Housing Benefit Matching Service

hogsofwar

what is it, just had a letter asking for bank statements of me and my wife. what would flag this up in the system, i appied for legal aid recently , would that do it?

pmlindyloo

The Housing Benefit Matching Service is part of local authority's responsibility to check for fraud. It is a service which is administered by the DWP and allows cross checking on other benefits being claimed.

They have lots of ways of cross checking claims and this is just one of them.

Have a read of this:

https://www.torbay.gov.uk/index/yourcouncil/accesstoinformation/yourpersonaldata.htm

hogsofwar

so is it because i claiming legal aid,

Poppie68

Only they will be able to answer that question at this stage, but it does seem as possibility.
It seems something has been flagged while cross matching the information they hold for you in one department and information from another.

pmlindyloo

The Legal Services Commission who administers legal aid was replaced by the Legal Aid Agency in 2013.

As at end 2010, the LSC has data sharing agreements with the DWP, HMRC and
HMCTS for the elements of the datasets associated with means testing and
benefit claims. Similar arrangements will be in place for the new agency. QUOTE

So the answer to your question is probably yes. The Legal aid agency shares data with the DWP which in turn shares with local authorities.

hogsofwar

oh thank goodness for that then, as i have disclosed everything and been honest so hopefully they can all sort it out as just double checked , that i am getting certain benifits and such like. i thought i did something wrong then.

missapril75

hogsofwar wrote: »

so is it because i claiming legal aid,

Remembering, of course, that it's not just the involvement of different agencies that triggers some contact, it's the potential discrepancy in the information held.

If £4k, say, is reported to one agency and another agency also has £4k, then there's nothing contradictory and no reason to ask for statements. But if another agency has, say, £7K recorded, then there would be reason to investigate.

It could be entirely innocent - the £7k might be from an earlier time with nothing suspicious about its reduction to £4k. But it might be that £3k hasn't been declared.

Or maybe one agency sees one bank account number while the other throws up a different one - meaning the possibility of an undeclared balance or the innocent explanation of the money having changed accounts and a new number being held by one agency but not the other.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

About 90% of matches have innocent explanations or the undisclosed details will have no impact on the benefit claimed.

missapril75

Housing_Benefit_Officer wrote: »

About 90% of matches have innocent explanations or the undisclosed details will have no impact on the benefit claimed.

Hence my reference to potential discrepancy and a selection of innocent explanations even if there is a discrepancy.

But you said it more succinctly than I.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

missapril75 wrote: »

Hence my reference to potential discrepancy and a selection of innocent explanations even if there is a discrepancy.

But you said it more succinctly than I.

We get lots of undeclared bank accounts, shares and premium bonds - no impact on claim most of the time.

hogsofwar

right, so if there was a forgotten account that popped up, what would that mean