R5007 Welfare Processing Resilience Framework

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets undertakes this procurement on behalf of itself, and with the expressed interest for future admission, as necessary by each of the named London Borough Councils as follows:

London Borough of Brent London Borough of Hackney London Borough of Lambeth London borough of Sutton Royal Borough of Greenwich London Borough of Waltham Forest Medway Council London Borough of Harrow

The Council is seeking expressions of interest for the provision of remote processing support services to complete Housing and Council Tax Benefit claims when employed Council staff are already at capacity. The contract will replace reliance upon specialist temporary staff, and will enable timely completion of claims processing. The contract is open to other Local Authorities. This contract will replace the Council's existing contract for offsite Resilience services which expires later this year.

The contract will commence in January 2017. The Contract period is 2 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years by yearly increments.

The Council currently manages a highly effective Housing Benefit service which manages the claims processing function. The resilience contract is a development of this service to deal with variable workloads in the most cost effective way possible. Processing services under the contract will meet the standards of service which the Council will prescribe, through methods including the determination of a detailed Service Specification.

The key requirements of the contract are:

• Processing agreed workloads of claims for Council Tax and Housing Benefits; for Council Tax Support or Council Tax Reduction; for other local welfare payments including free School Meals, and Local Authority educational grants; Local Authority social care calculations; determinations in respect of Social Fund Payments or similar; and determinations in respect of any other means tested benefit calculations which may be the responsibility of the Council and its partners;
• Processing of claims to pre-agreed standards, both in terms of the quality, and the speed of processing;
• In agreement with the successful supplier, the completion of such other additional workloads as may be required; and

-In agreement with the successful supplier by any joining Council to the Framework such Revenue processing services as may be required.

The Council, and or some of the participating Councils may at some future date determine to also establish a Joint Venture (JV), or other means by which the Framework may be managed for the mutual benefit of admitted Council partners. No firm commitment is given to this option at this stage, and the determination to exercise the JV or similar shall be in the sole discretion of the Council.