Lilley gets tough on benefit claims

Claimants of income support are to face tougher requirements to provide the right information for their claim, and will no longer be chased up if they do not pursue a claim, under a radical redesign of the safety- net benefit announced yesterday by Peter Lilley, the Secretary of State for Social Security.

A study of the benefit, which involves 4 million claims a year and costs pounds 1.7bn to administer, has shown it involves 300 steps, only a third of which are computerised. It uses more than 250 forms and takes five days and up to five members of staff to process a claim. Yet they spend only 29 minutes working on it.

The "radical redesign" should cut the number of steps to 100 and make the process largely paper-free, Mr Lilley said, with the main checks for errors to be made at the beginning, not, as now, at the end.

A third of the time is spent chasing information from the customer, he said, so "we will make clearer what information is required and put the onus on claimants to provide it". Staff will also be given tighter time targets to clear claims "so that staff are no longer perversely encouraged to pursue claimants who lost interest in their claim".

The change will increase the responsibility of new claimants to provide mortgage, housing and income details and their last wage cheque.

The redesign of how income support is delivered - to be followed by similar reviews of all the major benefits - is part of Mr Lilley's plans to improve the department's efficiency by 25 per cent over three years and cut its 96,000 staff by 20,000 by 1998.

Streamlining should improve accuracy and reduce large losses from overpayments, he said, as the annual report from the Chief Adjudication Officer has shown woeful levels of accuracy. In fewer than 60 per cent of income support cases did the Benefits Agency produce the right decision and payment.