Derwentside District Council has been rapped for maladministration said to have caused private landlords hardship.

The Local Government Ombudsman has ordered the council to pay £750 to one landlord after he complained that the authority was up to 18 weeks late dealing with housing benefit claims.

Investigations by the ombudsman in May this year revealed that nearly 6,000 housing benefit claims had not been processed. At one stage the council owed one landlord between £11,000 and £12,000.

The backlog was caused by the implementation of a new Government verification system designed to combat benefit fraud. The authority had also suffered from losing experienced staff and has been undergoing internal reorganisation.

But the landlord who made the complaint, Tom Jackman - who rents 65 properties across Derwentside and who is a leading member of the Derwentside Private Landlords Association - was unsympathetic towards the council.

He said that many landlords had suffered severe cash flow problems because of the delays.

He said: "I am delighted with this judgement. Every council in the country has had to do this but has not suffered problems on anything approaching this scale. If they had taken stock and had a sensible plan there would not have been a problem."

In her report ombudsman Patricia Thomas said: "I accept that the complainant has been caused losses due to delay in determining claims and delay in making payments on account. I consider therefore that injustice has been caused by the council's maladminstration."

The report goes on to accept that the council has already implemented measures to reduce the backlog.

The council's director of regulation and resources,Keith Robinson, said those measures including installing a new computer system, the employment of temporary staff, redirection of current staff and identifying priority work.

He said: "The benefits service is probably the biggest single service we provide and from time to time we are bound to make mistakes.

"We will hold our hands up to that and then do something about it. I am sure the measures we have introduced will remedy this problem in a short time and we can then move on.