Minister champions poverty reduction measures

Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform, Stephen Timms, outlined the importance of getting people into work to reduce poverty. “2008 shows a drastic improvement, with 75% now working”, he said, “but there is still room for improvement”. The Minister highlighted the current challenges, include the credit crunch and the increase in food and energy costs. He also outlined the Prime Minister’s vision ‘to act with fairness’. From the green paper in July, Stephen stated that “no-one is written off” – millions was now being invested in the ‘pathways to work’ programme, set to help everyone, particulalrly ethnic minorities and people of 50 years and over.

Stephen added that Jobcentre Plus now work with local employment partnerships and employers, targeting 250,000 to move into employment by 2010. “Housing Benefit has a crucial role here”, he added. “Alistair Darling has outlined that Welfare right should be defended as should the responsibilities that go with them”, in his comprehensive review of ‘People of working age’. Lessons have been learnt from LHA implementation, and November sees the new ‘in and out of work’ processes starting to be rolled out nationally, together with a new electronic service for claims, improving connection to local authorities, the Minister concluded.  

Stephen Timms and Bob Trahern take time out for a photocall with ‘in and out of work’ pilot Lambeth Council  

IRRV President Bob Trahern celebrates success!

World class in-year collection performance was trumpeted by IRRV President Bob Trahern, as he presented his keynote opening presentation at this year’s Annual Conference in Manchester.  Bob warned that the credit crunch may see some falling collection rates in the future, but he urged delegates to celebrate their success, with benefits administration included too – “local authorities are confirmed as the best performing in benefits work” he stated.

Bob outlined the need for new taxes, particularly in areas such as traffic management and green issues. 

The IRRV’s future was bright, too, said Bob.  Leading edge involvement in Northern Ireland on the new rating system there, and many other initiatives respected by government, ensured the Institute’s high profile.  A tightening of belts was still necessary in the current financial situation, though, with the need to demonstrate value for money and the modernisation of qualifications cited as key as he concluded the event’s opening session. 

Welfare Reform and the DWP agenda

Paul Howarth, Head of Housing Benefit Strategy Division for the DWP, recognised that Housing Benefit was a successful welfare reform, with improved performance at local authorities giving customers the confidence that their move back to work would mean changes would be dealt with quickly.

These improvements link into how authorities can play a part in the wider reforms planned by government in order, to help people return to and stay in employment. Paul made it clear that if people go back to work then the government is willing to help them, also aiming to provide tools for the disabled to be independent – all summarised as “Capability, Contribution and Control”. 

The message was clear - further streamlining of the HB system would be required for the government to meet their targets. The challenge was laid down to all authorities to play their part in the future of welfare reforms, looking at further simplification, local empowerment and support, personalisation and partnership, whilst ensuring responsibility towards our citizens.

Could change be on its way again? I’m sure we will cope!

Gerald Ratner says the key to success is handling failure

Gerald Ratner, former Chief Executive of the Ratners group, set the scene for his presentation by showing a clip of his “infamous” speech. He then went on to entertain the audience with the tale of his return to business glory.

His road to recovery began with his idea to sell memberships to a health club before he had even built it, and ended with the success of “geraldonline”, his on line jewellery store, which is now the largest in its sector. On his remarkable journey, he also learnt the benefit of positive spin (with a little help from Max Clifford), a lesson he wish he’d learnt in the 90’s!

Underlying all of this was his message on perseverance, and that “the key to success is the way that you deal with failure”. His latest venture is a “Kitchen Nightmares” type program on Sky where he will go into failing businesses and help turn them around.

When asked what he would do if it all goes wrong again, his reply, in typical Ratner style was ”I’ll just start again”!

Going for Gold – Running a successful organisation (David Moorcroft MBE/OBE) 

David Moorcroft gave an inspiring speech drawing on the world of sport to explain his analogy of running a successful organisation. Using video footage, he painted a picture through positive and negative experiences of national athletes. 
Drawing on his own experience, he considered the three stages of his career. First as an athlete with ambition and drive, explaining, “the summit of our life is based around dreams”. Second, as a commentator, reflecting on learning the importance of apologising and realising how fortunate he was to participate in the world he loves. And finally as director of a governing body, he now understands how great leadership and interdependency is crucial to success. He explained how Sebastian Coe’s inspirational leadership secured the Olympic bid, and after winning two Olympic Gold medals, how Kelly Holmes gave everyone back in the office a copy of her book, signed ‘thank you for making my Olympic dream come true’ - an acknowledgement of the whole team.
Finally he paid tribute to Jason Lezak, whose performance of a lifetime in the final leg of this year’s swimming relay in Beijing gave Michael Phelps his eighth Gold medal, securing him as the most successful Olympic champion of all times.

