HOUSING benefit claimants in Swindon are now receiving their cash much quicker following damning criticism of the council.

New government figures show the authority has succeeded in cutting the average wait for people receiving their money after submitting a claim from 96 days to 75 days, since being named and shamed as a poor performer in previous Whitehall reports.

But the news is not all good in spite of the improvement, Swindon is still one of the slowest 42 local authorities in England and Wales and falls far short of the target of just 36 days.

Last year, the Evening Advertiser reported a number of housing benefit cases being mishandled by the then contractor, WS Atkins, which was replaced by another firm, Liberata, last August.

Among them was that of Celia Cotton of Salisbury Street, who wears a hearing aid and is unable to work through illness. She was mistakenly told that her benefit was being cut off.

She said today: "The service has improved, but the benefits department did mistakenly write to say I had failed to fill in the forms."

However, she added that the department rectified the error when it was pointed out to them.

Coun John Taylor (Lab, Central), who helped Miss Cotton and her late partner, Gordon Young, sort out their problems with benefits, said: "While I applaud the improved performance, it is still unacceptably distant from Government targets.

"The people in Swindon who need these benefits deserve a top quality service."

The performance figures, released by the Department of Work and Pensions and covering the last three months of last year, revealed that the quickest council took 28 days to process claims and the slowest 101 days.

They also revealed that Swindon had speeded up its processing of changes of circumstances from 27 days to 17 days, but still took longer than the average of 11 days.

It also dealt with 85 per cent of new claims within 14 days a sharp improvement from the 54 per cent recorded in the last set of statistics.

Council resources director, Ian Thompson, said: "We are pleased that it is being recognised in Government reports that the service is improving."

He added that the council and Liberata had agreed a target of placing benefits processing in Swindon as among the best in the country by the end of next March, when the current financial year ends.