A HIT squad will be sent into Swindon amid fears of fraud in housing benefit payments.

The local authority is one of only eight across the country set to receive an urgent check-up from the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate.

It follows an Audit Commission assessment last summer which reported that Swindon's adminis- tration of both housing benefit and council tax benefit was poor.

The rating has raised fears that taxpayers' money is being lost to fraud because council staff are failing to process benefit applications quickly enough.

Two months ago, Swindon council chiefs were named and shamed for unacceptable delays in handling benefit claims.

The unitary authority takes an average of 96 days to process a fresh benefit claim, compared to a national average of taking only 47 days.

Swindon also takes longer than average to process changes of circumstances 27 days, compared to the average of 13 days.

And its performance in processing only 54 per cent of new claims within 14 days was again worse than the national average of 70 per cent being processed.

The government fears that long delays in processing claims are exploited by fraudsters.

Malcolm Wicks, the housing benefit minister, said: "Where councils perform badly some of the most vulnerable people in society suffer and face financial strain. This is unacceptable."

The figures which covered the six months from April to September last year were the first ever comparison of how quickly local authorities deal with claims.