The London Borough of Hillingdon has beaten government performance targets after introducing 3G-based mobile access to its back-office systems for its benefits inspectors.

Council chiefs needed the inspectors to visit a minimum of 4,850 benefits claimants during the year to meet government performance targets. By equipping them with mobile devices that could link into council systems, inspectors were able to visit more people because they no longer had to return to the office to enter data on the benefits IT system, said the council.