A FCR requires a council to consider and look at all the current claim details and evidence associated with the claim, as well as any other fresher information or evidence they can source, in order for the weekly HB amount to be reviewed. The key elements are that:
-
the Council reviews and validates whether the current information associated with the claim remains correct
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the Council seeks evidence from the claimant where it is possible to do so, in accordance with their review processes
All of this in order to identify any changes of circumstances and recalculate a claimant's HB award accordingly.
In line with this, IEG4 has built a new form that leverages multiple elements from the eChanges form, which enables a citizen to:
- authenticate themselves in real time online
- review all of the detail currently held on their claim about them
- proactively identify areas that have AND have NOT changed
- pass details of the changes (or no change) to the back office application
- pass a copy of the form PDF and evidence uploaded to the document management application
The HBAA - Full Case Review form allows a person to authenticate themselves by checking Date of Birth and NINO (minimum) match with the details of the back office. There are settings that allow you to increase the things that need to match with the back office to enable authentication. These are covered later.
The two key features of the form are enabling a citizen to review their details and then report whether there's a change or not.
The new Review your claim page enables a user to see their current details, indicate a change and see a summary of the changes in the form.
Their home
The page is shown below - where it presents their living situation and asks if they've moved home:
Followed by showing the household occupants and asking if anyone has moved out:
Then asking if anyone has moved in / become a student (where there are currently no students):
Then it presents details of household income and allows the person to indicate if the details have changed:
Then it presents details of any capital/savings for the claimant to then say if these have changed or not:
Followed by asking them about changes to their pensions and any regular expenses:
Then about living temporarily away/other changes:
And finally it presents a summary of changes:
Where no changes have been reported, not something currently permitted with the eChanges form, it shows as follows and the claimant can progress to submit the form.
Should you wish to change the wording of this message i.e. 'There are no reported changes' you can do this here in Resources. Simply click on the resource ReportNoChanges to change this:
Intelligent Change Processing
Details of any changes reported in the Full Case Review will be passed in real-time to your back-office benefit processing system.
Benefit rules mean that the effective date of a change is one of the most important values passed to the back-office application. In practice this means dealing with multiple changes. This can be complex for a user as they are required to ensure that the changes are placed in chronological order prior to being processed.
As you wouldn’t want to mandate to the citizen that they provide things chronologically rather than by type, the eChanges form handles all of the logic to derive the correct order for changes to be passed to and updated in the back-office. For example, a citizen reports:
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Partner moved in on 21/11/2017
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New earnings from 01/11/2017
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A change in rent from 01/09/2017
The change in circumstances form will extrapolate out what needs to happen and will push XMLs to the back-office as follows:
XML 1 01/09/2017 Change in rent
XML2 01/11/2017 Change in rent & New earnings
XML3 21/11/2017 Change in rent, New earnings & New partner
This intelligence ensures that the back-office benefit periods are updated in the exact same manner they would have been updated were the changes done manually.
Universal Credit
Citizens can report that they, their partner or non-dependent are now in receipt of Universal Credit and, where relevant, the user is presented with a page designed in the exact layout of the UC Award letter.
Like the eClaim, this page captures all of the details of the person's UC award. This means that the officer can make a better-informed decision on assessment.
Dynamic Evidence
Based upon the circumstances the claimant is reporting a change about, the eChanges form will dynamically tailor the evidence requested to complement the changes. The user is able to provide this information online and the form will ‘track’ what has and has not been provided so that, upon submission, the user is told what they still need to provide if anything is outstanding.
So, if a person was told five items were required and they uploaded evidence for four, upon submission the remaining item would be shown as outstanding. The citizen can then come back and upload these within a month with this information then being passed to the EDMS.
Evidence Settings
The following settings relate to changing evidence behaviour:
|
Setting Name |
Details |
|
EvidenceUpload |
If TRUE this setting will allow customers to upload evidence as a part of the claim form prior to submission. |
|
AfterActionEvidenceUpload |
If TRUE this setting will allow customers to upload evidence as a part of the claim form after submission. This setting will also ensure that evident uploaded pre-submission is tracked and the customer told what's missing when they submit their claim. |
|
CatchAllEvidenceUpload |
If TRUE this setting will allow customers to upload evidence adhoc that is not in the list of evidence requested. This is mainly for customers uploading evidence of the same type as previously submitted after submission. |
The following settings control types of evidence uploaded:
|
Setting Name |
Details |
|
UploadWhiteList |
This is a setting for the Upload of evidence in forms. This controls the types of files that are permitted. This list would normally only be used if a specific type of file is allowed, as the black list is present below to prevent any disallowed file types. File types are added using their extension and multiple types can be added by separating them with a comma. For example if only MS Word documents were allowed you could add the following: doc,docx |
|
UploadBlackList |
The black list is the list of files which are NOT allowed to be uploaded. This allows specific file types known to be commonly used for viruses to be listed |
|
UploadSizeLimit |
This allows one to specify the maximum size of any single file in bytes. I.e. 10000 is roughly 10MB |
Evidence Configuration
This is set up within the Form Configuration File - evidence.xml, which can be found in the Files area of of Form Management.
