can someone confirm that this letter is legit,has the legislation changed,if so could someone refer me to regs.You would need an army of officers to carry this out.


London Borough of

Payments and Benefits
S.M. Barry, B.H. (Hons)
Chief Payments and Benefits Officer
PO Box 1354
22-26 Clements Road
llford Essex IG1 1LF


E-mail: housing.benefits@redbridge.gov.uk
Web site: www.redbridge.gov.uk Please ask for: VF Team Your Ref: My Ref: 01268276 Date: 17 May 2005
Housing and Council Tax Benefit

It is now necessary to regularly visit the home of all persons receiving Housing and Council Tax Benefit to check that the details of your claim have not changed since you last completed a claim form.
I have arranged for a Visiting Officer to call on you on Thursday 2 June 2005. I am unable to give you a time due to the large number of visits carried out each day. If you would like to know the name of the Officer who is to call upon you, please contact this office on the above telephone number on the morning of the visit. Telephone lines are open from 8.30 a.m.
On the visit we need to see the following documents:
1. Two items of proof of your identity, such as a passport, Social Security Benefit payment book or utility bill (one proof needs to show your National Insurance Number),
2. Proof of your household income,
3. Proof of any bank or building society accounts you hold, (even if the accounts are overdrawn),
4. If you pay rent to a private landlord, you will also need to show an up to date rent account or current proof of your tenancy.
If you are not available at this time would you please contact this office on the above number to arrange another date. Please note that you need to be present at the visit.
All London Borough of Redbridge employees carry identification that displays their photograph. Do not allow anyone into your home that does not carry such a card. If you are not sure please contact this Office before allowing the person into your home.
For further details about sending us information, appeals and telling us about changes in your circumstances, please see the last page of this letter.


Yours Sincerely
Words
Louder}
(t \ \ \ •• ' Miss Puxley Administration Assistant
Awarded for excellence

no legislation - the verification framework is an admistrative measure, with the government's anti-fraud policy embedded in it.

pretty heavy, huh?

"It is now necessary..." probably refers to the _council's need_ to deliver on benefit savings targets in return for the subsidy payments it received from central government, but i expect most recipients thought there was a legal requirement upon themselves.

ironic really, when it is their honesty as citizens that is called into question, as a matter of blanket government policy.

visiting officers have no right of entry into people's homes btw.

the verification framework resulted in very many people being unlawfully deprived of their entitlement to benefit by the state acting through local government, (through the practice of setting cases to dead etc), until that practice was checked judicially. i don't expect there to be any figures on that.

a glance around this site reveals alarm that administrative obstacles will increasingly be placed in the way of poor and vulnerable people - again with the result that they are deprived of their legal entitlements to benefit, again through administrative measures, disengaged from the law.

the nature of public service has characteristics which the business ethic, imported and dominant in the last two decades, doesn't have a clue about, and cannot be expected to. there are values which cannot be expressed as sums on a balance sheet, but which if ignored, render purported economies false. public service always has been a precarious balancing act, needing skilled and subtle judgements. 'risk management' in public services is a particularly high risk concept, peoples lives are not 'product'. get the balance of interests wrong and it can result not only in public services up the swanee without a paddle, but constitutional crisis.

the problem is that government has what looks like a financial incentive in 'getting it wrong'. To introduce administrative obstacles with the motive of depriving people of their entitlement would of course be, in the words of esteemed commissioner, 'quite improper'. Not to be contemplated - except we have been dared to think the unthinkable, haven't we?

an army of officers?
sheesh!

When conducting a VF review by a home visit (which this appears to be), it is only necessary for the visiting officer to see evidence of any CHANGES that have occurred.

Therefore, they should not need to view evidence of income, capital etc.. which has previously been verified. It therefore seems excessive to require all of the proof listed.

If the claimant has had no changes at all to their claim, they should just be required to sign a declaration to this effect.

Paul
Although I agree with you, and that is how my LA operates also, the security manual does say that this a “minimum” requirement and LAs can choose to verify to a higher level.

Jeff

I was present at a recent home visit/verification interview and my client who has a shared ownership property was asked to provide her tenancy agreement. We tried explaining that she didn't have one as it was shared ownnership, showed him the paperwork which detailed what percentage she owned to no avail. He had HB frozen til we could get the Housing Association to write to him confirming that we told the truth!

public servants coming to your home and treating you as a liar, and unlawfully suspending your benefit...respect?

i saw another unlawfull suspension yesterday - home visit - client receives JSA - HB payments stopped until he sends his bank statement in as proof of JSA. Decision sent out on 17/5/05 formally advising him that his benefit had been 'ended' on 11/4/05. "The reason for my decision is that you have not provided the information I had previously requested and this information is necessary for me to calculate your entitlement to benefit."

