FED up Blackburn councillors have demanded action to stop summonses being sent to people whose benefits claims are stuck in a backlog.

After concerns were raised about the performance of the council's benefits service, a review was carried out by Capita, the company which manages the service.

A total of 64 recommendations were made to try to bring the service back into line after it was revealed the average time taken to process a new claim in Blackburn was 30 days longer than the best-performing councils.

Earlier in the year, council officers said a new software system was the main reason for the build-up of housing benefit and council tax claims.

A report to members of the council's community and personal overview and scrutiny committee said a backlog of almost 18,000 items in July was reduced to just under 4,000 by October 20.

But councillors said people whose claims were included in the backlog were still being summoned to court, despite a request earlier in the year for the problem to be stopped.

Coun John Williams said: "There has got to be a way someone can grab hold of this situation and sort it out.

"Nothing has been done since the last time we asked for this problem to be solved and it is continuing just the same. It is not good enough."

Councillors have demanded a written response within a week outlining how the problem is going to be solved.

Coun Ashley Whalley said: "The backlog has started to fall although it is not yet fully clear.

"The backlog was so big there were people in it getting summoned to court. We want a written reply from the officers who deal with this saying how they are going to deal with it."

Coun Whalley said the council was mainly concerned about people whose responses to letters warning them they face court had become stuck in Blackburn's benefits backlog.

Highercroft councillor Dorothy Ward added: "It's not good enough. People should not have to put up with this, it needs sorting out."