Residents across the district are to have their say on how Bradford Council's benefit service is performing.

About 1,000 people, who have recently applied through the Council for council tax or housing benefit will be picked at random over the next few weeks to complete a customer satisfaction survey.

The move is part of the Government's Best Value initiative which requires all local authorities to improve the quality of service they provide and make sure that it is efficient, effective and good value for money.

The survey is the first step towards it and will help the authority provide the type of service and support customers really want.

Results from the survey will be sent to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions for a comparison with levels of customer satisfaction from other local authority benefit services.

Councillor Richard Wight-man, executive member for corporate affairs, said: "We owe it to all council tax payers in the district, not just those who use the benefit service, to ensure that we provide a high standard of service which is also good value for money.

"I would urge everyone who is sent a questionnaire to respond to it as this is the best possible way of finding out how the Council is performing and what improvements or changes would be necessary to provide customers with the type of service they want."

The results will be available from next spring on the Council's website as well as at public benefit inquiry points throughout the district.