THE DWP has been forced to admit that a further 30,000 disabled and sick benefit claimants are owed money as a result of the Employment and Support Allowance scandal.

The miscalculations in the transition from older incapacity benefits to ESA, takes the total of people owed money to about 210,000.

The error dates back to 2011 and was first identified in December 2016, but the situation has not been resolved and further errors continue to emerge.

The government, already hit by the much-criticised Universal Credit rollout, has to get a grip of the spiralling scandal, speed up repayments processes, and launch an urgent review of procedures to identify and prevent further errors throughout the social security system.

The catalogue of errors will no doubt have left many vulnerable people worse off and struggling to get by, but just how many have been pushed into rent arrears, council tax arrears, debt and destitution is not clear.

DWP chiefs have gathered an army of 1,200 staff to fix the blunder, paying back 58,000 people a total of £328m so far, but that is too late for any potential victims who have all already died.

There needs to be answers about the shocking numbers of sick people and people with disabilities who are owed money by the government, and those who have lost out should be compensated, but let us hope that those come quicker than the speed of the current benefit system.