MORE than £1.5 million was mistakenly paid out in benefits by Poole council last year, a new report has revealed. Inaccuracy in processing claims by Poole’s benefit service is behind a lowly one-star rating from the Audit Commission.

The service also ranked as one of the worst in the country for checking claims payouts and was rated poor value for money.

However, the borough is performing well in catching benefit frauds, with the report rating the prospects for improvement as “promising”.

Martin Green, the Audit Commission’s senior manager, said: “Poole’s service is too costly and detailed action plans to improve are not always good enough.

“Senior officers are taking steps to tackle weaknesses in claims accuracy and value for money.”

Housing benefit overpayment hit £1.6m by the end of March, a 60 per cent leap from the previous year.

The figure represents almost three per cent of the £52.5m paid out in benefits by Poole council for 2009/10.

The commission’s report said “satisfactory” arrangements were in place to recover the money.

Other failings cited in the report include delays in dealing with claimants’ changes in circumstances and not encouraging them to report such changes.

Faster payments and improvements to the service for people with special needs were among the positives identified.

Liz Wilkinson, the council’s chief finance officer, said the benefits service was working hard to reduce costs and improve its quality.

She said: “The report confirms the actions we have in hand and those planned over the remainder of this year are the right and proper things to do in taking the service forward.”

Around 11,770 people in Poole claim council tax benefit, along with 9,400 claiming rent allowance.