Discounts and Exemptions (Integrated)
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      Discounts and Exemptions - Functionality List

      Discounts, DBR & Exemptions

      Owing to a large number of Discounts, Exemptions, and the different questions/supporting evidence needed, councils typically have many separate forms. However, digital should be about more than simply replicating paper, it should be an opportunity to provide something better. i.e. A solution that asks a citizen about their circumstances and, from that, guides them to the appropriate Discount/Exemption and the information they need to provide.

      This service enables citizens to provide details of who they are, the property in question, and the means to apply for a reduction based on the person's status, disability, or property.  Supporting 27 different Discount/Exemption scenarios and Disabled Band Relief, it is a one-stop digital shop for citizens seeking reductions.

       

      General Functionality

      The form supports these four high-level areas:

      • Someone is disregarded
      • My property is empty
      • My property has been adapted for someone
      • The property is an exempt type

       

      For disregarded people, the following person statuses are supported:

      1. Severely Mentally Impaired
      2. Carer
      3. School/College Leaver
      4. Child Benefit Recipient
      5. Apprentice
      6. Full-time Students
      7. A student's foreign spouse/dependent
      8. Religious Community Member
      9. Detention/Prisoners
      10. Hospital/Residential Care
      11. Diplomats

      The following empty property statuses are supported:

      1. Awaiting sale
      2. Awaiting let to tenants
      3. Awaiting occupation
      4. It's uninhabitable due to structural works
      5. It's empty following the occupant passing away
      6. It's been left empty by someone now in care
      7. It's been left empty by someone now in prison
      8. It's been left empty by full-time students
      9. It's been left empty because of a repossession
      10. It's been left empty by a bankrupt person
      11. It's been left empty awaiting a minister of religion
      12. It's been left empty as occupation is not permitted by law

      The form will capture details of whether the following have been adapted for disabled band reduction purposes:

       

      1. A room (other than a kitchen, bathroom or lavatory) which is mainly used by, and required for meeting the needs of a disabled person/people
      2. A second bathroom or kitchen which is required for meeting the needs of a disabled person/ people
      3. A space for a wheelchair used within the property by a disabled person/people

       

      The following exempt property types are supported:

      1. Unoccupied property owned by a charity
      2. Student Halls of residence
      3. UK Armed Forces Accommodation
      4. Visiting Forces Accommodation

      The form also supports the ability for citizens to upload evidence to provide the status of household occupants or their property.

       

      Real-time checks

      The power of the IEG4 solution and reason for the high automation levels its customers achieve are in the real-time checks that are built-in. These are designed to prevent exceptions and forms being submitted in circumstances where you would not want this to happen.

      Prior to submission the discounts/exemptions form will:

      1. check if the council tax account number entered and the surname of the account holder match
      2. retrieve the user's address if they successfully authenticate in step 1
      3. retrieve the existing liable parties / occupant's party references


      Council Tax System Automation

      Once a form is submitted it kicks off a dedicated workflow in IEG4's RPO engine OpenProcess.   In terms of back-office updates* the Discounts, DBR and Exemptions form can, depending upon the circumstance:

       

      1. Terminate a current account
      2. Transfer a person or people from an old account to a new account
      3. Create a new person where a new person previously not known is now resident
      4. Create a new occupancy period
      5. Add a new occupant and make them liable or set them as disregarded
      6. Set an empty and unfurnished discount for a date range when moving out of a property
      7. Set an empty and unfurnished discount for a date range when moving in to a property
      8. Set an empty and furnished discount for a date range when moving out of a property
      9. Set an empty and furnished discount for a date range when moving in to a property
      10. Work out periods where a disregard discount is applicable and automate the addition of this for multiple people where appropriate
      11. Work out periods where an exemption based upon person status is applicable and automate the addition of this
      12. Automate the award of Disabled Band Reduction
      13. Work out periods where an exemption based upon property status is applicable and automate the addition of this
      14. Transfer any credit due from one account to another
      15. Sets up a Direct Debit Payment Method and Instalment Plan if a new account created
      16. Adds any contact details for email/phone number to the party completing the form
      17. Adds the forwarding address for parties no longer resident
      18. Adds a notepad entry to each account affected to explain the updates made e.g.

      Person John McMahon added. Reference 950315
      Occupancy period setup on account 612347432685 from 2019-07-15 for party refs 950315

      Student discount added for Person Reference 950223 from 2019-07-13 to 2020-10-20

      Student discount added for Person Reference 950224 from 2019-07-20 to 2021-05-20

      Student discount added for Person Reference 950315 from 2019-07-25 to 2021-02-04

      Exempt property discount added from 2019-07-25 

      19. Optionally the account can be suspended for a set period of time prior to billing to allow for QA

      *The number of steps involved in the automation is dictated by the APIs available in the back-office application. E.g. Northgate has more APIs than Capita, and the ability to transfer a credit from one account to another is not possible with the Capita One (Academy) Council Tax application.

       

      Document Management Automation

      Where an alternative document management system is to be updated, the online form is capable of:

      1. Saving the PDF to a file location
      2. Saving any uploaded evidence to a file location
      3. Automatically indexing the form document into the document management system based upon the account number and whether the process is fully automated or not.
      4. Automatically indexing the evidence uploaded into the document management system based upon the account number and whether the process is fully automated or not.

       

      We can provide integration to the following widely used back-office EDM applications:

      • Information@Work
      • Civica W2/360/Comino
      • Civica Workflow
      • IDOX
      • OpenText
      • ICLipse
      • IEG4 OpenProcess

       

      OpenProcess - User-facing Functionality

      Within OpenProcess a user can see:

      1. The stages of the process and actions that took place
      2. User-friendly descriptions against each stage
      3. The outcome for every API update
      4. The request and response to every API call
      5. The form PDF
      6. Evidence uploaded with the form