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Housing Benefit policy

Published: 15/07/2014

Delays in claiming for housing benefit could be avoided if a new policy is approved at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday (15 July). The current application process for housing benefit requires claimants to provide various documents for verification purposes. In many cases not all items are received resulting in delays to the payment of Housing benefit. The Risk Based Verification (RBV) Policy will specify how Flintshire County Council’s benefit service will operate the RBV solution and to specify the factors and processes that need to be followed to maximise its effectiveness. RBV is a proven process agreed by the Department of Work and Pensions which allows a targeted approach to the verification of benefit claims with each application being assessed for the probability of deception. RBV is a method of applying different levels of verification checks to benefit claims according to the predicted risk associated with those claims. Local Authorities adopting RBV will still require all claimants to comply with legislation and low risk claimants must be able to provide National Insurance documents and evidence of identity. A more extensive verification activity is required on those claims predicted to be at greater risk of fraud and error. Councillor Billy Mullin, Cabinet Member for Corporate Management said: “By adopting this policy we can improve and speed up the process by which housing benefit is provided to Flintshire residents who require this support.”