It has been reported in the Hendon Times that there are significant problems the headline was “More than 8,000 Barnet residents hit by council tax administration errors”
“THOUSANDS of council tax forms have been sent out without vital payment details, while thousands more have been sent duplicate bills, in the latest administrative blunder to hit Barnet Council.
Read whole article here
“How could this happen to what has been previously reported as a low cost high performing service?”
Barnet council have had to undergo major change in its revenues and benefits department. A company supplying the revenues and benefits system that was used by the council was purchased by a larger distributor (Northgate). Northgate decided that they where no longer going to fund the system that the council were using. This left the council no choice but to seek an alternative.
The council went through an extensive tendering process and the company that was chosen stated that they would be able to supply a match to what was already in place. The company “Civica” who supply services to a number of councils, one of those councils being Camden, was then chosen as they had indicated that the requirements of the revenue and benefits sector would be met.
From day one since Civica taken the reins the project has been flooded with problems. Civica are required to supply the hosting, software, scanning and mail opening.
The handover of the project was on in December 2010 and the system was due to be back up beginning of February. When in fact it took a month longer than they stated it would take. This might have been due to the fact they did not upgrade their servers, which resulted in a major disruption of the service.
Mail scanning has been disastrous with documents and emails not being scanned in to the system, which has resulted in further delays.
The software has not been fully compatible with data already held we understand that Civica’s response is that those areas are an added extra and the Council will need to pay more.
The situation has been worsened as benefit claims have not converted over to the new financial year, which has left benefit assessors in a nightmare situation of having to totally reassess those claims. The benefit department has been inundated with phones calls from disgruntled members of the public regarding the fact that their benefit has not been assessed.
Barnet Council have penalised Civica for their failure to meet the contract that was set out. Revenues and Benefits staff are hard at work actively seeking work a rounds for the current problems in order to give the public the service that they require.
These problems will continue to run into the months ahead and the revenues and benefit staff are clearly trying to manage with what they have now been given. It is just another clear sign that the private sectors just do not care about the public and are only interested in money.
All the above has been identified in the Corporate Risk Register which you can view on the Council web site here
Go to Appendix 11 and scroll down to ORG0014 – Financial
Risk: new revenues and benefits systems will not be in place with effect April 2011 to collect taxes and administer benefits.
Cause: Current supplier of Revs & Bens IT taken over by third party. Third party are desupporting the existing system with effect from January 2011 forcing all current users to source new systems.
Consequence: Go-live has been delayed on 2 occasions due to IT hosting and the required quality criteria for data conversions. Current golive mid February 2011. Level of debt and benefit administered within the affected
This is a service that has been pushed into a Future Shape/One Barnet Project for privatisation.
The options appraisal for this decision was made at Cabinet Resources Committee 2 March.
Barnet UNISON’s critique of the options appraisal made the following comments with regards Revs & Bens
“There are massive legislative changes about to be made by the current government especially in relation to all benefits, which are to be replaced by a universal benefit. Under these circumstances it is premature to include Revenue and Benefits in this project. Their inclusion gives the impression that they have been included to create a desirable contract package rather than the needs of Barnet residents.
Further, Revenue & Benefits is currently implementing a new ICT system. This service is high performing low cost. Any attempt to impose the CSO model and therefore its breakup would be a high-risk to performance and cost
The poor track record of the outsourcing of this service in London, for example, Hackney, Ealing and Southwark and nationally where this service has been returned to in-house operation. Where strategic partnerships have taken over Revenue and Benefits these have generally been high performing service before they were outsourced. In addition, government review of the benefits system could lead to this service being nationalised. This is another reason why it should be excluded from the project.”
Response from the Council to these concerns were
“Whilst these are high performing services, there is potential to reduce costs and improve performance which the options appraisal identifies can best be delivered through the procurement of a strategic partner to deliver these services. For Revenues and Benefits there are also benefits that can be realised by delivering this service closely with Customer Services”
The One Barnet programme (OBP) has three principles
· a new relationship with citizens;
· a one public sector approach; and
· a relentless drive for efficiency.
Perhaps there should be fourth principle adding?
“A relentless drive to ignore and/or discount any criticism of the OBP”
