Information bulletin - Finance & IT Department
BEST VALUE PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Links marked with the Adobe Acrobat PDF logo require the free Adobe Reader software.1. Council Tax and Business Rates
Collection – (Contact Officer Alan Cartwright 01942 828612)
At 31/03/06 |
At 31/03/05 |
|
|---|---|---|
% |
% |
|
Council Tax |
97.0 |
97.0 |
Business Rates |
97.2 |
97.6 |
The reduction in performance in Business Rates is down to a few large bills issued towards the end of the financial year - effectively leaving insufficient time to collect the debt before the statistical deadline of 31 March.
2. Processing of Benefit Claims –
(Contact Officers Joe Feeney 01942 828694 and Donna Barrow-Jones 01942 828637)
Processing performance is shown in the table.
Category |
01/04/05 TO 31/03/06 |
2005/2006 Target |
|---|---|---|
New claims (days to process) |
32 |
42 |
% of New Claims processed within 14 days |
73% |
80% |
Changes in Circumstances (days to process) |
16 |
10 |
3. Benefit Fraud (Contact Officers Paul
Wadsworth 01942828607 and John Robinson 01942828670)
Fraud detection for 2005/06 has far exceeded the target of 125 sanctions and the impressive performance is shown in the following table:
Sanction Applied |
No. of Cases |
Subsidy from DWP |
|---|---|---|
LA Caution |
37 |
£44,400 |
Administrative Penalty |
54 |
£64,800 |
Summons Issued (court hearing awaited) |
19 |
£22,800 |
Successful Prosecutions |
49 |
£156,800 |
Total |
159 |
£288,800 |
4. Benefit Intervention Visits
(Contact Officers Joe Feeney 01942 828694 and Lesley O’Halloran 01942 8283658)
The total performance figures for the year exceed the target of 13,480 set by the DWP by 409 cases and are broken down as follows:
- Home Visits 9,812
- Postal checks 3,140
- Data matches 937
- Total 13,889
5. Payment of Undisputed Invoices
(Contact Officer Steve Clegg 01942 827260)
The % of invoices processed within 30days (or within terms) are:
The target set by Government is 100%.
2004/2005:
Wigan Council 91.7%
GM Councils (av) 88.0%
2005/2006:
Wigan Council 91.0% (to date – not yet complete)
GM Councils – to be announced.
Departmental Key Tasks And Service Development
6. Payment of Council Bills
(Contact Officer Alan Cartwright 01942 828612)
Payments at Post Offices and PayPoint agents continue in line with expectations and completely without problem.
The value of Internet transactions most months consistently exceeds £200,000 per month since April and now accounts for over 22% by number (and almost 22% by value) of all credit/debit card transactions.
Payments received via the Credit card line showed an increase in the number of staff fielded transactions of over 21% for the year (up 15% by value).
The 24/7 Automated Telephone Service (launched in December 2003) is now the most popular way of paying by credit/debit card and has taken almost 41% by number of all credit/debit card transactions since April (37% by value).
The figures show the position for the period 1 April 2005 to 31 March 2006.
No. |
|
|
|---|---|---|
000’s |
£’m |
|
Post Office |
540.8 |
28.326 |
PayPoint |
102.5 |
4.436 |
Telephone |
42.1 |
4.490 |
Internet |
25.3 |
2.356 |
Automated Telephone |
46.0 |
4.015 |
Customers have been able to pay any council bill by credit/debit card at both Leigh and Wigan cash offices following the upgrade to the cash receipting system (May 2004). Since April almost 7,400 payments have been taken. The agreement with HSBC through Co-op Bank now allows us to accept payment by customers who present the Visa Electron card.
Following decriminalisation of Parking, fines can be paid by credit/debit card using any of the above mentioned facilities as well as at the newly opened office in the Market where 279 transactions have been accepted since April. Payment can also be made at Leigh and Wigan cash offices or any Post Office or Paypoint agent.
7. Microsoft Office 2003
(Contact Officer – Pete Livesey 01942 827214)
The project to deploy Office 2003 is almost complete. Still to be upgraded are those areas which need a hardware upgrade to run 2003.
Karen Rooney can provide support to anyone with queries about the use of Office 2003.
8. Microsoft Office 2003 – Home Use
(Contact Officer – Pete Livesey 01942 827214)
As part of the council’s software deal with Microsoft, council employees* can install and use Office 2003 Professional on their home computers free of charge. There is a small handling and admin fee of about £18 per employee to pay to Microsoft.
The licence allows you to use the software on one computer for the duration of the council’s contract with Microsoft (up to 31/08/2008).
For more information on how to take advantage of this offer, please contact the IT Help Desk on 4142.
*Unfortunately the offer does not extend to Council Members nor employees of other organisations including Wigan and Leigh Housing and Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust.
9. Virus Protection Measures
(Contact Officer – Pete Livesey 01942 827214)
The IT Section has recently changed the anti-virus software used on the network. Sophos, the product used in the past, has been replaced by a similar product from Trend.
With Sophos, any employee of the Council could install it at home for their personal use. If you did this, you are no longer covered for continued use and should therefore remove it.
Colleagues who use their PC at home for council use will be able to install Trend on it.
10 IT Training Room
(Contact Officer - Pete Livesey 01942 827214)
The computers in the IT Training suite have been replaced with modern ones. This makes us ready for the new IT training plans being developed by colleagues in the Chief Executive’s Department.