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More than 700 “suspected errors” in Universal Credit have been flagged in 18 months by a single town hall.

Labour-run Tower Hamlets began compiling the figures in April 2018 over fears the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was not dealing robustly enough with problems.

Since then the deprived London borough’s officers have reported 728 cases to the DWP - identifying £335,000 in alleged overpayments and £215,000 in underpayments.

Officials claimed some cases took months and several attempts to contact the DWP before they were resolved.

The Borough’s mayor John Biggs said: "The roll out of Universal Credit should be halted. It’s failing our most vulnerable residents and pushing them into hardship.

"It’s simply not good enough that these blunders continue."

Deputy Mayor Rachel Blake added: "The continuing errors we are seeing due to Universal Credit show it’s not fit for purpose.

(Image: The Wharf)

"It’s impossible for our residents to budget when they are being regularly underpaid or suddenly hit with bill for overpayments."

Cases reported by Tower Hamlets included a single parent in temporary accommodation, who waited eight months for payment because of a spat between the council and the DWP over who was responsible for paying them.

In another case, the DWP handed more than £5,000 to a claimant after it took three months to resolve a dispute about their housing and child costs in Universal Credit.

Other cases led to people being paid too much in benefits.

Tower Hamlets officials claimed they told DWP four times about someone who was being paid UC and housing benefit at the same time. By the time the issue was resolved five months later, the claimant had been overpaid by £12,000.

(Image: PA)

In another case, officers identified what they claimed was an "obvious contrived tenancy between family members", but it took four notifications and £18,000 overpayments before the DWP stopped the right element of housing benefit.

Tower Hamlets said it identified 578 errors in cases in 2018/19.

Despite the council going public about the first set this spring, 150 further alleged errors were identified up to September - making 728 in total since the work began.

Not all the cases are proven errors or accepted as errors by the DWP, as they were resolved in different ways without a consistent paper trail.

A DWP spokesman said: "There are almost 17,000 people receiving Universal Credit in Tower Hamlets and more than 2 million across the UK in total, and we continue to provide the best support possible to every single claimant.

"If a mistake is made on someone’s benefit payment, staff work to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”