Written evidence from Darra Singh, Job
Centre Plus
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
COMMITTEE HEARING
ON THE
NATIONAL AUDIT
OFFICE VALUE
FOR MONEY
REPORT ON
THE COMMUNITY
CARE GRANT
I was grateful for the opportunity to meet the Committee
last week and I am now enclosing, as requested, a breakdown of
decisions substituted by location (Benefit Delivery Centre). This
is in response to Dr Creasy's question about the outcomes of reviews,
and is obtained from the Social Fund Commissioner's Annual Report
for 2009-10.
I would also like to take this opportunity to clarify
a couple of points. Firstly, during the discussion on the number
of reviews I referred to a figure of 2%. This figure is based
on the total number of reviewing officer decisions substituted
by an Independent Review Service (IRS) Inspector in 2009-10 in
relation to the total number of applications initially processed
by Jobcentre Plus in 2009-10 (i.e. 13,190 substitutions out of
a total of 646,000 applications initially processed). If this
were expressed as a percentage of the total number of community
care grant cases reviewed by Inspectors in 2009-10 (28,420), the
figure would be 46 percent. I feel that it is important to clarify
this point as I would not want the PAC to think that the level
of error was running at these levels.
In a significant number of cases where reviews were
conducted a different decision was reached by the Inspector on
the basis of new evidence or a relevant change in circumstances
presented by the customer following a detailed conversation with
the Inspector. It is in the nature of the work undertaken by the
Independent Review Service that they are able to conduct further
and more-in depth investigations than would be feasible or proportionate
in Jobcentre Plus, where the expectation is of a throughput of
at least 9 community care grant cases per decision-maker every
day.
Nevertheless, as I told the Committee Jobcentre Plus
decision-makers do make use of the telephone in obtaining evidence
to support the application. As I indicated, we would not telephone
customers who clearly failed to satisfy the qualifying criteria
(i.e. were not on a qualifying benefit, or clearly fell outside
the criteria set out in Direction 4). In other cases, the Secretary
of State's guidance to decision-makers instructs them to contact
the customer if there is insufficient evidence to make a decision.
In such cases, decision-makers will generally make
telephone contact although it is open to them to write to the
customer to request such additional evidence as may be required.
It is also normal practice for Jobcentre Plus decision-makers
to make telephone contact with customers following a request to
re-consider the initial decision on a case. We do not routinely
gather information on the number of CCG applications where
we have some form of personal contact with the applicant, but
will look at how such information might be collected in the future.
Mrs McGuire rightly pointed out that it would be
prohibitively expensive to telephone all customers and I am sorry
if I gave the impression that this happened in every case. I hope
the foregoing serves to clarify the situation.
I would also like to clarify my response to Q96.
The information I gave about the latest estimate of fraud and
error rates should say that Risk Assurance Division estimate that
the fraud and error rate is 2.8%, of which 2.5% was fraud.
I have asked my analysts to provide figures on annual
underspends at district level and I will write to you with this
information.
11 November 2010
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