BENEFIT bosses have been criticised for not sending apology letters to 400 pensioners who feared an administrative blunder would leave them penniless.

And officials have been ordered to stop trying to find other authorities to compare their performance with and just focus on reducing the length of delays.

Last month, it was revealed how 400 pensioners feared payments would dry up because of an administrative error by Capita, the private company which runs Blackburn with Darwen Council's benefits service.

They received letters from Blackburn with Darwen Council wrongly saying that they had not returned forms for renewing housing and disability benefit.

That meant benefits -- used to pay things like rent and council tax -- could have dried up at any time.

Blackburn with Darwen Council and Capita issued a public apology at the time.

But a report to a meeting of the council's community and personal overview and scrutiny committee revealed that individual letters of apology had not been sent out.

It stated: "Consideration was given to sending individual letters of apology to all those affected, but this would involve a major manual exercise in order to distinguish between those who should have received the letters because they hadn't returned the forms, and those who shouldn't."

But Conservative councillor Sheila Williams said: "I don't think issuing an apology through the Press is enough. I think at the very least, letters should have been sent to the people affected to say what happened, why they were put through the stress and what has been done to make sure it shouldn't happen again."

Damon Lawrenson, revenues and benefits change programme manager at the council -- who oversees how the service is improved -- told the meeting that apologies were being issued as people contacted the service.

It currently takes 71 days to process a new application for benefits, compared to a national average of 51 days and a council target of 35 days. Just 54 per cent of claims are being renewed on time.

Extra staff have been employed to tackle the backlog while new computer systems should make it harder for errors to occur, Capita has promised.

Mr Lawrenson said it was not always accurate to compare Blackburn with Darwen with the top-performing councils, which achieve 30 days.

He said the council was looking for similar authorities in terms of size and population make-up to compare performance.

But Coun Williams said: "It isn't about finding out how we compare with other councils which are like us. It is about making sure we are the best.

"That is all the public care about, not how we stand up against an authority the same size as us. This is a mess and needs sorting."

Coun Frank Connor, executive member for citizen and consumer rights, said: "I can't defend what has happened but we are working with Capita to make sure things improve."