City of York Council is stepping up its crackdown on benefit fraud, after being slammed in a damning report by a Government watchdog.

As councillors scrutinised an action plan to revamp York's benefits system, a fraudster was convicted of falsely claiming more than £6,000.

Inspectors from the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate (BFI) last year accused the council of wasting almost £1 million through overpayment, mismanagement and lost grants.

Now the council has hit back with an action plan highlighting what went wrong - and what is being done to improve things.

James Drury, the city council's head of public services, prepared a 33-page document, which describes the "enormous progress" made by the council since the December 2004 report.

The report criticised the council's decision to spend £480,000 hiring agency staff to clear a claims backlog. The BFI said that was an "expensive approach" that was poorly managed and "represented poor value for money".

In a formal response to the BFI's criticisms, council officers said a new computerised benefits system had "seriously affected performance" and led to staff morale and sickness issues.

They said: "However, during the last six months in particular we have made enormous progress into the workload outstanding and have delivered a much-improved service.

"Our key priority was to reduce and then eliminate the backlog of work, and whilst our success in this has been demonstrated, other areas of the business now need more attention."

Council officers are now working with BFI staff to address all the criticisms in the report, and have put together a plan with more than 100 items to address.

Councillors will discuss the plan's proposals at a meeting on Monday.

Meanwhile, a benefit fraudster caught falsely claiming almost £6,500 from City of York Council has been sentenced to 200 hours of community punishment.

Joanne Noddings, 27, of Vincent Way, Foxwood, claimed £5,474.72 in housing benefit and £967.91 in council tax benefit between March 4, 2002 and October 17, 2004.

York Crown Court heard that she made a claim on the basis that she was a single parent of two children and was on income support.

Her partner, who worked full time, moved in with her in March 2002, but she did not tell the council. Her fraud came to light following a tip-off from the public.

Max Thomas, head of audit and fraud, City of York Council, said: "The council is committed to ensuring that genuine clients receive their full entitlement.

"However, benefit fraudsters will not be tolerated and we will ensure that anyone making false claims is brought to justice.

"Benefit fraud is a serious crime, and there is a 24-hour benefit fraud hotline that can be used in the strictest of confidence, on 01904 552935."

City of York Council said Noddings would be expected to repay the money falsely claimed and will be sent a bill for the full amount.

Updated: 10:33 Tuesday, May 10, 2005