Some applicants face the threat of eviction

Responsibility for housing benefit is currently split between the Benefits Agency and local authority housing benefit departments.

Ministers are proposing that a single agency is given responsibility for processing claims.

Citizens Advice Scotland says evidence taken from its 57-member Citizens Advice Bureaux supports the need for change.

The 15,000 housing benefit cases dealt with in the year ending 1999 included problems of long delays and applications being lost.

Social policy officer, Una Bartley, said: "Citizens Advice Scotland is concerned that too often the housing benefit system is failing the very people it is there to protect.

"Current procedures, administrative errors and protracted delays repeatedly result in Citizens Advice Bureaux clients suffering rent arrears, financial hardship, threatened and actual evictions."

Ms Bartley says CAS is seeking a simplified and more streamlined system which guarantees that all claims will be processed within a fortnight.