City Hall

Norfolk taxpayers hit by housing benefit mistakes

By tom bristow
Friday, December 30, 2011
10:17 AM

Housing benefit mistakes are costing taxpayers £150,000 a week with fraud, errors and delays meaning Norfolk councils overpaid almost £23m of public money in three years.

Authorities have overpaid £22.8m since 2008 in housing benefit, mainly as a result of claimants failing to tell councils about changes to their personal circumstances.

Last year these errors cost Norwich City Council, which overpaid more than £17m in three years, £4.6m – the same amount by which the city council budget is being cut in the next 12 months.

Figures obtained by the EDP through the Freedom of Information Act show that stamping out housing benefit waste could have filled the black hole in the city’s budget.

Norwich housing benefit cheats have taken an additional £1m since 2008 through fraud.

A council spokesman said: “We doggedly track down people who intentionally defraud the council, taking legal action to recover money where necessary.”

Last year the council exposed 51 housing benefit cheats, with the biggest fake claim reaching £30,650. And the work to target fraud has meant £108,136 was paid back through legal action in the past three years.

Since 2008, the percentage of housing benefit wrongly paid has dropped from 11pc of the total amount spent on housing benefit to just over six per cent this year.

Last year, the city authority gave out £69m in housing benefit money from the government.

Deputy council leader Alan Waters said: “The vast majority of claimants are legitimate, with benefit paid to people who genuinely need it. With more people claiming housing benefit, this means increased demands on local authorities to keep up with and process these payments.

“We strongly urge people to keep us informed about any change of circumstances so we can respond appropriately to these.”

At Broadland Council £1,141,200 was overpaid in the same period – £1,058,600 of which was caused by mistakes by claimants and £82,600 by mistakes from the council, while fraudsters took an additional £311,200.

South Norfolk Council paid £76,314 in error and fraudsters took £782,193.

In King’s Lynn, overpayments since 2008 total £964,748. The biggest amount overpaid was £36,224. But the figures have more than halved since 2008.

Breckland Council said it did not keep a record of how much it paid by mistake. But since 2008 fraudsters took £585,491 and 49 people were taken to court by the authority.

At Waveney Council, 926 errors were made with housing benefit in 2011, resulting in £603,250 being overpaid. At Great Yarmouth Council, £459,731 was taken through fraud and 17 cases were brought before the courts.

North Norfolk Council has overpaid £1,767,440 since 2008 through fraud and mistakes.

All Norfolk councils said they were attempting to claw money back and were punishing false claims through courts, sanctions, warnings and fines.

But with fraud only accounting for a small fraction of the £23m, councils will have to target those who delay in disclosing changes to circumstances (such as changes to income or number of children) to combat the waste.

tom.bristow@archant.co.uk

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13 comments

"Sadly when the DWP and Norwich City Council look to recover this money if any has been paid as housing benefit and the Landlord has received it directly they will be requested to repay the money. Again this is an injustice when the Landlord is offering a service and they become the victim and have to repay any money received" Hi J M Property Services, I am concerned with the above. Are you saying that monies overpaid to the customer is recoverable from the landlord regardless? If a customer has a cic, is still resident, benefit is paid to landlord and overpayment is created, it is then recovered from customer via their entitlement (at a weekly deduction). If customer is not resident, benefit is paid to landlord, overpayment is created, then yes the lanlord is invoiced. Generally benefit is "deemed recoverable" from the customer regardless if benefit is paid to landlord. However it is dependant on reason for overpayment. I would like to assume the LA who created the overpayment is recovering from the correct person. Hope that helps

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The One

Sunday, January 1, 2012
"Despite informing the Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Coucil of my change in cercumstances several times over a 15 month period, they kept insisting i was still getting the correct entitlement. Then after having the correct info, after 18 months, they decided i had defrauded them and am now paying back more than i can afford to clear the overpayment. Maybe if they acted when they should have, i would not be in the predicament i am in now and i know of 3 other families they have done the same too. There are people out there who purposely make false claims but there are also families who hand over correct information that the coucil is very slow to act on then pass the blame onto the family." Hi viperman17, If indeed you did notify the LA (Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Coucil) within 1 calendar month of your cic and it took them over 18 months to reassess your entitlement, what you should have done is request a "reconsideration" (within 1 month of decision) or "late reconsideration" (outside the month) showing good cause for requesting it late. Your reasons should have been LA delay in processing your entitlement (pressumably you have proof of notification). Now all overpayments are "deemed recoverable" however it would be done to the customer to fight the decision as they are now put into financial hardship. 1 would argue, you should have been aware too much benefit ahs been overpaid and therefore monies should have been put aside. According to your comment, you were advised of "correct entitlement", thus how could you know if any monies iswas overpaid. There are a number of things to help with and overpayment (maybe ask for underlying entitlement - I will not go into the full scale of this as the staff there should be able to see if this is applicable). if not maybe consier submitting a "late recon" and follow the process through. There are 3 stages: - Recon, - Appeal, - Tribunal, It is always better (if you have the energy to go to tribunal as sometimes they will overturn a LA decision). Your rights of appeal should always be clearly marked on notification award letters (although some of them are horrendous and most assessment officers don't amend when they should to make it clear for the custoemr). Hope this helps. Sorry for any spelling mistakes. Good Luck

