The Inland Revenue has apologised to tax credit applicants after a Working Lunch viewer put forward detailed allegations about the performance of the computer system put in place to handle the payments.

The viewer, who works in one of the offices processing tax credits, claimed that a system designed to churn out 20,000 award notices per week was being asked to process 100,000.

Unprocessed claims, it was alleged, were piling up in a computer limboland, where they could not be viewed by Inland Revenue staff trying to deal with enquiries. So applicants were clogging the system with more unnecessary applications.

Another charge was that the machinery was failing to scan in applications accurately. In effect, it couldn't read their handwriting.

And the computer kept crashing, preventing staff from processing claims or giving out information for hours on end.

'Not true'

An Inland Revenue spokeswoman branded two of the allegations as "not true".

She said that the computer system is capable of issuing hundreds of thousands of award notices a week - and that it can read claimants' handwriting.

But on the limbo where forms appear to get lost, the Revenue's line is that it is "working hard...to improve system availability".

Many viewers have reported being told that no record could be found of their applications, despite the fact that they had applied as early as last autumn.

On computer crashes, Working Lunch was told that the Revenue is trying "to improve system performance".

Sorry

"The new tax credits computer system is not yet performing as well as we would like," said the spokeswoman, "We are sorry about that."

At a West London tax office this morning, we asked some claimants their thoughts about the new system.

Susan Brown has had to wait eight weeks for her money. During that time she's made around 15 calls to the helpline.

Sue is still not happy

She's finally got some money.

"I've been given an emergency payment," says Susan, "but it might be too much or too little. I'm happy that I've got some money but I'll only be really satisfied when they've processed my claim."

Hardeesh Kaur is fed up because she says that exactly the same thing happened last year when the computer system failed to renew her claim.

Root cause?

With hundreds of people still out of pocket because of failings in the new system, can any one person or organisation be blamed?

The most obvious failing seems to be that the old system was stopped when the new tax credit system started, rather than just being phased out.

This has meant many less well-off families have had a vital source of income severed while a new and untried system is left to struggle under the weight of new claims.