Because evidence presented in the form is dynamic to a person's household, income etc. it is possible to configure when certain evidence requirements are asked for.
Configuration files are files that can augment / improve the control you have over the functionality in the form beyond the settings.
Configuration files are generally in XML format and so please ensure the XML file is still valid are you finish your edits. You can check an XML file is valid using the following:
The purpose of this file is to enable one to control, which evidence is presented dynamically to the citizen when NO Risk Based Verification service is enabled. I.e. This is the default configuration file.
You don't need to ever change this file. It's just to explain you can if you want to.
Note - this file is bigger than this - we've taken an excerpt.
Basically this file enables you to control when each of the different evidence paragraphs appear in the eChanges based upon the person's changes provided.
For example, there is an evidence resource called Rule_NewPartnerIdentity.
And within that section there is a Rules section that outlines the rules that set whether evidence is requested or not:
The rule above is saying if there if on the page PartnerMovedIn the person says Yes to one moving in, evidence of their identity will be requested.
Form Level Settings
The following lists all of the settings in the HBAA - Full Case Review form and what they do.
|
Setting Name |
Description |
|
ClaimSource |
This setting tells our form which back office you have for the purposes of pulling data out. The options are Northgate, Civica, Capita |
|
NbpHbBackOffice |
This setting tells our form which back office you have for the purposes of pushing changes in. The options are Northgate, Civica, Capita |
|
RbvEnabled |
N/A for this form. |
|
RbvSource |
N/A for this form. |
|
RbvSourceUrl |
N/A for this form. |
|
RbvSourceCertificate |
N/A for this form. |
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RbvSourceCertificatePassword |
N/A for this form. |
|
RbvAdvisorLocalAuthorityCode |
N/A for this form. |
|
RbvAdvisorNamePersonNameTitle |
N/A for this form. |
|
RbvAdvisorType |
N/A for this form. |
|
ShowRiskCheckQuestion |
N/A for this form. |
|
IncludeCoverSheetStart |
Mainly relevant when either RBV or Call Validate or both are enabled. This sheet shows when the form was started, completed, the risk score and details of the ID/Bank checks done with CallValidate. This page appears at the front of the PDF if this is set to TRUE. |
|
IncludeCoverSheetEnd |
Mainly relevant when either RBV or Call Validate or both are enabled. This sheet shows when the form was started, completed, the risk score and details of the ID/Bank checks done with CallValidate. This page appears at the end of the PDF if this is set to TRUE. |
|
SourceId |
This setting tells the back office the source of the claim and should be IEG4 |
|
SourceIdMode |
This setting has three modes and is used for the Northgate back office. It means that you can control what is shown in External Items for claims. Option 1 - SourceIdMode of “eFormReference” = means the IEG4 form reference will be sent to Northgate as the Source Option 2 - SourceIdMode of “ClaimantName” = means the claimant's name will be sent to Northgate as the Source Option 3 - SourceIdMode of “Composite” = means that the form ref and claimant name will be sent to Northgate as the Source |
|
SourceUserId |
This should be set to IEG4User |
|
UserId |
This should be set to the system admin user within Capita = aisdba For Capita / Civica it doesn't matter what this is |
|
BackOfficeUrl |
This is the URL for the back office application in terms of being able to pull information out of the benefit system. |
|
EnableChangeOfAddress |
If TRUE the ability to report a change of address will be enabled in the form. |
|
ClearOtherInformation |
If TRUE any information sent to us from the claim notes from the back office will be cleared. This does not affect the claim note pad when the data is sent back. This is primarily for the Capita back office where they can often send years worth of notes information. |
|
ShowEmployerName |
If TRUE the employer name as held against the earned income will be shown. E.g. “Do you still work for WH Smith?” Rather than “Do you still work for an employer?” |
|
EvidenceUpload |
If TRUE this setting will allow customers to upload evidence as a part of the claim form prior to submission. |
|
AfterActionEvidenceUpload |
If TRUE this setting will allow customers to upload evidence as a part of the claim form after submission. This setting will also ensure that evident uploaded pre-submission is tracked and the customer told what's missing when they submit their claim. |
|
CatchAllEvidenceUpload |
If TRUE this setting will allow customers to upload evidence adhoc that is not in the list of evidence requested. This is mainly for customers uploading evidence of the same type as previously submitted after submission. |
|
FormTypeToUseLivingSituationXMLFrom |
This will default to HBNewClaim and ensures that the same living situation options are available when reporting a change of address. I.e. I rent from a private landlord, I own my own home etc. |
|
CTaxAccountMaxLength |
This enables you to set the maximum length a council tax account number can be when the person is reporting a change of address and council tax account number is requested. |
|
ShowIntegrationLookupException |
If TRUE when there is an issue retrieving data from the back office the technical error will be presented to enable the issue to be diagnosed. This should NEVER be TRUE in live. Or rather it should ALWAYS be FALSE in live. |
