Looking Local Limited

BetterOff: Housing Benefit & Council Tax Reduction

BetterOff: HB/CTR focuses on the high-volume Housing Benefit/Council Tax Reduction (HB/CTR) form in a digital-first, fully supported solution with back-end integration and a range of assisted digital tools. Designed by public sector partners and based on the successful BetterOff: Welfare & Employment solution, it offers 100% online form completion.

Features

  • Fully managed cloud solution
  • User-centred designed digital-first HB/CTR form with embedded multi-media guidance
  • Fully integratable with major back-end benefits systems
  • Underpinned by HB/CTR entitlement calculator
  • Range of assisted digital tools including form co-production
  • Multiple log-in and ID verification mechanisms supported
  • Self-service account recovery process
  • Dynamic personalised supporting evidence lists and upload facility
  • Intuitive design, responsive & mobile friendly with Offline functionality
  • Range of reporting tools

Benefits

  • Self-service solution for 100% of HB/CTR claimants
  • Wide ranging integration benefits
  • Supports and encourages advocate use
  • Redefines complex paper-based process
  • Reduces revenues & benefits budget
  • Offers local tailoring of forms based individual council needs
  • Reduces contact
  • Clear and intuitive ‘end of form’ process
  • Speeds up benefit application process
  • Standalone solution or as part of BetterOff: Welfare & Employment

Pricing

£10,000 to £30,000 an instance a year

Service documents

Framework

G-Cloud 12

Service ID

5 3 7 5 2 1 6 6 7 0 0 9 4 6 6

Contact

Looking Local Limited Guy Giles
Telephone: 0845 434 8540
Email: guy.giles@lookinglocal.gov.uk

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
What software services is the service an extension to
BetterOff: Welfare & Employment
Cloud deployment model
Public cloud
Service constraints
No
System requirements
N/A

User support

Email or online ticketing support
No
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
No
Support levels
As part of our commitment to provide first class support, our proposals include the provision of “1st Line Support” throughout the life of the solution. This will be a call centre number that visitors or users of the solution can ring 24/7/365 to report issues like loss of service, orphaned content, or general presentation issues. Detailed response times would be covered in our SLA although they are generally between 2 business hours and 24hrs depending on the severity of the issue, and recovery times of 4-8 business hours - again depending on the severity or the issue. The costs for this support are included in the overall ongoing management costs (e.g. hosting, content refreshes). Each deployment comes with a dedicated technical manager to handle support requests, identify the issue and update stakeholders on progress in a timely fashion. Customised, higher levels of support are available on request and costed based on needs.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
Full onsite training to up to 8 staff users. BetterOff: Housing Benefit & Council Tax Reduction is a customer and agent-focused solution, which has been through significant user testing and is straightforward in its operation and usability. Training is therefore focused on internal culture change in terms of staff and the move to digital-first service delivery, rather than how to use the solution itself.
Service documentation
No
End-of-contract data extraction
We provide the data on demand.
End-of-contract process
At the end of the contract any user data is returned to the customer in a format of their choosing. All data is then destroyed in accordance with our data destruction policy. Analysis, deployment, customisation, testing and ongoing management are all included as part of the initial contract. Work carried out outside of the terms of the contract (e.g. change requests or out-of-scope features) are charged on our regular time & materials basis.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari 9+
  • Opera
Application to install
No
Designed for use on mobile devices
Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service
N/A
Service interface
Yes
Description of service interface
The service is web-based and can be accessed via a browser using an intuitive, accessible user interface
Accessibility standards
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Accessibility testing
All solution deployments are tested against WCAG 2.1 AA standards or higher where possible. Some aspects are AAA compliant but we try to achieve a balance between accessibility and browser coverage and have found that AAA compliance sometimes rules out older browsers to the detriment of other users. The solution is tested using a variety of assistive technology interfaces from Windows Narrator to Jaws.
API
No
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
Style (look and feel) is managed by Looking Local based on client requirements.

Scaling

Independence of resources
The solution is hosting in an 'elastic' environment within the EU that offer a broad set of global compute, storage, database, analytics, application, and deployment services that scale on demand applications. This generally ensures that users are never affected by performance issues.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
The service provides a full audit trail via a management console. This covers access times and published dates along with the standard Google Analytics of Audience Demographics, Real Time Behaviour, Geo Locations and session data. In addition business metrics are provided covering a range of areas.
Reporting types
  • API access
  • Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Staff screening not performed
Government security clearance
Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
European Economic Area (EEA)
User control over data storage and processing locations
No
Datacentre security standards
Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
Penetration testing frequency
At least once a year
Penetration testing approach
‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
Protecting data at rest
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Buyers can export analytics data on an ad hoc basis from within the Google Analytics console console. Buyers may request bulk data export on decommissioning of the service. Individual service users may download their prior applications from within the product.
Data export formats
  • CSV
  • Other
Other data export formats
  • ANSI SQL
  • PDF/A
Data import formats
Other
Other data import formats
N/A

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
Private network or public sector network
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
Historically, our availability has remained above 99.5%. Our solution is monitored in real time and SMS alerts are relayed to our technicians in the event of an outage lasting more than a few seconds. Refunds would be negotiated if uptime falls below this benchmark but handled on a case-by-case basis. For example, the absence of a third party API that is consumed by the solution cannot be attributed to loss of service.
Approach to resilience
Resilience information is available on request but built into the solution at the outset.
Outage reporting
The solution is monitored by Uptime Robot and notifies technicians of any outages via SMS notification, email, and API to dedicated Slack channels.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Access to management interfaces are restricted using either IP address or with secure login and OTP.
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
Description of management access authentication
IP address restriction

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months
How long system logs are stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
No
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Other security certifications
Yes
Any other security certifications
Cyber Essentials

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
CSA CCM version 3.0
Information security policies and processes
We have an ethical, legal and professional duty to ensure that the information the solution holds conforms to the principles of confidentiality, integrity and availability. We endeavour to ensure that the information we hold or are responsible for is safeguarded where necessary against inappropriate disclosure; is accurate, timely and attributable; and is available to those who should be able to access it. As such we have our own Information Security Policy in place that covers processes such as Legal & Regulatory Obligations, Information Classification, Compliance, Policy Awareness, Disciplinary Procedures, Incident Handling and Codes of Practice. We ensure this policy is enforced by periodic review of the Information Services Manager.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
We use a change management tracking service called Jira to ensure that any configuration or change management requests are accurately documented, prioritised and carried out in a timely fashion. We use version control to decide whether the change constitutes as step change in the fabric of the solution and carry out regular penetration testing if the change presents a potential security issue.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
We are members of a number of accredited bodies, including the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership (CiSP), that share information on new or emerging security issues. Any potential threats presented are assessed for severity either by our CTO or by a third party CHECK or CREST accredited body and acted upon accordingly.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
We give any security related incidents the highest priority. We have monitoring software that detects abnormal activity and provides SMS alerts if unusual patterns of activity are detected. In the event of a potential breach, the situation is assessed for severity and an appropriate response is coordinated immediately
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
Users can report incidents via our 24 hour telephone support helpdesk, via our incident reporting software or via email to the Technical Support Manager. Most incidents do fit a common type and have appropriate processes in place to deal with them. Non common incidents are dealt with on an ad hoc basis and followed up with an incident report to the stakeholders depending on the severity.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Supplier-defined process

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Pricing

Price
£10,000 to £30,000 an instance a year
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
No

Service documents