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The One

Sunday, January 1, 2012
Sadly when the DWP and Norwich City Council look to recover this money if any has been paid as housing benefit and the Landlord has received it directly they will be requested to repay the money. Again this is an injustice when the Landlord is offering a service and they become the victim and have to repay any money received.

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J M Property Services

Saturday, December 31, 2011
I wonder how many people can remember the time when there were no benefits available even in hard times such as the 2nd World War

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Albert Cooper

Saturday, December 31, 2011
Because, Hugh Jarse, i was informed on more than 8 occasions the information was correct and i was getting the right entitlement.

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viperman17

Friday, December 30, 2011
@Viperman - if you knew that you were being overpaid why didn't you put the money to one side in order to repay it when asked to?

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Dick Turnip

Friday, December 30, 2011
Despite informing the Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Coucil of my change in cercumstances several times over a 15 month period, they kept insisting i was still getting the correct entitlement. Then after having the correct info, after 18 months, they decided i had defrauded them and am now paying back more than i can afford to clear the overpayment. Maybe if they acted when they should have, i would not be in the predicament i am in now and i know of 3 other families they have done the same too. There are people out there who purposely make false claims but there are also families who hand over correct information that the coucil is very slow to act on then pass the blame onto the family.

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viperman17

Friday, December 30, 2011
All benefit fraud is a (despicable) crime that takes money away from some of the most vulnerable people in our society and make it more difficult for legitimate claimants to get their rightful benefits. It is NOT a victimless crime. That one Council has identified a significantly higher level of fraud than another is surely a ‘good’ rather than a ‘bad’ thing? The issue being that they have identified it, and will be taking action that might subsequently help recover it. The fact that another Council has identified a lower level of fraud doesn’t mean that the actually have a lower level of fraud, just that they have only identified what they have identified. Think about it. My understanding is that the fraud officers that works for LA’s are essentially ‘self funding’ in that the amount of fraud they identify, prevent and recover is significantly higher than the salary they receive for doing so. Keep up the good work.

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Jaguar

Friday, December 30, 2011
Cynical the way our council is run, I am sure Kermit and Miss Piggy are in charge. Odd the PR photos supplied to the EEN kind of also confirms this.

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chebram71

Friday, December 30, 2011
Why is it time & time again we are told that high salaries are needed to get the right quality of management in councils.Goodness knows how much money would have been mislaid if they employed normal people on sensible salaries.

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Cynical Bob

Friday, December 30, 2011
Typical yet again cause of the Norwich City Councils inability to do their job properly, the taxpayer foots the bill. There should be a vote of no confidence in our council and those at the top should be held to account. Alan Waters and Brenda Arthur always say what a good job the council is doing, really? What planet are they from? Both of them have no clue about how to run a council , if they did then they would have detected all these errors and made sure improvments were made. Due to staff cutbacks people have stated claims are still yet to be processed from August 2011. What a complete joke. So any legitimate claims where people have advised the council in their change of circumstances now, will not be adjusted till approx April 2012, hmmmm. NCC you are the weakest link, goodbye.

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chebram71

Friday, December 30, 2011
The scale of the fraud, especially in South Norfolk, is staggering. Four councils have not revealed the fraudulent element of their losses but it probably tots up to another £2m making a rough total of over £4million across Norfolk & Waveney. Hardly a "small fraction of the £23m" - getting on for 20%! It makes you wonder how much follow-up contact with claimants is being carried out. There will always be a percentage error rate and a level of delinquency on both sides but to let so many millions slip through the net is unforgivable. Councils have a fiduciary duty to all tax payers and necessitous people to rectify this urgently - one person's overpayment is another person's hardship. And they say this is a "low crime area". New definitions, please.

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JCW

Friday, December 30, 2011
The EDP should put benefit fraud and mistakes into perspective. It may have cost £23 million over the past four years but there is still between £12 BILLION and £18 BILLION in benefits EVERY YEAR not claimed because people do not know they are entitled to it. That’s around £18 billion that goes back into George Osborne’s kitty. Of course that will still provide no comfort for those who worryingly believe those on benefits caused the recession!

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Newsflash

Friday, December 30, 2011