OUR investigation into exceptional hardship payments this week makes interesting reading.

Of course, the council would have you believe that everything is hunky dory, deserving cases get what they need and their efficiency helps channel tens of thousands of pounds back into council coffers to assist with other projects.

What Citizen Smith can't quite grasp is why a frugal Government and a cash-strapped council would earmark nearly £200,000 for vulnerable local folk if all that's really needed is a couple of grand.

Either the Government is being far too generous with its money (behold a miracle!) or it's not getting through to the people who really need it.

The fact that hardly anyone, including staff at the housing benefit office, have never even heard of this fund could have something to do with its low take-up rate.

Now we would be the first people to have a go if this money was not being handled prudently but we are staggered to discover that so few people in the area qualify for this cash, which, let's face it, is designed to help the most vulnerable in our society.

At the start of our investigations we discovered details of this fund could not be provided because, as the officer responsible courteously explained, it was available only on a "need to know basis."

Last week a report revealed that just £1,577 had been given to three people.

"And how many people have applied," we asked

That information was not available.

But we need to know!

This sort of thing never happened under the last administration!