"The Community Care Grant plays an
important role in helping the most vulnerable in our society. The
assessment process needs to be flexible and quick but the current
scheme design does not deliver value for money. I would expect the
Department for Work and Pensions to have better information on
whether people are aware of the scheme, and for it to strengthen
the systems for making sure that this money is spent on what was
intended. There are opportunities to help more people, by reducing
the cost and variation in spending on high priority
items"
Mr Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit
Office, 22 July 2010
The Community Care Grant has an important role
in helping vulnerable people to establish themselves in the
community and in easing exceptional pressure on families. The
scheme is deliberately designed to be flexible so that it can
provide help in good time to those who need it but the scheme as
currently designed does not deliver value for money, according to a
report published today by the National Audit Office.
Under the £141 million scheme, vulnerable
people can claim for money to pay for essential household items,
such as a cooker or bed. Jobcentre Plus employees prioritise each
request received, but the agency cannot be sure that those who
apply were in most need. Inequities in the budgets set for district
offices mean that some high priority claims have been refused
because of the limited funds available locally. In addition, the
large volume of claims that are never likely to receive funding
have to be assessed under the same process, thereby adding
considerably to the administrative burden.
Jobcentre Plus employees handle cases with
sensitivity, despite having to process a large volume of
applications, and, rightly, exclude non-essential items. The
application form is relatively straightforward to complete but
Jobcentre Plus employees essentially have to base their decision on
what has been stated on the form, which makes it difficult to
identify if claims are overstated. Jobcentre Plus does not know the
extent of fraud as there are no checks on how the money is spent.
Introducing a centralised contract to supply items directly could
improve the control over the scheme and achieve economies of scale
of at least £14 million a year.
There is no official price list for deciding
how much to award for each item and there are variations in the
prices on unofficial lists kept by each district office because of
different specifications on products. Greater standardisation of
the amount awarded for items could save up to £7.5 million a
year.
The Department does not wholly agree with the conclusions of the
National Audit Office. In the Department’s view it is in the nature
of a discretionary scheme that there will be variations in the way
in which judgments will be exercised and to operate the scheme in a
more rigid, uniform way would fail to meet the needs of the
vulnerable people it is designed to assist. The Department notes
that it is required to operate the scheme within a legal framework
and under tight constraints of turnaround time and resource
availability.
Publication details:
HC: 286, 2010-2011
ISBN: 9780102965445