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Revenues and Benefits: adding value and achieving efficiencies

July 24th 07, City of Manchester Stadium


"A good range of speakers. The topics were all relevant and the format worked well"
"Well organised, well catered and good venue. Great event, thanks"
"A number of excellent presentations giving out a lot of varied information on areas relating to Revs & Bens"

More feedback from our last Revenues and Benefits event here 

Following a number of very successful Revenues and Benefits events, this interactive conference will address the key priorities and challanges for Local Authority Revenues and Benefits teams via a series of practical, case study presentations.  Topics to be covered include: Improving accessibility and collection of council tax benefit;  Partnership working - Developing a Shared Services future; the potential of Voice Risk Analysis software; flexible working; and dealing effectively with Revenues and Benefits in a multi-function Customer Contact Centre. 

Confirmed case study speakers include:

Chair: Ian Parker Head of Customer Contact & Benefit Services, South Ribble Borough Council
 
Case study: Delivering Benefits to the hardest to reach
Cathy Hipkin, Head of Revenues and Benefits, Coventry City Council
The IRRV recently recognised Coventry’s Revenues and Benefits team as the best in the country for making sure the hardest to reach residents can claim their rightful benefits and manage their finances better.  In this case study, Cathy will discuss some of the work the council has been doing to ensure that Coventry's residents, especially those in hard to reach groups and on limited income, have access to good quality and appropriate advice, including:
- Pro-active campaigns by the Coventry Benefits Advice Line generating £3million of additional income for the poorest households
- Increased accessibility through regular outreach surgeries held directly in communities, and using Coventry Direct
- Hosting 'Making a Difference Day', an opportunity for the service to listen and respond to customer needs.
- The 'Homestart' programme, supporting vulnerable people move into secure housing by working with private landlords and statutory and voluntary sectors

Removing Bureaucracy from the Claims Process
Ian Parker Head of Customer Contact & Benefit Services, South Ribble Borough Council
 - Customer behaviour that leads to delay in speed of processing new claims and changes in circs
- How CRM systems can be modelled to make life easier for the customer and much easier for the benefits assessor
- How processing mapping is of little value UNLESS you include customer behaviour
- Bringing Private Sector experiences and applying them to the Public Sector
- How to become more efficient overnight

Developing a Joint Team with the Pension Service and seven partners
Teresa Fullilove, Local Service Manager, The Pension Service (West Midlands South), Charles Huntington - Programme Manager - Adult & Community Project Team, Worcestershire County Council
 - Practical partnership working - making it work with eight partners (8 into 1 does go)
- Overcoming the ICT barriers - supporting mobile assessments
- Effective leadership and management in Joint Teams
- How working together delivers efficiency and good customer service.

Dealing Effectively with Revenue and Benefits in a Multi Functional Customer Contact Centre
Paul Ellis, Head of Customer and Benefit Services, Craven District Council 
- Using the revenue and benefit service as the starting point for your customer  contact centre.
- Adopting other corporate services whilst maintaining revenue and benefit service levels
- Integrating revenue and benefit processes into the contact centre – what works,
what doesn’t work – warts and all.
- Impact on performance – good or bad.
- What do others think of the revs and bens service delivered by the contact centre – e.g. views from the customer, back office revs and bens staff, customer service staff, members.
- Are we effective – you decide!

Effective Collection of Council Tax – Using All The Clubs In The Bag
Gary Ridley, Director for Resource Management at Wear Valley District Council
- How we organise ourselves to bill and collect council tax.
- Ensuring an efficient and effective billing process using available tools and technology.
- How we reduce the amounts that customers have to pay.
- Operation of a firm, fair and flexible recovery procedure.
- Promotion and operation of multiple methods of payment. Use of customer consultation.  
- Effective performance management to focus effort, generate accountability and reward success. Emphasis upon continuous improvement by use of available good practice guidance. Use of benchmarking with other authorities.  

Additional speakers tbc shortly


Speaker biogs

Paul Ellis
Paul has 21 years Local Government experience working in a number of revenue, benefit and customer service roles. He is Head of Customer and Benefit Services at
Craven District Council and is currently seconded to the role of Access to Services Programme Manager delivering a range of projects to improve customer access across the District.  Paul moved to Yorkshire from South Northamptonshire Council and prior to that he was at Rugby Borough Council.  He has shared in the transformation of the customer experience at Craven from what used to be a traditional cashiering service to a modern corporate customer service centre which incorporates revenue and benefits. Craven were finalists in the 2006 IRRV Performance Award category of ‘Excellence in Customer Care’.

Teresa Fullilove
Teresa joined the Department of Health and Social Security in 1978 as an Administrative officer. Over the next few years she worked on all benefit sections, policy development, finance, planning, audit and external & internal fraud investigations and is now a Senior Executive Officer. In March 2002, she took the opportunity to move to The Pension Service and set up the local service in the West Midlands. In this role she took forward The Pension Service vision of providing security and independence for today and tomorrows pensioners by increasing customer focus across service providers and looking at ways of improving integrated service delivery through Joint Working Partnerships.  In her spare time she has obtained a Masters Degree in Audit Management & Consultancy and is a Member of the Institute of Internal Auditors (MIIA & PIIA). She has two grown up children who need a new home and a very old, smelly Labrador.



Cathy Hipkin
To follow

Charles Huntingdon
Charles has worked in both the private and public sector and specialized in process re-engineering, programme and change management.  As part of a large scale initiative he has recently been responsible for working with DWP and 6 District Councils setting up a joint team and paving the way for a Shared Revs and Bens Service. He and Theresa will be sharing their experiences and how they have developed a mobile IT solution to allow ‘doorstep’ assessments for all partners.

Ian Parker
Head of Customer Contact & Benefit Services
Qualified Project Manager
10 years exp of Policy & Project Delivery with Central Government
5 years Local Authority experience
Transformed South Ribble Borough Councils Benefits Dept from 1 star Poor Performing to Excellent within 12 months
Mad keen Evertionian


Gary Ridley
Gary has been Director for Resource Management at Wear Valley District Council for the last 6 years.  He started his career at Gateshead MBC in 1985 where he qualified as an Accountant. He is married with a 1 year old son and in his spare time likes to read (and sleep).

PSF reserve the right to amend the conference programme, speakers or venue