Here is an invitation to tender in which even at this point the basis of the discount is incorrectly stated.
The implication appears to be that 'genuine' claimants really do live alone. The tell-tale use of the word 'awarded' supports the view that this might be a case of council maladministration, a case of a council which believes that it should have or has in law 'awarded' something which literally is a 'single person discount' and that what is being 'verified' is a set of 'claims' to be living alone.
One could check this suspicion by looking at the web sites of the councils in question, but the announcement is anonymous.
A similar tender was put out by East Sussex Councils, working together in a procurement hub. Eastbourne Borough Council and Wealdon District Council are named in connection with this initiative.
It comes to something when even the requests for tender include prejudicial and misleading material.
This way of looking at discounts was first, to the best of my knowledge, advanced by Experian Ltd. The use of words like 'verify' - in the sense of 'check' implies that this is straightforward matching. Terms like 'awarded' and 'claim' which do not apply to the discount and are misleading serve rhetorical functions, perhaps, but muddy the waters.
The councils are seeking to review all records where a council tax single person discount (SPD) is currently awarded in order to either reaffirm the entitlement for genuine claimants or highlight and address any potentially incorrect claims and remove the discount where appropriate. The councils are looking to engage a third party supplier to carry out this review using sophisticated data matching techniques and appropriate follow up actions.
