Nearly 5% wrongly claiming council tax discount in review

A review of council tax single person discounts in Derbyshire has revealed almost 5% of claimants reviewed were not entitled to it.

Nine of the Derbyshire councils who are part of the Derbyshire Transformational Partnership have been working with Capita to conduct a single person’s council tax discount review.

Capita reviewed 135,000 cases of single person discount eligibility. 6,545 claimants were found to not be entitled to the discount and these have now been removed. This has generated additional revenue for the councils of £2.5million....

Capita analysed credit reference data to identify cases where there was a risk that single person discount was not appropriate. They contacted these claimants initially by letter for review. Those seen as high risk were also reviewed with a phone interview using voice risk analysis, a process that uses technology and behavioural analysis to pick up on potential fraud.