Benefits - Our service to you

What we will do for you - Gravesham Borough Council is committed to improving the quality, accessibility and efficiency of the Benefits Service to make sure that it provides value for money and meets the needs of our customers.

The council's Corporate Plan 2008-2011 (Goal Six Transformation) has more details about this and the Corporate Plan 2008-2011 link will take you straight to the page that will explain our aims in more detail.

The council also has a Customer Service and Access Strategy 2009 - 2012 which explains what we hope to achieve by listening to the people who live and work in the borough.

We aim to deliver a service which will play an important role in helping people find quality and affordable housing, in helping to give them more choice and in achieving social inclusion by alleviating poverty, preventing homelessness and reducing barriers to work.

We aim to ensure that Housing Benefit, Local Housing Allowance and Council Tax Benefit are available to all members of the community.

We will check with those who use the service so that we can set our standards around their needs, wherever possible.

What can you expect from us?

What we do
We have a responsibility to pay the right benefits to the right people at the right time.

How quickly are we assessing new claims and changes of circumstances?
The time taken is the number of calendar days (including weekends and public holidays) from when we were first notified that a claim was being made, to the date it was assessed and completed.

Customer Service
We provide a Fast Track service to customers by staff trained in Benefits that guarantees to process complete new application forms within 48 hours providing that we have all the supporting documentation. We are currently processing these claims in an average of 1.6 days.

We work with our Homeless Section to provide a dedicated officer enabling a fast track service to their customers.

Information leaflets and application forms are available free to anyone in the Borough: if you need something in another language or format please ask.

Benefits Take Up
We work with the Pension Service to make sure that people who may be entitled to Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit are able to get the help they need.

We work with the Kent Benefits Partnership which aims to make sure that everyone who is entitled to benefit knows how it can be claimed. The Partnership does this through advertising campaigns, by mail shot, being at local advice surgeries as well as using their own information to target different areas of the borough where they feel people may be entitled to benefit of some kind.

Engagement and Consultation
We engage with community organisations through attending the Dartford & Gravesham Area Advice Forum, the Dartford & Gravesham Landlord Forum and we host a Vulnerable Clients Forum.

We consult with the public through the council's own Citizen's Panel, through our own contacts with those who are already getting help and through organisations who are in touch with people getting help (such as Citizens Advice Bureau - CAB Advice Guide ).

We send out questionnaires and surveys to customers who have used our service to get feedback on where we can improve.

Partnership Working
During 2008-9 we have worked in partnership with Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council to deliver our Fraud and Visiting Services. This demonstrates that our approach to improving services and reducing costs will include other ways of working.

We are part of the Kent Benefits Partnership which is funded by the Kent Authorities to do 'Take Up Work' across Kent, provide training to our staff and to support the KCC initiative Backing Kent People which is supporting our community through the recession.

Fraud
We aim to reduce fraud and error in the benefits system by having strong measures to deter, detect and investigate fraud and by taking a firm approach to punishing those who are found to have cheated the system. We achieved 53 sanctions against fraudsters in combating fraud in 2008/09 which included 38 cautions, 10 Administration Penalties and 5 successful prosecutions: in line with best practice our results are publicised in the local press.

Between 01 April 2009 and 31 December 2009 we have issued 41 sanctions which include 20 cautions, 8 Administration Penalties and 13 successful prosecutions.