1. Utilising Reports From APS
North Tyneside Council

2. Areas demonstrated today
Appointee and Safeguarding
Direct Payment Audits and Reviews

3. Appointee and Safeguarding
Two Account Programmes
Benefits – income from DWP etc. and utility payments (high balance checks only)
Appointee – Personal Allowance payments (investigate discrepancies and high balances)

4. Safeguarding Alerts Uncollected Personal Allowance Irregular patterns
Card Blocked
High Balance e.g. Equipment not purchased

5. Any questions?

6. Direct Payment Audits and Reviews
Download from APS to transaction report into Excel (cumulative by financial year)
Audit due – extract individual service user data, create pivot table, feed into Audit Sheet and link in with Review Officer

7. Benefit of pre-paid
Previously - did separate audit and social work review
Direct Payments Team links in with Review Team and provides information before the review date
Direct Payments Team accompanies Review Officer on visit where required

8. Benefits cont/d ... Spend clarified with service user including
identifying employed Personal Assistants
agencies used
receipts for cash withdrawals
evidence of anomalies of expenditure

9. Outcomes Clarifies accounts at early stage
Income back to Council accounts generated more efficiently
Audit can be done within 10 minutes for quick overview
Generates complaints from service users

10. Any questions?

11. Thank you