A DAMMING report into Ealing Council's housing benefits service has blamed poor IT equipment and staff errors for a massive backlog of claims.

The borough was picked out for inspection because the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was concerned about the number of unpaid benefit claims.

Published on Friday by the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) for John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the report said the council had "failed to meet minimum requirements" for the average time taken to process new claims and changes of circumstances.

And officials at the BFI said if improvements were not made, the DWP could, in extreme circumstances, take over the running of the benefits service.

Spokesman for the BFI, Richard Courcier, said: "The DWP will monitor the performance of the council for the next few quarters.

"The minimum standard time for paying claims is 36 days. Ealing was well over this.

"It is quite serious. They were inspected to see what was happening."

The report said there had been a "deteriorating performance" in processing the claims following a change in the benefits IT system in February 2005, which resulted in the council being unable to process any applications between December 2004 and February 2005.

More than £163million was administered in housing benefits in 2005/06, around 18.6 per cent of the council's total spending.

In the previous year new claims were decided in an average of 43 days. However this deteriorated to 85 days for new claims in 2006.

The council has now sent the DWP a response to recommendations made in the report, which insists the number of outstanding claims is cut to below ten per cent in the next 50 days.

A statement by Ealing Council said: "Ealing Council accepts the BFI's findings and we are already acting upon the recommendations in the report.

"Some of the measures the council is about to undertake includes providing better quality training and support for our staff.

"Our performance is improving, something which the report acknowledges."

The DWP is now considering if further action needs to be taken.