Social policy and the credit crunch – the impact

Peter Tutton, Social Policy Officer with Citizens Advice, warned that the future is looking bleak for local authorities as the implications of the credit crunch look set to impact on collection rates. “A rising number of customers are seeking debt advice with the CAB for priority debts”, he stated, including council tax, and forecasts for the increase in CTAX debt are 11-14% up on previous years

The key message from the Peter was that no-one can really predict what will happen as we go into uncharted waters, with a combination of recession and heavy personal debt, a result of the ease with which finance was available in the recent past. “It is also possible that low income and vulnerable groups could be most affected”, he added. 

Peter pointed out that everyone should work together with CAB and recovery agencies in order to not over burden a possibly already overstretched customer. He urged delegates to contact their local CAB soon, so that best practice in this area can be rolled out.

The changing face of enforcement

James Earp and Kristina Kicks from Grant Thornton launched their joint presentation with some statistics highlighting the level of change in the use of insolvency since the 1980s.  They outlined the new principle of ‘business rescue’, and the effect of the loss if preferential creditor status for HMRC.

“There’s no longer any incentive for banks to drive the insolvency process”, James stated, pointing to the extended trading administrations that are now largely a thing of the past.  James continued by illustrating that a large part of an insolvency practitioner’s work is now involved in fraud detection. 

Kristina offered a series of fascinating tales involving forensic work and other new initiatives for her industry.  She detailed her armoury, which included the ‘freezing’ of assets and search orders.  James concluded that restraint orders could be a useful tool in the revenues collection environment.

First pilots speak of their Audit Commission inspection experience

Introduced by the Commission’s Tim Savill, Martin Stubbs and David Keppler from Bradford and Merton councils gave a useful insight into their pilot inspections from the Audit Commission, showing delegates that customer engagement is key to a successful visit. “Get ready for some hard work” they exclaimed”, warning that the new inspection regime is resource intensive, providing yet another conflict with “doing the day job”. 

Despite 93% of authorities ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ when assessed against the Performance Standards framework, KLOEs offer authorities a different challenge, with planned outcomes for the benefit of the community needing to be evidenced, and scores likely to be lower. It is clear that a tick in the box is not enough, and actively aiming to improve the service is critical.

Both speakers urged the audience to check out the new web tool launched by the Audit Commission, which gives further insight from pilots keen to share their learning, and can help embed KLOE’s into service planning for the future.

Bacs Managing Director uses IRRV to praise local authorities… 

…for taking up a number of new collection initiatives introduced by his organisation. But he also advised them that much more can be done to improve the efficiency of revenue collection processes.

During his presentation, Michael Chambers outlined proposed changes to Bacs that will take place in 2009, involving the removal of paper from some key administrative processes - his holy grail being “straight through processing”. 

Michael also outlined the help already available on the Bacs website, ensuring delegates knew where to download information to improve the collection of council tax bills and cut the number of unpaid Direct Debits they are dealing with.

He encouraged councils still not using the Automated Direct Debit Instruction Service (AUDDIS) to adopt it in the future and presented some interesting statistics on the use of Direct Debit in the sector: current usage levels stand at 65% penetration versus 61% in the energy supply industry and 42% in the car insurance sector. 

The Bacs MD also urged local authorities to use targeting to improve Direct Debit penetration, reminding them they can get a free “health check” from Bacs and that a data mining tool is available to help improve take up alongside numerous best practice case studies.

IRRV’s Messenger scrutinises empty rate changes

IRRV Past President and Valuation Faculty Chair Roger Messenger took a critical look at the new empty rate changes, stating, “rates used to tax occupation, but the empty rates charges change all this! It’s not about equity, it’s about revenue raising”.  Roger pointed to the growing number of MPs calling for change, also highlighting the changed definitions of such hardy annuals as “relevant hereditament”, qualifying industrial hereditament” and “retail hereditament”.  In his view, the level of knowledge about what qualifies as a hereditament is quite poor.

The key valuation issues teased out by Roger were redundancy, obsolescence, repairs, occupation, liability, section 44a, the ‘six week rule’ and charities.  There could also be issues in respect of retrospective changes, he said.  The rising tide of developers demolishing buildings to avoid empty charges is already very evident, Roger concluded, and his final advice to local authority practitioners was to avoid bad advice and ensure that hey were not paying full empty charges on their own property. 

