Birmingham City Council welcomed a recent announcement by the Minister for Work and Pensions to make funds available to extend the use of Voice Risk Analysis (VRA) technology in housing benefit departments.
Birmingham last year participated in the original tests of this technology using it to conduct reviews of housing benefit claims to ensure that people are receiving the correct rate of payment towards their rent.
Welcoming the Government announcement, Cllr Paul Tilsley, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, said: "We were very pleased with the way this technology worked for us in Birmingham and so were our customers, 98 per cent of whom told us they were satisfied or very satisfied with the process.
"It was a win-win situation all round – customers get their claims dealt with much more quickly and accurately via a 20 minute phone call, there is very little or no form filling or bureaucracy and it is very much more efficient from a cost point of view. We will certainly be expressing our interest in continuing our involvement."
Sometimes mistakenly called a ‘lie detector test’, the technology analyses, in real time, changes in voice frequency and alerts a trained operator to responses, which indicate a potential risk.
The operator is then able to assess the relevance of the statement and form their own judgement of risk based on both the VRA technology and behavioural analysis skills in which they are also trained. The decision-making is always in the control of the operator.
The process helps to confirm the majority of customers as genuine. In Birmingham 94 per cent of 2,656 pilot calls were assessed as ‘low risk’ and had their benefit renewed or updated quickly and efficiently.
The remaining six per cent where some potential risk was identified are simply checked through the normal process and are either asked to provide further information by post or through a home visit.
This ensures that no one is incorrectly refused benefit but at the same time improves fraud detection and management.
There are also safeguards built into the process to ensure that the call is discontinued if it is detected or suspected that the process will potentially cause alarm or distress for the customer.
Customer feedback is very positive. A city council customer survey of 188 claimants showed an overall satisfaction rate of 98 per cent.
Of those surveyed, 93 per cent also felt that it was better than claiming by post (only one per cent thought it worse) and 85 per cent said they would choose to have their benefit checked in this way in the future compared to four per cent who would choose to go back to a postal review.
