Homeless figures were added up incorrectly

Internal correspondence shows confusion over the categorising of people living in emergency accommodation in five areas, and how in some cases incorrect tallies of homeless people were down to miscalculations and omissions.

The emails, provided by the Department of Housing in response to a Freedom of Information request, follows the revelation earlier this year that the monthly tallies used to calculate the number of homeless people may have been overestimated.

The most recently published figures showed a record number of 9,846 people in emergency accommodation in May.