Issue - meetings

The Committee considered an audit report on the certification of financial claims and returns for 2020-21.

The audit covered claims returns relating to expenditure in respect of Housing Benefit Subsidy worth £25.4 million.  In relation to the pooling of Housing Capital Receipts for 2020-21, the Committee noted that the Council’s external auditors, Grant Thornton, had certified the return in accordance with procedures agreed with the Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing (DLUCH) on 9 February 2022.

The auditor had provided assurance to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) around the accuracy of the Subsidy claim.  This recompensed the Council for payments to help residents on low incomes with their rent.

The Committee noted that the DWP did not have a financial tolerance level, so any errors were reported. This led to the claim being qualified and would result in additional testing in subsequent years.  The more records that were tested, the more likelihood there was that an error would be identified.

The Council’s subsidy claim had been qualified since 2012-13.  Statistics on qualified subsidy claims were not routinely published. However, in 2012-13 over 77% of claims were qualified, indicating that Guildford was not an unusual case.

Whilst the auditors found a new error type during their audit, the overall errors in 2019-20 remained low and no amendments had been made to the Council’s claim.  As had been the case in recent years, this meant that the Council did not have to pay funds back to the DWP as a result of the audit.

The Committee acknowledged that it remained challenging to balance capacity, speed, and accuracy to ensure that claimants received the help they required whilst not exposing the Council to an increased financial risk as a result of errors.  It was noted that the Council had provided the DWP with assurance that it would continue to work to reduce errors further. 

The following points were raised during the debate:

·       Difficulties in recruitment of staff and the need for greater flexibility in terms of agile working

·       In response to an enquiry as to whether material errors identified were fed back to the claimants and their claims adjusted accordingly, the Committee noted that if, as a result of the audit, it was necessary to adjust a claim, the claimant would be informed. Officers would check whether any claims were actually recalculated as a result of this audit and inform the Committee accordingly.

Having considered the report, the Committee

RESOLVED: That the position regarding the certification of claims and returns for 2020-21 be noted.

Reason:

To formally sign off the claims and returns for 2020-21.

The Committee considered an audit report on the certification of financial claims and returns for 2019-20.

The audit covered claims returns relating to expenditure in respect of Housing Benefit Subsidy worth £27.6 million.  However, it was noted that the pooling of Housing Capital Receipts for 2019-20 had not been received at the time this report had been written.

The auditor had provided assurance to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) around the accuracy of the Subsidy claim.  This recompensed the Council for payments to help residents on low incomes with their rent.

The Committee noted that the DWP did not have a financial tolerance level, so any errors were reported. This led to the claim being qualified and would result in additional testing in subsequent years.  The more records that were tested, the more likelihood there was that an error would be identified.

The Council’s subsidy claim had been qualified since 2012-13.  Statistics on qualified subsidy claims were not routinely published. However, in 2012-13 over 77% of claims were qualified, indicating that Guildford was not an unusual case.

Whilst the auditors found a new error type during their audit, the overall errors in 2019-20 remained low and no amendments had been made to the Council’s claim.  As had been the case in recent years, this meant that the Council did not have to pay funds back to the DWP as a result of the audit.

The Committee acknowledged that it remained challenging to balance capacity, speed, and accuracy to ensure that claimants received the help they required whilst not exposing the Council to an increased financial risk as a result of errors.  It was noted that the Council had provided the DWP with assurance that it would continue to work to reduce errors further. 

In response to questions from the Committee, the officers confirmed the following:

·       It was the DWP’s responsibility to migrate claimants out of the existing system into Universal Credit, rather than the Council’s, and that the process by which this would be done had not yet been clarified.

·       As housing benefit subsidy would cease to apply for cases that moved to Universal credit, it was likely that the Council’s claim would be less prone to errors as the case load would be reduced.

·       Although Future Guildford had automated many processes across the Council, and a smart form had been produced for housing benefit claimants, the processing of housing benefit claims was not fully automated.  As the introduction of universal credit, to replace housing benefit, had been delayed by the DWP the Council had not invested in any further smart forms as part of Future Guildford, so it was not likely that this would lead to a reduction in errors in future.

Having considered the report, the Committee

RESOLVED: That the position regarding the certification of claims and returns for 2019-20 be noted.

Reason:

To formally sign off the claims and returns for 2019-20.