This was sent out despite the fact that he had provided his bank statement on 25/4/05, and at least 2 e-mails had been sent from the neighbourhood office requesting re-instatement of his claim.

to make matters worse, his landlady complained to the Housing Department to say he hadn't paid his rent, although he may be in receipt of housing benefit. The private tenancy officer chose to write bringing to his attention his legal obligations as a tenant, with the possibilities of legal action by the landlord for possession of the property, the seeking of court costs - a minimum of £150, and an action to recover rent arrears with interest -ultimately losing the home and having a County Court judgement against him. It goes on to advise that the City Council can consider a tenant in rent arrears as intentionally homeless, and if such a decision is given, it will not re-house him.

it could very well have been intended to be helpful - it could have been a standard response, with little thought one way or another, but the effect on our client, who came from abroad, was to frighten him.

jj

I see that replies say that there is no legal right to a home visit - Please read commissioner's decision CH4390/03

The commissioner states that it is reasonable for the LA to visit the property and question the claimant and require the claimant to answer questions and sign a statement to show that there is a continuing entitlement to benefit.

It also confirms that there is no right for the visiting officer to enter the property but that a refusal to accept the visit is grounds for terminating HB/CTB

CH/4390/03 is available via www.hbinfo.org

"I see that replies say that there is no legal right to a home visit"

none of the replies said that.

i had read CH 4390/03 but it is well worth another read. it is quite a singular case in some respects, and the Commissioner states he would have refused leave if he had known the true position on the case.

the commissioner said -
"It is well within the bounds of reasonableness for an authority or the Secretary of State to require evidence and information to substantiate or confirm a person’s entitlement to be given not only by completing the normal printed forms but also from time to time in the form of a signed statement given in response to direct questions from a council or departmental officer at a home visit; supplemented if necessary by visual demonstration that the claimant is indeed continuing to occupy the property in a normal manner, and has not for example sub-let or parted with possession in a way that could prejudice their right to the benefit. As the tribunal correctly recorded, the authority has no right to insist on entry into a person’s home in this context, but that is a different question. Here the council had been at pains to assure the claimant and her husband more than once that it was not seeking any enforced entry, and the eventual interview after the tribunal hearing in fact took place at the claimant's door."

i think it's worth bearing in mind that the unrepresented Appellant, who put forward no real argument, was a CTB only claimant, who's benefit award was restored fully, after allowing a home visit conducted on her door-step. ( i had two of those, out of a few thousand visits in my visiting days. one was because of a fierce dog, scrabbling away behind the front door, rather than an objection to my visit. : ) )

it's fairly clear that there was a war of attrition over the visiting issue, at significant cost to the public purse, achieving very little. it should not have had to reach the commissioner, and one has to ask whether it could have been better handled.

the Commissioner refers to the couples' unhappiness with the means-test system, and i encountered this in my first visiting stint in the early 80's, involving a large element of take-up work in the job, among pensioners particularly. folk memories of the means-testing during the 1920s and 30s live long and loom large for some people, and the reasons the system became so discredited and hated is a matter of historical record.

equally sensitive, is the question of going into peoples' homes. to go into people's homes with the attitude that you have a _right_ to be there, and to question the claimant and require answers, may not be the best attitude. it risks causing great offence. this surely cannot be a public service objective?

imo,the words 'if necessary' are key words in the commissioner's decision. it would be interesting to know the incidence of CTB fraud figures involving occupancy and sub-letting, as opposed to income and capital, but there is no proper analysis published as far as i'm aware. it might enable a better judgement of how well 'if necessary' sits with blanket policy measures.

bearing in mind that CTB puts no money in a person's pocket, only their council tax account, and that the LA would have had a lot more information about the claimant than emerges in the CD, i wonder whether any real doubt about the couple's occupancy existed, so that their strong, but rare objections could not have been better accomodated, rather than the assertion of the authority's 'right' to visit.

but with respect, this strays from the point of the thread, which i think questions both the premise and the implications of fraud prevention as the _priority_ in providing a benefit service.

illegal suspensions of benefits are another matter...