It is up to each council to set their own targets.
We have set two key performance measures:
National Indicator 180 the Right Benefit Indicator - this measures the number of changes in circumstances that we receive and process.
Our target for 2009/10 was 55000 per year = 1666 per month. We achieved 60111. For we 2010/11 will aim to receive and process 68400 changes in circumstances. This increase in our target reflects the increasing number of claims that we are processing.
This National Indicator is being removed by the Government from April 2010 but we are maintaining it as a local target.
National Indicator 181 the Right Time indicator - this measures the time it takes to process new claims and changes in circumstances.
Our target for 2009/10 was to process new claims and changes in circumstances within 17 days.
We achieved 14 days.
We have revised our targets for 2010/11
We will aim to process new claims and changes in circumstances within 15 days. We have taken into account the increase in the volumes of work that we are receiving and the fact that we are implementing a new IT system that will lead to improvements in the speed that we process claims. Initially however we have to use some resources to plan for and convert our existing claims onto the new system and we anticipate that this might impact short term on performance. Looking ahead to 2011/12 we will set a target of 10 days as the benefits of the new IT system bed in.
To achieve our targets and to improve customer service we have developed an improvement plan that we will monitor to ensure that we hit the targets that we have set.
Benefits Improvement Plan (.pdf, 57kb)
We have also developed a Take Up Strategy that will focus our service on reaching out to as many potential customers as possible ensuring that we maximise take up of benefits.
Take Up Strategy (.pdf, 77kb)
If you have any comments about these targets, our performance or our ideas for improving our service please contact us using any of the contact details listed below.