|
UsePostcodeInSearch |
If TRUE Postcode will be added to the criteria that are used when searching the benefit system for a claimant. |
|
IncludeFirstnameInSearch |
If TRUE fore name will be used to the criteria that are used when searching the benefit system for a claimant. |
|
IncludeLastnameInSearch |
If TRUE surname will be used to the criteria that are used when searching the benefit system for a claimant. |
|
IncludeTitleInSearch |
If TRUE Title will be used to the criteria that are used when searching the benefit system for a claimant. |
|
ShowCompletedByOnBehalf |
If TRUE where someone is completing the form on someone’s behalf this will be asked and further information about who they are requested. |
|
RiskCheckConfirmationPanel |
N/A for this form. |
|
FastTrackHighRisk |
N/A for this form. |
|
FastTrackMediumRisk |
N/A for this form. |
|
N/A for this form. |
N/A for this form. |
|
SelfEmploymentFormUrl |
This is the URL for the self employed earnings for in your forms environment |
|
UseSelfEmployedEarningsForm |
If TRUE then when a person indicates they are self employed, they will be taken to the fully integrated self employed form/calculator. |
Form level configuration
Configuration files are files that can augment / improve the control you have over the functionality in the form beyond the settings.
Configuration files are generally in XML format and so please ensure the XML file is still valid are you finish your edits. You can check an XML file is valid using the following:
For the HBAA - Full Case Review form, there are 2 and these files that are relevant and these are covered below:
The purpose of this file is to enable one to control, which evidence is presented dynamically to the citizen when NO Risk Based Verification service is enabled. I.e. This is the default configuration file.
You don't need to ever change this file. It's just to explain you can if you want to.
Note - this file is bigger than this - we've taken an excerpt.
Basically this file enables you to control when each of the different evidence paragraphs appear in the eChanges based upon the person's changes provided.
For example, there is an evidence resource called Rule_NewPartnerIdentity.
And within that section there is a Rules section that outlines the rules that set whether evidence is requested or not:
The rule above is saying if, on the page PartnerMovedIn, the person says Yes to one moving in, evidence of their identity will be requested.
This is an important file in the context of eChanges. The contents of it control:
a) What appears in the list of living situations for the new address a person is moving to i.e. when the change reported is a change of address
b) The behaviour of the option selected
The file contains a section for each drop down option. The following shows the file with only the first drop down option populates for simplicity of understanding:
The following elements are responsible for different behaviours:
|
Element |
What does it do |
|
applyForHB |
If true this will set the ApplyForHB marker in the XML we send in the XML to the back office telling it the person is applying for Housing Benefit. A home owner will not claim Housing Benefit and thus it is set to false. |
|
householdType |
This is the value (from a set list in the benefit schema) that will be passed for this option. I.e. Home owner is OwnerOccupier, a Private Landlord is simply Private. |
|
paymentType |
This is the only option that two attributes. The first is requireLandlordAccount. If set to true it will ask for the landlord's bank account details. The second is requireClaimantAccount. If set to true it will ask for the claimant's bank account details. Hence both are false in the home owner situation. |
|
landlordDetailsRequired |
If true it will ask for details of who their landlord is. |
|
propertyDetailsRequired |
If true it will ask for details like whether the property is detached/furnished etc. |
|
propertyRoomDetailRequired |
If true it will ask for a breakdown of the rooms in the property. |
|
propertyMiscDetailRequired |
If true it will for ask about whether the landlord is a former partner etc. |
|
rentServiceDetailsRequired |
If true it will ask for details of service charges that are part of their rent. |
|
rentReferenceNumberRequired |
If true it will ask for their rent account/reference number. Used for Council Tenants/Housing Association claimants. |
|
UCBehaviour |
We have made it possible for a council to set any living situation type to be able to exempt from the normal UC behaviour or not. Thereby future proofing the software by having the means to add / change this adhoc for any living situation the customer may choose. In order to make a living situation behave like supporting people did previously the following tag needs to be added to the living situation section for that type: <UCBehaviour>true</UCBehaviour> |
In August 2020, the DWP issued Housing Benefit Circular A9 2020, which is a special 'bulletin' to councils notifying them of a change to policy or process. This specific circular sets out the details of a Housing Benefit Award Accuracy (HBAA) Initiative and the funding LAs will receive to undertake activities to identify unreported changes of circumstances. The funding, from the DWP, is designed to support LAs undertaking specific activities to proactively identify unreported changes and make sure that the right amount of benefit is paid to the right person at the right time. This funding is awarded for councils carrying our Full Case Reviews (FCR).