THE council has improved the delivery of vital benefits despite pandemic-related difficulties.

A new study by the Accounts Commission, which scrutinises local government, found that revenue and benefits service staff performed better than the Scottish average and were able to reduce new claim processing times.

The average time taken to process new claims last year fell by three days compared with 2019/20, despite lower staffing levels.

In addition to their usual work of processing around 10,000 housing benefit and council tax reduction claims, the team also oversaw the payout of £21m across 11 new Covid business grants between April 2020 and July 2021.