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On 29th April 2004, Local e-Government Minister
Phil Hope published the ODPM’s final policy
paper on required 2005 e-Government outcomes
for all UK local authorities and their
partners.
The
paper is available at http://www.odpm.gov.uk/pns//pnattach/20040112/1.doc
Priority Area 9 describes Benefits, and
specifically “the provision of online
access to the Housing
and Council Tax Benefit claim process”.
The Required Outcomes for Benefits include
“Citizens or their agents to check their
eligibility for
and calculate their entitlement to Housing
& Council Tax Benefit and to download
and print relevant claim forms.”
Good Outcomes include “Mobile office service
using technology to offer processing of
Council Tax and Housing Benefit claims
directly from citizens’ homes” and Excellent
Outcomes include
“Pre-qualification of Council Tax and
Housing Benefit claimants for other eligible
entitlements
(e.g. school uniform grants, free school
meals), including pre-filling of relevant
claim forms”
Additionally, all e-Government services
will achieve Good Outcomes if they implement
“Conformance with level AA of W3C Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI) standards
on website
accessibility” and “Compliance with Government
Interoperability Framework (e-GIF), including
the Government Metadata Standard (e-GMS).”
IEG statements were required to demonstrate
how local authorities are going to achieve
their
Priority Outcomes by December 2005.
Team Netsol has spent five years developing BECS intelligent
online benefits systems to directly
address efficiency in the claims process, a side effect of which is complete coverage of the 2005 targets for Benefits within the ODPM’s
SR2002 Public Service Agreement.
BECS enables local authorities
and their partners to:
-
Calculate
accurate entitlement amounts for Housing
Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and Pension Credit; based
on your local interpretation of rates
and codings
-
Assess eligibility for a range of benefits
including Income Support, Job Seekers
Allowance, Tax Credits and many more
-
Deliver self service calculation and claim sessions
over the Web to customers using comprehensible,
step-by-step Plain Language questions
-
Work
with partners by sharing a consistent
view of a customer’s circumstances,
speeding up response times and problem
resolution
-
Provide an Accessible service that conforms
to, and exceeds, e-Government Standards
-
Perform assessments on the move or in
customer homes using mobile devices
-
Deliver a valuable asisted service via the Web,
call centre or drop-in centre, fully
customised with local knowledge and
corporate branding
-
Deliver on your e-Government strategy with the minimum
of disruption or change to existing
processes
-
Deliver accurate advice using rates
and codings that are up-to-date from
day one every time there are rule or
legislation changes
-
Reduce errors, ommissions and overpayments
-
Pre-qualify tenants and advise rent
due prior to taking up new properties
-
Improve benefits processing performance
and customer service, whilst reducing
the workload on front line staff
-
Deliver automatic population of the HCTB1 national claim
form, an optimised Claim Sheet and supplementary information forms
-
Integrate
with core Benefits, DIP and Document Management systems
-
Generate a personalised document evidence Checklist and perform document capture compliant with the Verification
Framework
- Reduce follow-up correspondence by asking for all information up front
You
can join over 20 local authorities and many other organisations that currently
benefit from BECS.
Please contact us
on 0161 834 8342 to discuss how BECS
can help you.
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