VOA Chief Andrew Hudson describes the valuation service of 2010 and beyond

Valuation Office Agency Chief Executive Andrew Hudson delivered a fascinating paper which aimed to give delegates a glimpse of the future, though his vision of the “achieving world class”.

He began by identifying the drivers for modernisation – customers becoming more demanding, value for money, and technological advance.  The VOA programme involved major restructuring, with the emphasis on specialisation, the ‘right first time’ initiative, and the world class vision.  Andrew went on to state that these changes would be achieved byInvestment in the workforce (one in ten are now studying for a professional qualification);

1. Developing new processes;
   
2. Being open and accessible;
   
3. Working effectively with partners;
   
4. Delivering value for money;
   
5. Reducing the impact on the environment and supporting local communities.

Andrew’s entertaining and informative presentation concluded with a look at some of the advances on the horizon, and the next raft of challenges facing the VOA.

Graham Cadle urges delegates to “go that extra mile”!

Customers no longer just expect an excellent level of service from their authority, but one that goes the extra mile, Graham Cadle, Croydon’s Customer Services chief asserted.  Croydon’s vision for online service delivery presented at conference last year proved to be an inspired choice, with councils now tackling the avoidable contact indicator. 

Integration of the Revenues and Benefits back office systems were key to achieving a 10-12% take up of online services, as well as realising the savings shown in the business plan.  “One year on, has it delivered and what are the next steps?”, Graham asked.

Service usage has gradually increased, although only 60% of people who have registered are active users, whilst highest demand has been around main billing, reducing pressure on the call centre.  Welfare agencies and RSL take-up is good but more work by staff to promote the service to customers is required. With significant savings already made, the plans for further integration, analysis of usage and the potential for all council services to be brought on board makes this project definitely one to keep an eye on.    

Delivering the Varney Vision though ‘Tell Us Once’

Diane Leggo, Programme Manager for the DWP’s “Tell Us Once” project tolf of her task to complete the business case of the Pathfinder Project   The aim is to transform access to registrar services from the citizen’s point of view.  The intention, she said, is not to create a “shiny new department”, but to work with individual departments and local authorities.

The main challenges are breaking down barriers, particularly in the areas of data sharing and timescales, and “making this a reality”.  Drawing on the 2006 Varney report, the project brings together local government and central government agencies, to join up “islands of government” to secure the vision.  Lessons learnt from the pilots already show co-operation in helping citizens beyond the registrar service, picking up on fraud issues, for example. 

‘Put complaints at the heart of customer care”, says Local Government Ombudsman

Chairman and Chief Executive of the Commission for Local Administration in England, Tony Redmond, delivered a thought-provoking paper on complaints issues, highlighting the need for local authorities to provide accessible, transparent processes.  Tony explained that he was “a huge fan of delegating complaint resolution to the lowest level”, pointing to proposals for ‘instant redress’ procedures as a possible future solution.

Tony identified delay as the number one reason for complaints, and pointed to new investigation powers relating to ‘fault without injustice’ and ‘own initiative’ investigations that would add to the powers of his organisation.

Tony concluded with a powerful message for delegates – they should ensure that they see the value in lessons learnt from previous complaints and act on them to avoid recurrence.

Birmingham Chief Executive Hughes calls for authorities to “do it right”!

Birmingham City Council Chief Executive Stephen Hughes’ message, following an upbeat video introduction highlighting the city’s attributes, called for delegates to recognise that the time was right for local government to take forward public policy.  Pointing to the many and diverse initiatives seized within his own area, Stephen challenged the audience to “do it right now” – agree common objectives, share and align resources, share data….and defend better outcomes, not insular service-specific objectives.

In his list of challenges for the future, Stephen pointed to the opportunity to lead, the will to deliver, outcome planning, and the challenging of traditional barriers as key to future successes in local government.   

MP David Borrow calls for “local government, not local administration”!

South Ribble MP and IRRV member David Borrow delivered a personal message to delegates, as he presented his views on the state of local government today.  “Gearing has strangled local finances”, he said, building on his vast former experience as a council leader and former finance chairman.  David’s key messages were for staff and members to share his belief in “local government, not local administration”, with local authorities taking greater control of their own finances.

David’s personal ‘wish list’ warmed the hearts of delegates when he called for an early domestic revaluation, as he warned of the damage the credibility of the existing finance regime if it didn’t happen.  His views on the structure of local government were of a future for unitary councils only, which he claimed was the only structure that the centre really understood!

IRRV Conference team can be contacted by email conference@irrv.org.uk or telephone 020 7438 1040.