COUNCIL bosses have admitted that the benefit claims crisis which has resulted in elderly people receiving town hall letters telling them they could be evicted from their council homes has still not been resolved.

Council chiefs in Burnley have ordered a major shake-up of the benefits service to clear a massive backlog of claims.

Finance chairman Peter Kenyon admitted that only half the thousands of benefit claims were being processed in the prescribed time table.

This resulted in rent not being paid to the housing department, which had sent out warning letters to council tenants.

Coun Kenyon told the town council: "The situation is quite clearly not acceptable. I sincerely hope we will be able to make significant inroads into the backlog - but I must say that other councils up an down the country are in exactly the same situation."

He added: "We are doing our damnedest to set matters right. But I must ask for patience from councillors, claimants and landlords because it is going to take some time."

Liberal Democrat leader Gordon Birtwistle, told members of an 89-year-old widow on a West End estate who had been threatened with eviction in a harrowing and frightening letter, despite never owing a penny in her life.

"Only when the Lancashire Evening Telegraph became involved did she go from the bottom to the top of the list and the matter was sorted out. "She had been upset, distressed and in tears over the letter from the housing section and it is not good enough. If the benefits service cannot get its house in order, housing should at least check before they send these letters out."

Coun Kenyon admitted that was not an isolated case.

Problems had resulted from the setting up of a new computer system and a new and more bureaucratic verification system demanded by the Government to cut out benefit fraud.

"We are handling about £15million in claims per year and it is vital we operate a verification framework to prevent fraud."

Coun Kenyon added that the backlog and delays had resulted in a huge volume of telephone calls to the benefits service from people with legitimate inquiries.

But handling the calls had resulted in even more delay in the department.

Councillors were told the Data Protection Act prevented housing from checking if a benefit claim was being processed and had to assume rent was being withheld.

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