When the statistics were launched in January, Malcolm Wicks, the then housing benefit minister, promised to be tough on councils that failed to hand over data for the league tables.
In the absence of data from the council, it was investigated by the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate, which focused on the speed and accuracy with which claims were processed.
The inspectorate found a "significant deterioration" in the council's housing benefit performance. However, it added that the service had started to improve.
The report said: "The council had moved from delivering a quick and efficient service to its customers, to one where new benefit claims and changes of circumstances were taking an average of 77 and 44 days respectively to process. However, the latest performance data … indicates the council's performance is better than this."
In addition to the IT problems, the report blamed the drop in standards on the transfer of the council's housing stock in July 2002 and its implementation of the new national system for checking the identity of benefit claimants.
Glyn Nightingale, the council's member for corporate resources, said it outsourced its benefits service to contractor Liberata one month before the inspection.
Under the deal, Liberata will install a new IT system in February next year.
Nightingale said: "We are confident we will be even better in the future once the new system comes in in February."
A DWP spokesperson said no other authorities were scheduled for similar one-off inspections.
DWP benefit survey: The results
Councils are almost a week faster at processing new housing benefit claims then they were last year. This quarter’s figures from the DWP show councils are taking 53 days on average to process a claim, compared with the same period last year. The best council, South Derbyshire, took an average of 14 days to process new claims; the worst, North Ayrshire, took 153.Source
Housing Today
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