Terms & Conditions

[LAHiggins]

Appologies if there is already another posting on this topic.

I am sure that by now, most of you will have attended your DWP workshop on the new performance standard for “Interventions” (or Reductions as it will become known), that will be effective from April 2008.

In the case of my LA. We currently score 4 against both of the current interventions targets, and have an overall Performance Standards score of 4.

We have a current caseload of 14,945, and discovered at the workshop that we will be required to find 11,203 reductions for 2007/08, which equates to 75% of our caseload. Based on 2005/06, we only found 8,714 reductions in the year, equating to 58%. Therefore on current performance we would only score a 1 on this new combined performance standard.

The DWP stated clearly that the new target would not be able to be achieved just by becoming more proactive or refining the Interventions process (although clearly this will be an important part of it), but would also rely on us instilling a genuine change of culture in our customers to re-educate them to notify their changes to us, no matter how small, promptly.

My concern is that this “change of culture” cannot possibly be instilled into our customers by the 31st March. The re-education process will at best take many months, or years to achieve (if at all), yet from the 1st April we will be expected to be achieving this perfromance standard, which in our case, will have a significant impact on our over all Performance Standards score.

So my questions at this stage are:

Are the targets that have been set for your LA as much of an increase on current performance as ours, and do you feel that you can realistically achieve this target for 2007/08?

Is this likely to have as devestating an impact on your 2007/08 Performance Standards score as it will to us?

Have you/do you intend to make any representations to DWP or LGA to try to challenge the new target?

Feel free to respond to me in private if you prefer.

[karent]

hi Lee

our provisional target for 07/08 has reduced. According to the sheet the DWP gave us in Bham on 30/11/06, we did 4072 reductions to benefit in 05/06 (remember these are reductions to the amount of benefit paid, even if by £0.01, not the number of interventions completed) (unless i’ve completely misinterpreted what was said)

& for 07/08 it’s been given as 3360

Table 3 of the sheet – LA reviews conducted and success by risk group – almost mirrors the expected detection activity as per Appendix 4 of the Security Manual

the 07/08 target of 3360 translates as 56% of our caseload.

[david kearney]

We are in a similar position to Karent. We are being asked to achieve only slightly more than our baseline figures so are not complaining.

That said, i was sitting with an officer from a London authority who discovered he was being asked to achieve a near 50% increase in ‘benefit reductions’

It appears to be very much dependent on the percentages of people in each risk group. We have a population with a high percentage of passported pensioners, but anyone with a higher than average number of high risk customers is expected to achieve a far higher number of reductions.

When we queried how they had come up with their figures and whether there was any right of reply, we were advised that the changes had been agreed with the LGA, and if we didnt like it it was tough.

I have every sympathy with you, but other than the obvious potential scams which i am sure were raised at whatever meeting you were at, am not sure what you can do.

[Author]

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