Misjudgements made by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in a programme to save vulnerable households from repossession and homelessness resulted in the delivery of half the expected outcomes for more money, a National Audit Office report claims.

According to the government spending watchdog, the mortgage rescue scheme designed to help 6,000 households for £205m helped only 2,600 households at a cost of over £240m. The report concludes that the DCLG's failure to adequately test assumptions underpinning the business case and make better use of all the information available was to blame for the mismatch.