Some of the new national indicators for local authorities (and local authority partnerships)relate to benefits take-up but this isn't necessarily good news for advisers funded by local authorities when they are looked at more closely.

NI116 - Proportion of children in poverty soundslike it should mean that getting more low income families onto benefit might be a good thing if it raises thier income, however in the immediate future this indicator will be measured by the number of people on "out of work" benefits, therefore it will be more likely to be achieve the target if less people claim JSA,IB,IS and Pension Credit.

Similarly NI152 "Working Age people on out of work benefits" isn't about getting more people onto these benefits, it is to see a fall in the percentage of people claiming WA benefit over total WA population.
NI153 extends this theme to the "worst performing neighbourhoods" within the LA.

Better news from NI 180 & NI181 which relate to time taken processing HB/CTB changes of circs and new claims.

I haven't looked at the other indicators in any detail but thought NI178 to be worth a mention as it will assess the LA's performance in getting bus services to run on time.

Sorry I forgot to include the link!

http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/performanceframeworkpartnerships/nationalindicators/

more on this @ Benefit take-up levels amongst 198 new local authority performance indicators

Many of the National Indicators are derived from the 30 recently published Public Service Agreement (PSA) documents which can be found on the HM Treasury website. http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/pbr_csr/psa/pbr_csr07_psaindex.cfm

Indicator 2 in PSA 17 (Tackle poverty and promote greater independence and wellbeing in later life) will be of interest:

Indicator 2: The percentage of pensioners in low income
• Over the CSR period, the Government will continue to tackle pensioner poverty, particularly through paying pensions and benefits to those eligible, so that pensioners continue to share in the rising prosperity of the nation. To monitor this we will keep track of the percentage of pensioners below key thresholds of income: 60 per cent of contemporary median income, 50 per cent of contemporary median income and 60 per cent of 1998/99 median income uprated in line with prices. The measures will report income after housing costs are deducted (AHC).

As will some of the supporting commentary:

3.25 The Pension Service will continue to roll out partnership working arrangements and bring in alternative office arrangements where possible in order to stabilize provision and improve the consistency and quality of services to customers across the network. The Pension Service’s Joint Working Partnerships accept referrals from a wide range of partners, for example social care workers, health professionals, carers, the third sector and The Pension Service pension centres. This will expand the ‘reach’ of The Pension Service through partnership working and help promote take-up of benefits. Alternative Offices operate through partnership agreements between The Pension Service, Local Authorities and the third sector, and accept applications for social security benefits from people aged 60 or over.
…

3.27 In developing LAAs, Local Authorities, as the leaders in local strategic partnerships, will need to work with The Pension Service and third sector partners, to make proposals for tackling pensioner poverty. The major way in which Government supports the incomes of those most in need is via the take-up of income related benefits. Local Authorities administer HB and CTB, and have an important role in promoting their take-up and that of Pension Credit to pensioners in the area.


Indicator 2 in PSA 17 doesn’t itself get picked up in the Local Government National Indicator set, as there is no reliable data at Local Authority level. The indicator will be measured using data from the national Family Resources Survey.