The new housing benefit audit

Background

Audit Scotland took over the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate’s (BFI) responsibilities for the inspection of housing benefits in Scotland on 1 April 2008. Because Audit Scotland has no inspection function, this new work has been integrated with its current benefits audit.

The current benefits audit is carried out by local external auditors and involves mainly the audit of subsidy claims. The annual subsidy work will continue and will inform the new work. For the purpose of this overview we refer to the new work from April 2008 as the new HB Audit.

The new HB Audit will consider the extent to which Scottish local authorities are complying with the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 in achieving continuous improvement in the performance of their benefits service and where risks to continuous improvement are identified, how these risks can best be reduced.

In developing this process Audit Scotland has taken into account recommendations from recent reviews on external scrutiny in Scotland. These include:

scrutiny and challenge function should be more proportionate
increased emphasis on robust self-assessment using outcome based approaches
greater focus on experience of user and public.

As housing benefits are administered across Great Britain, Audit Scotland is committed to reporting its HB Audit findings in a format that is broadly in line with those of the Audit Commission in England and the Wales Audit Office. This will assist in ensuring that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) receives a similar level of assurance from all three organisations.

Useful documents

New housing benefit audit: A guide for local authorities

This document provides detailed information about the new HB Audit process from the initial risk assessment phase to the process for a focused audit.

New housing benefit audit: A guide for local authorities (PDF | 59KB)

Local authority self-assessment form

This form is issued to local authorities for completion as part of the initial setup phase of the risk assessment and details the type of evidence to provide as part of the submission.