28-06-04

Barrett outrage over council’s atrocious benefits record

John Barrett, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West, has called for an urgent review of the way benefit applications are handled in Edinburgh after a Government report found Edinburgh City Council to be Scotland's second worst local authority for processing housing benefit claims.

Last week, the Department of Work & Pensions released a new report, which showed the average time taken by each local authority to process new claims for housing benefit. The report showed that whilst the response target set down by Government is 14 days, the average time taken by the City of Edinburgh Council in 2003/04 was an astonishing 83 days. This is the second worst performance of any Scottish council and considerably worse than the 51 day average response time recorded in 2002/03.

Only 41% of housing benefit claims in Edinburgh are now processed in the Government's 14 day target.

Commenting, John Barrett said:

"These figures are nothing short of atrocious. Many people on low incomes need and deserve extra financial help to pay their rent and other housing costs. However, Edinburgh City Council is taking almost 6 times as long as the Government recommends to respond to people's claims. As if that is not bad enough, the figures show that response times in Edinburgh are actually getting worse.

"This incompetence by the Council is having a major impact on the ground. I am finding my constituency surgeries increasingly filled with people having problems with their benefit claims. It is obvious that an action plan to resolve this underperformance is desperately needed and I will be writing to the Council's Director of Finance to raise these concerns."

ENDS

Notes to Editors

• Last week, the Department of Work & Pensions released its report Housing Benefit Quarterly Performance Statistics (Data for fourth quarter 2003/04). This showed the performance of Scottish and other local authorities in dealing with housing benefit claims. The full report is available at: www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/hb_ctb/performance.asp

• Relevant information from the report is given in the table below:

Local Authority	Average days to process new claims						Percentage of new claims determined within 14 days
	2002 /2003 overall	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	2003/ 2004 overall	2002/2003 performance.	Year to date performance 2003/2004
Aberdeen City	51	49	51	.	33	45	.	69
Aberdeenshire	44	43	48	47	56	49	91	90
Angus	79	97	80	75	54	77	41	47
Argyll and Bute	33	39	46	47	48	45	84	74
Clackmannanshire	29	.	42	36	38	39	46	49
Dumfries and Galloway	40	43	49	49	43	46	74	72
Dundee City	60	80	90	74	89	82	61	55
East Ayrshire	59	52	44	32	29	40	32	62
East Dunbartonshire	47	58	64	70	65	64	64	57
East Lothian	53	54	52	44	35	47	47	51
East Renfrewshire	32	47	40	38	38	41	54	74
Edinburgh, City of	59	71	.	93	84	83	51	41
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (previously Western Isles)	59	.	.	69	.	69	57	49
Falkirk	32	37	37	34	24	33	70	72
Fife	58	.	63	44	38	50	.	65
Glasgow City	42	58	49	40	27	44	85	70
Highland	44	50	56	50	54	53	86	79
Inverclyde	65	69	74	65	76	71	86	67
Midlothian	64	44	40	37	32	38	23	29
Moray	102	92	70	50	.	72	19	23
North Ayrshire	111	153	123	103	88	117	41	43
North Lanarkshire	26	22	20	17	16	19	80	93
Orkney Islands	19	17	16	24	34	23	97	95
Perth and Kinross (previously Perthshire & Kinross)	25	27	29	69	81	56	53	63
Renfrewshire	39	62	70	87	104	77	67	46
Scottish Borders, The	31	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
Shetland Islands	32	31	30	29	34	31	100	100
South Ayrshire	57	56	55	55	56	55	43	55
South Lanarkshire	19	.	.	11	.	11	73	97
Stirling	23	21	20	20	23	21	85	92
West Dunbartonshire (previously Dumbarton & Clydebank)	84	66	56	57	48	56	78	84
West Lothian	35	37	38	35	34	36	32	46