The Business Support Manager presented the
report on the outcome of the Housing Benefit Grant Claim audit
undertaken by Grant Thornton to certify the Housing Benefit Subsidy
Claim for 2018-19.
The Housing Benefits team carried out over
56,000 assessments covering over £45.5m. Four errors were found in initial testing, which
resulted in a further 200 cases being tested. In carrying out the audit the auditors found a
99.91% accuracy rate, with errors causing a net effect of no
overall change to the value to the Council.
In response to the auditor’s findings
the Housing Benefits team were undertaking a review of all the
errors identified and reviewing all similar cases for the 2019/20
grant claim.
In response to questions it was noted that
although the report set out 4 errors found in 40 Housing Benefit
claims this was not a 10% error rate but much lower as there were
many interactions on each case. The majority
of errors were figures being transposed. The Committee requested that a note clarifying the
error rate calculation be included in future reports.
RESOLVED: That
1.
The findings of the Housing Benefit Grant Claim Audit undertaken by
Grant Thornton be noted; and
2.
The action plan proposed by the Revenues and Benefits Shared
Service to address errors identified through the audit process be
noted.