Sedgemoor and South Lanarkshire are fastest at processing benefit

Government figures published on 19 March show that 155 councils hit the target to pay new claims within 36 days in the third quarter of this financial year, 21 days better than the same period in the previous year.

The worst-performing council, Wokingham in Berkshire, took 127 days to process a new claim. The best performers, Sedgemoor in Somerset and South Lanarkshire in Scotland, took just 11 days.

Steve Trunks, senior benefits officer at Sedgemoor council, attributed the local authority's success to experienced staff.

"We have a fairly fixed and experienced team of processors," he said. "The key is to put a high profile on processing." The council's housing benefits service has remained in-house rather than being contracted to a private firm.

The best-performing council a year ago was Rother, east Sussex. Its benefits service is outsourced to Liberata. Then, it took seven days to process a new claim but now takes 22 days.

The longest time taken to deal with new claims has decreased from 142 days – the time taken by last year's worst performer, Hackney in east London – to the 127 days taken by Wokingham.

Wokingham in Surrey stopped using outsourcing firm Atkins in May 2002. Revenues and benefits service manager Kevin Mercer said the council was still clearing the backlog of claims left after it brought its service back in-house when the figures were compiled.

It has now cleared the backlog and aims to reclaim its place in the top 25 peformers – where it was before the Atkins deal.