Council beats benefits turnaround time record
April 10, 2008 10:09 PM
Liberal Democrat Executive Member for Corporate Services, Cllr Ceredig Jamieson-Ball, will announce at this evening's Full Council meeting that the Council's benefits section has set a new record turnaround time for processing benefits claims.
The Council receives over 500 new benefits claims a month, most of them for council tax and housing benefits. The benefits team are now achieving a new record time for processing these claims: between April 2007 and March 2008 it took an average of 29 days to process the claims.
This time beats both the Council's own target of 32 days and the national standard of 30 days, and is the fastest average processing time ever achieved by the Council.
The benefits team also process on average over 1,500 change of circumstance claims a month, required whenever, for example, and existing claimant gets a new job or moves house. They are now processing these claims at a faster rate, averaging 13 days, which beats last year's performance of 15 days and their target of 14 days.
The Council's success in this area has been independently recognised by the District Auditor who recently acknowledged that the benefits section has shown significant improvement in its performance over recent years.
Cllr Jamieson-Ball is delighted with this new record. He will say : "I would like to congratulate and thank all the staff involved in turning around a service that, four years ago, was taking some 73 days to process new benefits claims."
"For York residents who claim benefits this will mean that they can expect a better service from the Council in providing them with the help that they need
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