NEW housing benefit applicants in Reading are having to wait three weeks for their claims to be processed.

Between April 2017 and March 2018, new claimants waited on average 21 days before their application was completed, the Department of Work and Pensions (DwP) has revealed.

Councils, including Reading Borough Council (RBC), are legally required to respond within two weeks, or as soon is practical.

RBC slightly bucks the national trend of a 22-day waiting time, including weekends.

However, Turn2US, a charity which helps people with financial hardship secure welfare benefits, has launched a campaign to bring down the waiting times.

Pirtie Billimoria, head of communications, said: "Housing benefit is not a luxury people can afford to wait for.

"It is not good enough that the average wait is almost twice as long as the legal requirement and with the minimum wait for Universal Credit at 35 days, people are simply being dragged into a waiting game that they cannot afford.

"At best, these delays and long waiting times are leaving people on the brink of losing the roof over their head and at worst are pushing people into homelessness.”

There were 11,569 housing benefit claimants in Reading in February 2018, which is the latest publicly available data.

During the previous year applicants had less time to wait with an average delay of 20 days.

Government chiefs insist they work with every council to check on the housing benefit performance.

A DwP spokesman added: "We spend around £23 billion a year on housing benefit - more than any other OECD country as a proportion of GDP.

"We work directly with each local authority to monitor housing benefit performance and this includes the speed of processing which has remained stable over a number of years."

Residents are eligible for housing benefit if they rent, are on a low income or other benefits, and if their savings are below £16,000.