Terms & Conditions

[chris harvey]

Just discovered that many (approx 40%) of our payments from PDP do not appear as recovered in the OVR310 and 311 reports. I checked the June payment schedule and 107 out of the 240 payments loaded in to NG and showing in the PDP area are not showing as recovered in the reports. The reports show no recoveries and the original overpayment still outstanding but in PDP there are regular payments being made each month and the balance reducing.

Just wondered if anyone else has this problem. I have logged a call with NG but no response yet.

[chris harvey]

Updating with Northgates response to my call, apparently money recovered through PDP and sent to us by the DWP is still outstanding and not recovered so the reports are correctly showing the full debt as outstanding (in some cases). ??

[damo]

So when does it become not outstanding then? when the debt is recovered in full? are you going to say anything to DWP when you submit your HBDR this month?

[chris harvey]

I have emailed HBDR with northgates response asking them to clarify whether recoveries from PDP should be included in the HBDR return. I think I know what their response will be, but wanted something from them to re-open the call with Northgate. It beggars belief that that Northgate are not including monies recovered and banked by councils in their recovered values on the returns.

[mcmahow]

Hi Chris

Just to let you know that Northgate have been looking into why some of my PDP cases are not showing the recovered monthly amounts on the OVR310 report and have now referred the issue to their developers as they can't at them moment see why some are showing the recovered amounts and some are not. 

I'll keep you posted. 

 

[prodgers]

Hi Wendy

Like Chris we also have identified this problem of our recovered overpayment amounts being understated on Northgate overpayment reports.

Have Northgate issued any update on this?

I thought I would ask as the close down of the 2017/18 financial year is getting closer.

[mcmahow]

Hi

Unfortunately Northgate didn't give me anything that was very useful.  I am now trying to sort out overpayment balances on our Overs reconciliation and having to check all balances of overpayments and then adjust them on Overs Recon screen if they are incorrect.

But basically by me adjusting the claims in Overs Recon screen whereby the overpayment balance showing on the OVR310 is incorrect, according to Northgate this will basically just update the OVR310 on the CFWD Adjust column only and nowhere else!   It seems doing all of this will not make any difference to what is reported on the HBRF process!

I have asked Northgate to look at making sure that PDP debts are shown in the same way as Sundry Debts on the OVR310 but that may involve a cost for the report to be enhanced!

To be honest I'm still trying to get my head around it all and can't believe it is so difficult to get the figures we all need!! I'm still learning on the go!  How are you dealing with it?

Wendy

 

[prodgers]

Thanks Wendy

Over the years I have had concerns about Northgate's overpayment reports and  found myself going round and round in circles with them.

Each time we got closer a new version of the overpayment reports was introduced .

At the moment I am just content  each month to compare the amount recovered on the OVR310 with the amount I believe has actually been recovered ( manually adding together  recovery by the different methods of recovery- taking details from the RBE248 , RCD161,OVR314 reports and adding the PDP total) and noting the difference each time.

I did raise a call about the discrepancy with NG but again nothing useful came about.

The overpayment reconciliation spreadsheet  I do not find helpful.

An updated version of the OVR310 broken down by method of recovery and age of debt is required.

Paul

 

[prodgers]

Hi Wendy

Yes an amended OVR310 is a "pipe dream", several years ago we prepared a spec for an updated OVR310 that split the report by age like you a large sum was quoted.

As no other authorities would share the cost we withdrew from it.

As it is impractical to regularly check large samples on the OVR310 report I take a pragmatic view  manually total my own recovery figures, knowing that there are also issues with the CFWD / BFWD figures (OVR317 report).

We had the DWP into advise us on overpayment recovery and that was useful.

Paul

 

[mcmahow]

Well I'm just going to persevere with updating the Overs Recon screen on as many accounts as possible in the hope that next financial year won't be as bad! Our finance team and me really want to get it as close to right as we can!  There is only me doing practically everything and the analysis of the OVR310 and Overs Recon has just blown my mind!!

Good luck!

Wendy

[mcmahow]

Hi Paul

Yes I agree and I actually requested an updated version of the ovr310 via Northgate to reflect PDP figures in a seperate column in the same way as SD is.  But found out today that in order to get the changes made to the OVR310 report the bespoke northgate team advised it could cost around £1000 per day to make the change as the changes could take up to 5 days to complete!  So the minimum it would cost is approx £1000 which that in itself is very extortionate considering we are reliant on them to make the changes!! 

We also had and overpayments health review in December to make sure everything was A ok! That cost us £1000 and to be honest that was a complete waste of money too!  I got a couple of tips from them but thats about it!  Although I was very pleased that I had managed to get things in good order (except that we do have corrupt data which seems we can't do much about accept what I am already doing)

Everything and I mean everything is chargeable!

Wendy

 

[chris harvey]

Northgate have still got my call open and it is being looked at by development. I am more concerned with the OVR311 report as this generates the HBDR return. I did contact the DWP who said they expected PDP recoveries to be included in the return and to let them know how I got on with Northgate. If I don't get a positive rsponse from Northgate I will get back to the DWP and advise them accordingly.

[chris harvey]

I nudged NG about my open call reminding them that the Quarter 3 HBDR return is currently being compiled and I will have to (once again) tell the DWP it is not accurate as most PDP recoveries are not being included on the OVR311 report.

Development responded and asked me to run a script against a typical case which I did and have sent the output back to them. I can see from the output PDP recoveries although being logged on the PDP screen are not recorded in the overpayment transactions. I checked the Overpayment events screen (which I know records payments received from Debtors) and none of the PDP recoveries were listed there at all.

So I think we have identified the issue (that PDP recoveries are not creating transactions). It is just a matter of seeing if Northgate are willing to fix it.

[chris harvey]

Update – the developers at NG say they have identified the problem caused by the system "not seeing" these PDP recoveries and not creating any transactions that the OVR310 and OVR311 pick up. They have asked me to test a fix in a non live database which we will be sorting out in the next few days.

[prodgers]

Thanks Chris for the update

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