Voluntary sector and SSA team up to tackle underclaiming

Citizens Advice and Advice NI have been involved in benefit take up projects on contract from the Social Security Agency. Barry McVeigh, Specialist Support Officer at Citizens Advice, and Kevin Higgins, Head of Policy and Research at Advice NI, explain their respective organisations’ role in the exercises and draw positive initial conclusions from feedback received.

Citizens Advice - The potential to transform the way poverty is tackled

Tackling poverty is a key issue for government in Northern Ireland. In recognition of this the Social Security Agency (SSA), embarked on a number of proactive programmes to increase the uptake of benefits in four key areas; over 75s not in receipt of Attendance Allowance, Disability and Carers, Females and Geographical location. All four exercises were put out to tender and Citizens Advice was successfully awarded three out of the four exercises with the geographical exercise being contracted to Advice NI.

The exercises involved the Social Security Agency writing to a total of 17,000 customers under the categories of: Pensioners over 75 (2,500), Disability and Carers (2,500) and Females (12,000). The letters invited the recipients to contact a dedicated CAB benefit uptake telephone number where clients were registered on a database and referred to their local CAB for a confidential holistic assessment of what additional benefits they may be entitled to, information on the Government’s Warm Homes Scheme and entitlement to Housing Benefit for rent or rates.

Although the results of the exercises have not yet been finalised, some trends can be observed from the interim data. The initial response by clients in the Attendance Allowance and Disability and Carers exercises was encouraging with over a quarter of all clients requesting a benefits check. For those clients who did not respond to the initial letters, reminder letters or phone calls were sent or made. This follow up work resulted in an increase to almost a half of all clients targeted requesting a benefits check.

Feedback on the project from bureaux staff and clients has been positive. In one case a client (Mrs X) contacted the helpline under the Females exercise. The case was referred to North Down CAB. Mr and Mrs X were 89 years old and in their words, ‘managing’. Mr X was in receipt of Attendance Allowance and both were in receipt of State Pension and a small Occupational Pension. The adviser carried out a comprehensive benefits check and identified entitlement to Attendance Allowance for Mrs X, entitlement to Pension Credit for both including additional amounts because of their disability and caring responsibilities. They will also be entitled to full help with their rates bill. Their weekly income will go up by a substantial amount and arrears of Pension Credit will be payable for 52 weeks. Both clients were delighted that they contacted the CAB for a benefits check.

The above is only one of the many examples of holistic advice and benefits claimed as a result of the project. It is difficult to pinpoint why so many people do not claim benefits to which they are entitled. However, factors such as ignorance of entitlement to benefits, the stigma around claiming benefits, increased publicity around fraud and benefit cheats and the complexities of the benefits system may all contribute to this issue. It is too soon to tell how many benefit claims have made on behalf of clients and more importantly, how many claims were successful. However, this information will be tracked by DSD statisticians and assessed against the aims and objectives of the project.

While contracts with the voluntary sector are new territory for the SSA, the Agency has accepted that the terms of its contracts in 2006 did not comply with the government commitment to full cost recovery for the voluntary sector as outlined in Improving Financial Relationships with the Third Sector{footnote}www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/485/B9/guidncefunders1505061v1.pdf{/footnote} and the Positive Steps{footnote}www.dsdni.gov.uk/publications/documents/Positive_Steps.pdf{/footnote} document - the official response to the Taskforce on the Voluntary Sector. Citizens Advice has made representations about this and the issue should be addressed both in respect of the 2006 contracts and in future contracts.

The SSA’s proactive campaign has its origins in the direct interest of the DSD Minister David Hanson in maximising benefit uptake. Citizens Advice has welcomed the SSA’s engagement with the voluntary advice sector via contracts to take this work forward. The intelligent use of the SSA’s own databases combined with the skills and knowledge of the advice sector introduces the mixed economy of provision which CAB has been advocating for some years. If properly developed, we believe that this approach has both the potential to place the SSA at the centre of the debate about poverty in Northern Ireland, and to transform the way that poverty in Northern Ireland is tackled.

Advice NI - A valuable piece of work which needs to be built upon

Advice NI successfully tendered to carry out the following SSA-related benefit uptake activity.

