1 Profiling North West Leicestershire
14 The district is part of the county of Leicestershire and borders Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It is crossed by 2 major motorways, with East Midlands airport at their meeting point at the extreme north of the district. Its economy was based around farming and the clay and coal industries, suffering the loss of 10,000 jobs when coal mines closed. The district diversified into a range of alternative businesses, and tourism has become more important. The National Forest covers part of the district and the Forest Centre is now attracting increasing numbers of tourists.
15 There are some pockets of deprivation in parts of Coalville and Ashby and the district ranks 161st (out of 354) in terms of deprivation. Part of the district is designated as a Community Action Zone. The level of unemployment is currently 2.5%, which is lower than the average for England and Wales.
16 Within the population of 85,000 there are lower proportions of 0 to 4 year olds and of people in the 50 to retirement age group than elsewhere in the county and England as a whole. Less than 1% of the district population are from black or minority ethnic communities.
17 There are some areas with high levels of people on benefit, in debt and experiencing crime and truancy. The level of educational attainment and participation by young adults is at a low level, and the proportion of people who have literacy and numeracy problems is higher than average in 50% of wards. Some members of the population suffer from serious poor health, with significantly higher than expected mortality rates for people under the age of 75 in 6 wards in the south of the district. Life expectancy is on average lower for both men and women than in the county as a whole.
The council
18 The council changed its structure in 1999 to an Executive Board and 2 Scrutiny Boards. It has set up a Councillors’ BVR Panel. The council is Labour controlled and there are 31 Labour, 7 Conservative and 2 Independent Members.
19 The council’s vision is to:
‘improve the quality of life of all the people in North West Leicestershire by promoting; equality, democracy, community welfare, sustainable economic, social and environmental well-being and best value services’.
20 The council is organised into 3 directorates:
- Resources
- Development and Regeneration
- Community Welfare.
21 Each directorate is responsible for 2 service areas with separate management units for service delivery.
Housing Benefits in North West Leicestershire
22 The Benefits Service is based in the main council offices in Coalville. It deals with the administration of HB and CTB, which includes assessing claims, recovering overpayments and fraud investigation. Some overpayments are recovered separately by either the Sundry Debtors section or the Housing Department.
23 The Benefits Service is managed from within the Housing Service and is part of the Community Welfare Directorate.
24 Staff turnover is relatively high, although most staff move to other jobs within the council. The Benefits Service aims to address staff turnover by introducing generic working. However, this depends on a council-wide job evaluation review and will take some time to resolve.
25 North West Leicestershire has consistently delivered high standards of service to its customers in spite of staff turnover. The good performance has been difficult to maintain. Additional resources were needed to employ temporary staff to cover long term sickness of key staff and maternity leave.
26 Figure 1 shows the number of claimants North West Leicestershire supports, broken down by benefit type. In common with national trends the number of claimants has declined over the last 2 or 3 years. At the end of October 2001, North West Leicestershire had a total of 5,547 claimants.
| April 2001 | October 2001 | |
|
Rent Allowance (RA) (private landlords) |
551 |
486 |
|
RA (housing associations) |
854 |
824 |
|
RA (paid to appointees) |
11 |
3 |
|
|
April 2001 |
October 2001 |
|
Rent Rebate (RR) |
2,511 |
2,474 |
|
CTB only |
1,798 |
1,760 |
|
Total |
5,725 |
5,547 |
Source: North West Leicestershire
27 In 2000/01 North West Leicestershire paid out £10.4 million in HB and CTB. This figure has remained fairly constant over the past 3 years.
28 Figures 2 and 3 show the numbers of new and renewal claims since 1998.
| 1998/99 | 1999/2000 | 2000/01 | 2001/02* | |
| RA | 1,193 | 1,204 | 1,249 | 524 |
| RR | 1,312 | 1,208 | 1,100 | 558 |
| CTB | 3,076 | 3,000 | 2,740 | 1,280 |
| Total | 5,581 | 5,412 | 5,089 | 2,362 |
Source: North West Leicestershire * to 30 September 2001
| 1998/99 | 1999/2000 | 2000/01 | |
| Number issued | Not recorded | Not recorded | Not recorded |
| Number returned | 13,006 | 13,116 | 12,595 |
| Number awarded | 12,564 | 12,669 | 12,218 |
Source: North West Leicestershire
29 The Benefits Service employs 14 staff in its administration and counter fraud teams. Staff responsibilities for processing claims are allocated according to the parish the claimant lives in and each member of staff is responsible for a number of parishes. Different staff deal with RA and RR claims.
30 The counter fraud team has 2 staff, who also cover new claims visiting. It has successfully met its weekly benefit savings (WBS) thresholds for the past 3 years, and it is on track to achieve its target for 2001/02 as well. Figure 4 shows the activity of the counter fraud team since 1999.
| 1999/2000 | 2000/01 | 2001/02* | |
| Referrals received | 379 | 352 | 171 |
| Investigated | 302 | 267 | 131 |
| Fraud established | 133 | 133 | 54 |
| WBS claimed | 87 | 89 | 45 |
Source: North West Leicestershire * up to 30 September 2001 only
31 Figure 5 shows the number of HB overpayments that have been identified and recorded, broken down by type of tenure, by North West Leicestershire since 1999.
| 1999/2000 | 2000/01 | 2001/02* | |
| RR (number) | £116,188 (1,941) | £157,462 (1,741) | £148,011 (887) |
| RA (number) | £105,451 (1,496) | £132,375 (1,461) | £92,733 (628) |
Source: North West Leicestershire * up to 30 September 2001 only