Issue - meetings

Report of Assistant Director of Finance.

Purpose of report

To seek approval of the reviewed Risk Based Verification (RBV) Policy for 2024/25

Recommendations

The Accounts, Audit and Risk Committee resolves:

1.1         To note the contents of the report.

To approve the Risk Based Verification Policy for the financial year 2024/2025, as set out at Appendix 1 to this report.

Resolved

(1)           That the report be noted.

(2)           That the Risk Based Verification Policy for the financial year 2024/2025 be approved.

The Assistant Director Finance submitted a report to seek approval of the reviewed Risk Based Verification (RBV) Policy for 2024/25.

In repsonse to Members’ questions regarding how the policy operated in practice, the Head of Benefits and Revenues Services gave an overview of the process. RBV was a method of applying different levels of checks to new claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction dependent upon a complex risk profile given to each customer. The profile was determined by specific software using statistical information and experience about what type of claim represents what type of risk.  The higher the risk, the greater the checks used to establish that the claim was genuine.

Resolved

(1)            That the report be noted.

(2)            That the Risk Based Verification Policy for the financial year 2024/2025 be approved.