Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell councils all overpaid, Slough was the highest in Berkshire with a £8 million overspend
Reading Borough Council had overpaid more than £4 million in housing benefit by June last year, but only clawed back about £700,000.
Boris Johnson has today pledged to undertake a strategic role on surplus public land to "turbo boost" housing development in London.
The pledge comes as the London mayor publishes his updated housing strategy. Measures include:
About 6% of social housing tenants in Britain affected by changes to benefits partly designed to cut under-occupancy have moved home, BBC research suggests.
Ministers claim the policy - dubbed the bedroom tax by critics - will free up big homes and save taxpayers £1m a day.
The government's huge shake-up of the benefits system is pushing families in social housing into greater levels of debt as they struggle to cope and find work, a major study has revealed.
Tenants have seen the amount they owe increase since October, while almost half report having no money left each week once essential bills have been paid.
More people could be eligible for a refund on the bedroom tax following further clarification about the loophole debacle from the Department for Work and Pensions.
The government initially issued guidance which stated that people who had been in a property prior to 1996 and continuously entitled to housing benefit were exempt from paying the controversial under-occupation penalty, along with those who inherited tenancies from their partner following their death.
The number of homeless families with school-age children being housed outside London by their local authorities has soared dramatically over the last four years.
Figures obtained by London Assembly Green Party member Darren Johnson show that 21 families were shifted outside the capital in 2010/11 but that the number had risen to 222 in the first three quarters of 2013/14 - a 1,000% increase.
George Osborne has today announced a £119 billion cap on welfare spending.
As he laid out his budget in parliament, the chancellor said the £119 billion cap for 2015/16 would rise in line with inflation to £127 billion in 2018/19.
Landlords in the UK are reporting that the incidence of void periods are falling, which is good news for the wider private rented sector.
It isn’t just the incidence of voids that are decreasing, indeed the duration of the average void period is falling too, according to research by BDRC Continental commissioned by Paragon Mortgages.
Some working people are losing 97p of every £1 earned after being hit by a combination of welfare cuts, a committee of MPs has found.
The public accounts committee warned today that cuts to council tax benefit means ‘work does not pay’ for those worse affected by the reforms.
London may routinely win the dubious race to be the most expensive place in the world to buy a home but when it comes to rental property, it comes only fifth.
ECA International, a body that analyses expenses associated with globe-trotting business executives, says high-end rents for an executive's typical apartment - three bedrooms, in a sought-after area of the capital - have risen about two per cent in London in the past year and now stand at £5,000 per month.