Housing Benefit tenants - rent not yet paid

I have 2 HB tenants who moved in just over four weeks ago. The agreement was that the council would pay the tenants every 2 weeks in arrears who in turn would pay me.

The first payment has not yet arrived, although I was advised by both the tenants and the council that a cheque was issued by the council to the tenants the week before last to cover the first three weeks rent, thereafter the council advised that payment would be made directly by BACS into the tenants' bank account every two weeks.

I was told that the reason for a cheque being sent out was because there were some discrepancies with the bank details originally provided by the tenants. The tenants told me they cashed this cheque last week on Monday so it should have cleared by now. However they have not been forthcoming about contacting me to pay me these three weeks of rent.

I know it is early days but I detect that these tenants are trying to put off paying the rent if at all.

Could you give me some pointers on what the next step may be ? For example if they are so many weeks in arrears, could I approach the council to ask them to pay the rent directly to me ?