Benefits Assessment off-site Processing

This is to procure an off-site benefits processing service. This will allow us scalable resilience. Initially the service will be tasked with clearing a head of work built up when our IT systems were failing constantly. With a reduced resource ourselves, following re-structure, we don’t have the inbuilt resilience to recover outside of business as usual. The older work is now causing failure demand across all channels. Getting this cleared while in house staff concentrate on BAU will allow us to bring the service back on track within a short period, anticipated 2 months. Going forward, we are carrying vacancies and anticipate continued churn through the year. With savings required on an annual basis currently, it makes better business sense to keep some vacancies that can be offered as savings as required. We can use the off-site processing to cover vacancies while we still have them, allowing us to operate to our current headcount allocation. We currently use agency officers, however, as well as being expensive, it’s also labour intensive for us to manage and quality available is inconsistent. This off-site processing takes the business burden away from us, guarantees quality and the governance required around it Assessments capability will be expected across all elements of benefits and CTS processing, including complex cases and special tenancies