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  Civil servant who presided over Universal Credit programme accused of a 'litany of failures' by MPs
  
  Robert Devereux admitted it had taken him more than a year to realise that there were problems
  
  The most senior civil servant responsible for the Government's Universal Credit programme was
  
  tonight accused by MPs of presiding over a "litany of failures" that could cost the taxpayer up to £160m.
  
  Robert Devereux, permanent secretary at the Department of Work and Pensions, admitted it had
  
  taken him more than a year to realise that there were problems with the programme and had only
  
  met with the officials in charge of delivering it once every three weeks.
  
  But he insisted that he had no way of knowing what was going wrong until an external review last
  
  year drew the problems to his attention - and denied that he had put off demands for ministers to
  
  hold the review earlier.
  
  Looking clearly uncomfortable as he was accused by members of the Public Accounts Committee
  
  of "blaming everyone under him" for the failures so far in the Universal Credit programme,
  
  Mr Devereux insisted he took responsibility for the scheme's "poor value for money".
  
  Full story Independent.

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