a data share question so it is not really for this forum. However, please write down the question and send it and any further questions to the LASST team at:
la-sst.hdd@dwp.gov.uk and we will get an answer to you.

Annex 2: Forthcoming audit/compliance check of Employee Authentication Service

Findings from earlier audits

Failure to take appropriate action when a user leaves:

The auditor found a number of examples where the correct action had not been taken by the agent when a user left or changed duties. The auditors reported this as a significant failing, we would obviously like to avoid similar failings in the future.

It is essential, for security reasons, that access to departmental systems is withdrawn expediently when it is no longer required. The account should be closed and the token should be collected from the user, after it is changed to a generic PIN.

Tokens remain the property of DWP and while we do not currently charge our external colleagues for replacements we may need to do so if we find that you are not making sufficient arrangements to recover those no longer needed by a user.

Tokens not stored securely:

In some instances, tokens had not been stored securely, access to stock tokens should be strictly limited to OAs and SAMs who need to issue them to users.

The auditor is likely to want to confirm that the tokens in stock match those that are listed as unassigned in your organisation on EAS-R.

If you find that tokens are incorrectly listed, please contact the relevant help desk with the details.

For Searchlight/VEP and TYF it’s: la-sst.hdd@dwp.gov.uk

For TUO it‘s: tell-us-once.servicedesk@dwp.gov.uk

It is also likely that the auditor would want to check that individuals are storing and using their tokens securely. While they are unlikely to check all of your employees, colleagues should be aware of token security protocols.

EAS Administrators:

Errors which have previously been identified include:

– some local administrators had left the organisation or no longer fulfilled the role. Access needs to be removed when it is no longer required.
– where administrators have left the organisation or moved onto new duties, they had not delivered the training handover in accordance with the guidance.