CLACKMANNANSHIRE COUNCIL was the worst local authority in Scotland when it came to processing Scottish Welfare Fund Crisis Grant applications on time in the first quarter of this year.

The Wee County was generally among the worst for dealing with Scottish Welfare Fund applications on time between January 1 and March 31, 2016, according to statistics from the Scottish Government.

Following recent changes, however, the council is “confident” performances will improve in the “near future”.

The Scottish Welfare Fund acts as a safety net for vulnerable people on low incomes by providing Community Care Grants as well as Crisis Grants.

The money for the fund is provided by the government, but people have to apply through their councils and the Wee County local authority is lagging miles behind the target for processing applications.

The target for processing a Crisis Grant, which helps people facing a disaster or emergency, is two working days and on average around the country, 97 per cent of applications were dealt with in that time.

However, Clackmannanshire Council is the only local authority to drop below 90 per cent and only managed to process a staggeringly low 77 per cent of the applications it received on time.

SNP councillor Donald Balsillie, vice-chairman of the Scrutiny Committee, told the Advertiser: “It is very disappointing to note that Clackmannanshire Council is the worst performing council in relation to Crisis Grants with only 77 per cent of grants meeting the two-day target.

“This may also account for the 33 per cent drop in applications. I will be asking officers to prepare a report for the next Scrutiny Committee on the reasons for this performance and how the council’s procedures and processes can be improved to ensure that the enhanced funding from the Scottish Government is efficiently delivered to those in need.”

Even the big local authorities like Edinburgh or Glasgow City, which dealt with around 10 times as many applications, managed to keep the figure in the high 90s.

Community Care Grants, which help vulnerable people set up home or continue to live independently in their community, should be processed in 15 working days.

Clackmannanshire Council was in the bottom five out of Scotland’s 32 local authorities having only processed 76 per cent of these applications on time, compared to the national average of 92 per cent.

A council spokesperson told the Advertiser: “We were aware of this issue, and have taken steps to improve performance.

“The head of housing recently presented a report to the council’s Scrutiny Committee which showed significant improvements to the performance in Housing Benefit processing and we are confident that the changes made in Scottish Welfare Fund applications will show similar improvements in the near future.”

Altogether, Clackmannanshire Council worked on around 215 Crisis Grant and about 170 Community Care Grant applications in the first quarter – all numbers have been rounded to the nearest five.

Around three per cent of Community Care Grant applications took as long as 30 to 50 days to process.

Crisis Grant acceptance rates are also below the national average in Clackmannanshire.

Around 70-73 per cent of applications had been granted in the country between 2013 and the first quarter of this year; but only around 62 per cent of applications were accepted in Clacks in 2013, 57 per cent in 2014, only 45 per cent in 2015 and 59 per cent in the first quarter of 2016.

The cause of this, however, remains unknown, but there is nothing to suggest the rejections have been unreasonable.

The statistics did not include a break-down by local authority of the reasons for rejection.

Community Care Grant acceptance rates were in-line with the national average in 2013 and the following year with around 64 per cent during both.

However, 2015 saw a dip to just below 50 per cent compared to the national average of 64 per cent and in the first quarter of this year, 53 per cent of applications were accepted locally as opposed to the national average of 68 per cent.

Similar acceptance rates can be found in the Falkirk and the Borders areas recently.