Tesco has overpaid hundreds of former staff’s redundancy payments, with some former employees overcompensated by as much as £2,000.

It is understood between 200 and 300 former workers were either overpaid or underpaid following the latest round of redundancies at the supermarket chain, the Press Association reports.

Chief executive Dave Lewis has apologised for the error and said letters were sent to affected former staff as soon as the problem was identified.

Tesco is now attempting to rectify its payments, either by further compensating people who were underpaid or by getting reimbursed for overpayments.

Former employees of the grocer who were overpaid by less than £500 will be able to keep the full amount, while those overpaid by more than £500 will be able to keep £100 of the overpayment.

The former employees were part of a major redundancy programme announced at Tesco earlier this year, which is expected to impact 9,000 full-time positions.

A Tesco spokesman said: “A small number of colleagues were impacted by an administrative error, which resulted in an incorrect redundancy payment being made to them.

“Colleagues who were underpaid were paid the correct amount within one to two working days and this issue is now resolved.

“We have been in touch with colleagues who were overpaid to apologise, and we will be fair to colleagues affected taking account of individual circumstances.”