North Norfolk to Benefit with Civica Software

Civica’s Housing Benefits software will contribute to North Norfolk’s current performance targets, to reduce the average time taken to process housing benefit claims including being below the national standard within two years.

The Council has also chosen to upgrade to the latest Council Tax and National Non-Domestic Rates solutions from Civica, thereby standardising on the company’s integrated product suite across its Revenues and Benefits department.

Measured by area covered, NNDC is one of the largest district councils in England, and provides services to a population of over 100,000 people. The Benefits department has been using its current Benefits system for more than ten years. Although the backlog of benefit claims has reduced and performance is improving, the recent Comprehensive Performance Assessment recommended that more could be done to improve the quality of services. The investment in new software is expected to help improve the speed and accuracy with which claims are processed, and, therefore, improve the overall standard of customer service.

The Benefits system from Civica is a comprehensive browser-based system for handling applications and the calculation, payment and monitoring of all aspects of Housing and Council Tax Benefit, delivering essential social benefits to those who depend on them. Civica will also deliver servers and services to NNDC in order to provide a complete solution.

Tony Ing, head of revenues and ICT, NNDC, commented, “Improvement of Benefits processing is one of our key objectives in 2004 and technology will play an important role in this. Civica provided the best fit for our requirements. Their ability to listen to our needs and devise a solution based on them has been proven over the years we have worked with Civica and was one of the key factors of our choice.”

Paul Simpson, managing director, Public Sector UK at Civica, said, “In the current climate of performance assessment and improvement, Local Authorities increasingly rely on responsive, reliable systems to deliver essential services and to manage their income. Civica has strong track record in the provision of these systems and is committed to working alongside customers to help improve service delivery whilst keeping pace with the demands of legislative change.”

About NNDC
North Norfolk District Council is one of the largest district councils in England covering an area of 373 square miles and with 43 miles of coastline. North Norfolk has a population of 100,000 people of which 32% are aged 60 or over. The Council became Liberal Democrat controlled in May 2003, having had no overall control prior to that. The Council has a strong
track record of securing additional funding to support its priorities, including DWP Performance Standards funding towards the cost of the replacement benefits system. The Council has also been successful with a number of e-government initiatives including an award winning and innovative project for the development of its interactive website, community websites and rural internet access points.

About the Civica Group
Civica (www.civica.co.uk) is one of the UK’s most experienced providers of consulting, software systems and managed services to the public sector. Supplying many organisations in the UK, Australia and the USA, including over 700 local authorities, the company has an 18-year history of delivering effective software solutions to local government, police, healthcare, criminal justice and education organisations. Civica Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary, is an approved Prime Contractor for software in the UK Government’s GCat procurement catalogue. The company employs approximately 450 people globally and has a track record of uninterrupted profits growth.