The client base (3,284) was pensioners across the 100 most deprived areas in Northern Ireland, both rural and urban. The client base was in receipt of Retirement Pension but not Pension Credit. In the first instance, entitlement to Pension Credit was investigated, but all benefits and services of the Social Security Agency were addressed as part of a full benefit assessment. In addition, the assessment also addressed eligibility to Housing Benefit and the Warmer Homes scheme.

In the tendering process, Advice NI highlighted that Advice NI membership is Northern Ireland wide (over 70 local generalist advice centres servicing local deprived areas and specialist providers servicing particular social groups including older people). It was also highlighted that independent advice centres are based in areas of need, at the coal face in terms of targeting need and as such there was a good ‘fit’ between SSA service requirements and Advice NI service provision.

Over a period of two weeks from 5 June to 16 June 2006, the Agency issued letters to 3,284 clients advising them to contact a Freephone Benefit Hotline number to arrange for a full benefit assessment. Clients who did not respond to the initial letter had follow-up contact from the SSA by way of a telephone call or a reminder letter.

Advice NI co-ordinated the exercise taking calls via the Freephone Benefit Hotline. Client details were then passed to the most appropriate service provider to conduct a complete benefit assessment. The exercise continued over a four month period, with final returns submitted to SSA on Friday 6 October. The Agency is currently evaluating the impact of this exercise in terms of benefit claims made.

On completion of the exercise, Advice NI has initiated an internal evaluation of the benefit uptake activity. This evaluation is ongoing but already some trends are emerging as regards issues arising.

Benefit uptake

Advice NI and its members are committed to targeting social need – servicing deprived local areas and people within particular social interest groups. From this perspective we welcome the opportunity to be involved in SSA’s benefit uptake activity and have contributed positively both in terms of pilot activity in 2005 and the ‘100 most deprived wards’ tender in 2006. We feel that this is a valuable piece of work; that it involves a partnership approach which has the client at its heart and that outcomes to date suggest that this is the correct approach to take for clients who are particular vulnerable and ‘hard to reach’. This is further evidenced by Advice NI’s engagement in the 2005 benefit uptake activity which generated almost £1million in additional benefits for targeted clients.

Advice NI advocates that this activity continues so that people receive their full benefit entitlements and because people’s circumstances change over time and ongoing follow up is needed to ensure that they continue to receive their full entitlement.

Remuneration

The remuneration package was the subject of much discussion. The package for the 2006 benefit uptake activity was a flat rate of £17 per targeted client who came forward and in the case of a couple an additional flat rate payment of £11 per response received from a non targeted partner of a client targeted in the benefit uptake exercise.

Advice NI’s internal evaluation of the benefit uptake activity employed a Full Cost Recovery analysis to the exercise and on this basis Advice NI would advocate that in future the Agency remunerate based on a Full Cost Recovery model which factors in all aspects of the benefit uptake work including: time taken per enquiry; telephone calls made on behalf of clients; postage costs; administration, supervision and management costs. In particular, the Agency needs to consider that many targeted clients need the service to be provided by way of home visits, therefore travel costs need to be built into the remuneration package.

In addition, account needs to be taken of the fact that benefit uptake clients required additional, non-SSA advice and assistance. This was reflected in the 2005 pilot as ‘tolerance’ activity and Advice NI would argue that this additional workload be reflected in the remuneration package.

Methodology

A number of suggestions have been made with a view to improving the benefit uptake methodology including: introducing rolling year-round benefit uptake activity; reviewing the timescales for issuing letters to targeted clients; reviewing the SSA practice of telephoning targeted clients who did not respond to the initial benefit uptake letter; and the need to have associated publicity in order to ‘prepare the ground’ for the benefit uptake activity.

Advice NI would also advocate that the Agency consider adopting other innovative methodologies in order to target the most hard to reach, in particular enabling advice providers to undertake their own benefit uptake activities.

Conclusion

The exercises have shown the potential of joint working between the voluntary advice sector and the Social Security Agency to tackle benefits under claiming. It is to be hoped that the Agency will further develop this and other methods of working with voluntary advice agencies to transform the way poverty is tackled in Northern Ireland.