Council house tenants are suffering at the hands of poor performing councils, according to an Audit Commission report.

The hard-hitting report concludes many council housing offices are worsening the hardship for some of their most vulnerable tenants by delaying their claims by months.

Some councils in London take 100 days or more to settle claims for housing benefits and three quarters take five weeks to process applications.

The report found there was a wide variation in performance between councils with administration "tarnished by error, waste and fraud" estimated to cost hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

Contracting out services, often seen as a solution to failing departments, offered no guarantee of improvement auditors found.

They describe housing benefit offices as a "Cinderella service" and called for better IT provision as well as for departments to get claimants details right first time.

Audit commission controller, Andrew Foster, said: "Housing benefit is a lifeline for millions of households. Poor organisation and management is not a good enough reason for long delays in administering claims."