Claimants waited five months for benefits, report finds

Leicester council's tax and housing benefit claimants were left in limbo after waiting an average of five months to have their claims processed, a report has revealed.

The report, published yesterday by Andrew Smith, the secretary of state for work and pensions, follows an inspection last year by the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI), which was called in after concerns were raised over the poor service meted out to welfare claimants.

At its peak, the council had a backlog of 70,000 benefit claims waiting to be processed, the report found.

It took an average 141 days for the authority to process new applications, almost five times the 36-day target set by the BFI under performance standards launched in 2002.

Some landlords were even forced to apply to the courts to recover arrears of rent that had been incurred due to non-payment of benefits over the 2002-03 period, the report said.

Changes to people's circumstances, which required an adjustment to their benefit entitlements, also met with delays.

Instead of taking 13 days to process, the report found that amendments took an average of 49 days to register, leading in many cases to overpayments which then had to be reclaimed at a later point.

The BFI found Leicester council, rated "good" by local government watchdog the Audit Commission in its latest comprehensive performance assessment, but failed to meet any of the seven functional areas laid down for authorities administering housing and council tax benefits and tackling fraud.

The council was nevertheless praised for its "commitment and professionalism in its efforts to improve".

The report noted that "significant IT problems had hindered the council's ability to deliver an effective benefits service," coupled with staffing shortages.

Dave Pate, Leicester city council housing service director, said the backlog was now cleared and that all claims were being processed.

All new work was now being turned around within seven days, he claimed, although the length of processing a benefit claim from beginning to end depended on how well the forms were being filled in.

Commenting on the report, Mr Pate said: "This is old news and highlights a problem that existed over six months ago at the time of the BFI inspection. It was down to our external electronic document management system going into liquidation before the project was complete. This led to a backlog of work in the section.

"The issue was compounded by constant changes in benefit legislation that culminated in the council having to replace the main computerised processing system last October."

The report made numerous recommendations that the unitary council, which last year administered ?97m in housing benefits, will have to address in the form of an action plan.

Failure to improve over the next few months could lead to a follow-up inspection or to the laying of "directions" by the government, which would set strict targets to be met within a given period of time.

Housing and council tax benefits help one in six households across the country.