KBP was originally set up by Kent County Council, Medway Council and all twelve of the Kent district authorities. The plan was that KBP would take major responsibility of promoting take-up of Council Tax Benefit among pensioners.
Because of the success in this area, having paid out nearly £3million in benefit, the take-up work has moved on to cover Housing Benefit and working-age customers as well.
The major difference between KBP and other take-up campaigns is that KBP employs benefit officers to process the claims, and the authorities have given them access to their benefit systems – mostly access from KBPs Maidstone office.
KBP expanded to include a training arm, working along with the training officers from all the involved authorities to develop effective, quality training. KBP is now the first choice for all aspects of benefit training in Kent. Training is available at our fully equipped training room in Maidstone, on site if you can provide the facilities, or at any other conveniently sited location.
The KBP training officers are also assessors for the IRRV NVQ. KBP is an assessment centre for the NVQ, and can offer this service to any authority.
Resilience work is the other aspect of KBP. Most authorities have had experience of employing temporary staff who did not live up to expectations. KBP offer resilience in assessing for however long you need it. We permanently employ assessors skilled in using Academy, Northgate and IBS, as well as a variety of DIP systems.
KBP is not out to make a profit – we only need to cover our costs. All staff are committed to assisting authorities improve.
