More than £1m is to be injected into the Leicester's struggling benefits service.

Leicester City Council's cabinet agreed the move yesterday in response to criticism by Audit Commission inspectors, who gave the service a zero-star rating this year.

The money will be used to bring in more staff and to open phone lines and buildings for longer, to cut waiting times and speed up claims.

The council has pledged to turn around the service and hit ambitious targets within 18 months.

People calling the service currently wait an average of about nine minutes to get through.

That must be cut to one minute to meet the standard expected.

The time taken to process new or updated claims must fall from an average of 22.5 to 16 working days.

In May, the Audit Commission said these were two of the service's major failings and the city's housing and council tax office had "been poor for too long".

Its mistakes had led to £6m being overpaid to people in the past four years.

The council proposes spending an extra £200,000 this year and £450,000 next year to achieve the improvements and then spend £350,000 a year after that to maintain them. That would be on top of the £4.4m spent each year on the service.

Council leader Ross Willmott said: "This set of targets will put us on the path to excellent performance."