Government plans to separate the cost of providing support services for vulnerable people from the wider housing benefit bill are in disarray, new research suggests.

Councils were set the task of assessing all housing benefit claims before 1 April this year to ascertain how much support tenants were receiving with their housing benefit, whether they needed that support, and whether their landlord could provide it.

The information gathered over the next three years will be used to calculate how much money is being spent on support services in preparation for a central budget, to take place in April 2003.

But a survey by the National Housing Federation reveals that one month after the deadline local authorities have assessed just 13 per cent of claims, with a further 9 per cent under review.

The Federation has written to the government, with a warning that the delay in processing assessments threatens to invalidate the fact-finding process.

Federation chief executive Jim Coulter argued that the findings from the first year of the assessment process would be "very poor quality" and could result in "a sizeable underestimation of the amount of funding Supporting People will need".