Revenues and benefits services (managed services)

We are a market leader in the delivery of fully managed revenues and benefits services, billing and collecting council tax and business rates and assessing and paying housing and council tax benefits.

Key facets of the service:
The revenues and benefits service offering includes:

Assessment of housing and council tax benefit
Billing and collection of council tax and business rates
Recovery and enforcement
Recovery of housing benefit overpayments
Dealing with all customer enquiries both on the telephone and at the offices
Preparation of statistical and financial returns
Administration of systems
Property inspection

Office locations the service is provided from:
Middlesbrough Council – Middlesbrough House
Milton KeynesCouncil – Civic Offices
Oldham Council – Civic Centre
Bournemouth Council – Town Hall

Key contacts:
Kara Haycocks
Revenues & Benefits Service Architect
Telephone: 01642 727 600
Mobile: 07769 930 954
Email: Kara.Haycocks@mouchel-middlesbrough.com

Examples of recent projects:

Training
Our Milton Keynes office has gone through a large amount of recruitment in recent years caused by both the growth of the town and the economic downturn leading to a rapid increase in benefits claimants. Additionally we have had difficulty recruiting suitably experienced Benefit Advisors with the appropriate customer facing skills. This has meant a system needed to be put into place which could cope with regular recruitment and training of new recruits whilst being able to give them the skills to start handling real customer demand as quickly as possible.

We recruit candidates who demonstrate the appropriate ‘can do’ attitude but with no previous Housing Benefit experience. A new three-month induction training programme has been introduced comprising 6 weeks intensive class room based training followed by 6 weeks when the trainee starts to process claims of all types supported by a buddy. We have taken 3 groups of trainees through this process and it has proved very beneficial - our retention rate is 100%
Take up Activity
The revenues and benefits team in Oldham are working closely with Staff from Oldham Council to promote take up across all residents of the Borough. The Benefits section contributes towards the achievement of the Council’s corporate objectives and priorities as outlined in the Corporate Plan 2009 – 2013 by providing high quality services. With an aim to promote financial and social inclusion whilst embracing the diversity of people and communities by maximising customers’ income through benefit take – up campaigns.

This plan will contribute to the achievement of the following aims and objectives:

The key priority of Financial Inclusion contained in the Oldham Partnership’s Anti Poverty Strategy;
The aim to “reduce the number of children living in poverty by 25%” contained in Oldham’s Community Strategy;
The priority to close “the gap between the average weekly income in Oldham per individual and the Greater Manchester rate by 50%” contained in Oldham’s Community Strategy;

In 2009 / 10 an extra £128,000 Housing Benefit and £65,000 Council Tax Benefit was awarded. So far in 2010 / 11 an extra £194,000 Housing Benefit and £62,000 Council Tax benefit has been awarded.

Housing Benefit Overpayments
In Middlesbrough the housing benefit overpayment team where concerned about the level of overpayment recovery. A series of improvement activities have taken place including:
Revising Invoices – a colour coding system was introduced (green for invoice, amber for reminder and red for final demand). And introduction of bar codes to allow easier payment methods for customers using paypoint facilities or the councils cashiering service
A new ‘Overpayments of Benefit’ leaflet was produced which is available on the web, in the office and is issued with all invoices.
Improving payment options by introducing online payments (via the Middlesbrough Council website), ability to pay in shops through paypoint, payment by credit card (following agreement from Middlesbrough Council), touchtone payment by telephone as a 24 /7 automated process.Debt Recovery Improvements
Improved case monitoring – regular checks on all debt (aged & current). Regular checks on debts deemed to be untraceable.
Improved performance monitoring – calculating performance at team and individual level, monitoring bailiff performance, improved forecasting activity.
Introducing proactive outbound calling which means a cold call at invoice, reminder, final notice and debt enforcement stages to try and encourage payments.

As a result overpayment recovery has increased by 10% in 2 years.