The Tube crash that left dozens injured was "an accident waiting to happen" a top-level report has concluded.

The Chancery Lane derailment was caused by London Underground's (LU) failure to solve a long-term design fault the London assembly has said.

After the crash ambulance staff took 32 people to hospital and the assembly believes dozens more made their way to other accident and emergency units across the capital.

Two similar incidents in the 18 months before the accident had highlighted problems with bolts attached to the train's motors but managers instigated a system of checks every 90 days - and later every five days.

Members of the assembly's transport committee concluded LU seemed "more in line with maintaining a service than solving the underlying problem".

They raised concerns about they way in which passengers and people in the station were evacuated after the incident.

The committee's report also criticised a communications failure by managers who failed to inform frontline staff that they were to remove trains from service if there were reports of a smell, noise or smoke.

The committee questioned LU's decision to cut the number of full-time maintenance staff and qualified experts, believing it "may also have had an impact on the derailment in January".

Committee chairman John Biggs said: "We find it difficult to reconcile this inability to identify the cause of the problem with LU's statement that they are absolutely confident it is safe to run these trains.

"The Chancery Lane incident has raised very real concerns about the safe management of the system, about tube management structures and about the corporate response of LU to the incident."

Tube bosses welcomed the report and in a statement reassured passengers that action had already been taken.

"London Underground is determined to ensure that such an incident does not happen again. There are already a significant number of investigations on-going and valid recommendations from these and those made by the London Assembly will be given full consideration and implemented where appropriate," the company said.

"The publication of this report coincides with the return of a full Central Line service today - following four months of acknowledged but unavoidable disruption and inconvenience for our customers."