Single Person Discount (SPD) Review
Checking over 1m households each year
What is SPD Review?
Datatank’s fully managed SPD review
Datatank’s fully managed SPD Review service validates Single Person Discount claims and identifies claims at risk of fraud and error.
Datatank offers a range of different strategies that can be customised to generate maximum revenue, improve your collection rates and reduce Council Tax debt, including:
- Rolling reviews
- One off Bulk reviews
- Continuous monitoring
- Fraud detection
Key Features of SPD Review
Reduce fraud & error
Continuous review
SPD Review service provides Local Authorities with an accurate and cost-effective means of removing fraud and error from their Council Tax Single Person Discount caseload.
Reduced overheads
Fully managed
We continually monitor all existing claims and review all new claims over an agreed period (12, 24 or 36 months).
Instant insight
Reportable responses
We give you access to our management information portal to keep you up-to-date with progress of the review and the revenues generated.
Benefits of using SPD Review
Digital by default
Customised canvas letters are automatically generated and sent to at-risk claimants electronically or by post. Claimants are asked to confirm their entitlement to the discount via our secure on-line web portal, by SMS or by post. Postal responses are digitized and captured.
SPD helpline
Additionally, at no extra charge, our specialist staff are available to handle customer enquiries via our SPD Helpline, validate claimant responses, and update the Council’s Revenues System to cancel and rebill invalid claims (including applying penalties, if required).
Significant uplift in Council Tax receipts
We continually monitor all existing claims and review all new claims over an agreed period (12, 24 or 36 months). Our continuous review service is proven in practice to:
- Permanently reduce invalid claims
- Maximise Council Tax receipts
- Reduce Council Tax debt
- Improve collection rates
Reduce Council Tax fraud & error
We manage the complete review on your behalf from start to finish. We use credit bureau data and our own sophisticated data matching routines to identify SPD claims at risk of fraud or error.
Ambitious teams are growing with Infoshare+
8-10 weeks
Timescales
A bulk review of all your claims can be completed within 8-10 weeks including updating of your Council Tax Revenues and Document Management systems and issuing of rebills.
Our SMART Review takes a little longer, dependent upon the number of on-going fraudulent claims we find but can normally be completed less than 2 weeks later.
Customisation
On-boarding
Our specialist staff will get the review up and running in no time.
- Agree method of connectivity to your Revenues and Document Management system (for account processing)
- Customisable canvass letters and forms
- Provision of data extract scripts and secure transfer portal
- Dedicated service manager
Clear reporting
Management reporting
Using our Profiler2 management information portal, you can keep up to date with the progress of the review and its results. You have access to the exact same information that our team has – from who we’ve canvassed and why, to viewing claimant responses, and the outcome of each claim reviewed.
You can even use Profiler2 to efficiently manage your own workload, if you decide you want to update your revenues system yourselves.
Up to 27% in additional revenues
Smart Referrals
Originally developed in 2015, SMART Referrals™ is a service unique to Datatank, allowing Council’s to go one step further and challenge fraudulent SPD responses and collect additional revenue. We perform a detailed review of all targeted claimants who confirm they are still entitled to the discount, to determine the likelihood they made a false response, this is done using credit bureau data obtained under Section 29 and Section 35 of the DPA for fraud investigations.
Fully managed
Penalty Administration
Single Person Discount fraud is typically low value, this unfortunately means Revenues Managers often don’t go to the effort of applying penalties, in the hope that collection rates are not negatively impacted. Following our SMART Referral fraud analysis, whereby we challenge fraudulent SPD claims, Datatank can then administer a penalty charge notice on the Council’s behalf, to confirmed fraud cases, and if required, review non-responders.
This penalty is kept separate from Council Tax bills, whereby the collection is managed by us and doesn’t impact Council collection rates.
Request a demo
Find out how Single Person Discount services can help you.
- Validate your SPD caseload
- Reduced Council Tax fraud & error
- Fully auditable results