Will the Carers Allowance inquiry recognise this huge system flaw? It would have made it impossible to notify the DWP of changes.
I refer to the fact that, when phoning the Carers Allowance section of the DWP, either to give details of earnings over the permitted amount or to sign off the benefit, claimants are told that it is better and more immediate to provide the information online.
But I have been told that if a claimant does this, then absolutely nothing is done about it and nobody who should be told about it is actually informed.
I know this because I tried to quit Carers Allowance back in July, but nothing was done about it for several months. I eventually had to ignore the advice not to provide the information by phone – and am still waiting to hear when the benefit will cease being paid.
(In the meantime, because earnings from This Site are deliberately repressed by social media platforms like Facebook and X, I am reliant on Universal Credit to top me up. It is an extremely precarious position so please – if you have the cash available – feel free to donate to Vox Political via the PayPal box below.)
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The Carers Allowance inquiry is, according to the BBC, “an independent review into Carer’s Allowance overpayments, after families were forced to pay back thousands of pounds which pushed many into debt and financial distress”:
Earlier this year it was revealed the government was seeking to recover money from morethan 134,000 carers in the UK.
Some have told the BBC that the sudden demand for repayment of sometimes thousands of pounds put them under great financial strain, while it pushed others to quit their jobs.
The review will focus on how and why the overpayments were made, and what can be done now to help support affected carers.
I’m not worried about being pursued for overpayments; Carers Allowance is lower than Universal Credit so, if anything, the DWP owes me money.
But other people aren’t as lucky.
I am not sure whether the information above will explain what happened to many carers; the report states that (most or all of) the carers affected were not aware they had been overpaid “because many did not realise they had exceeded the earning limit for it – which is capped at £151 a week, or just over 13 hours’ work on the minimum wage”.
This would be because they work as employees of companies that pay variable amounts depending on what they do or the time they spend doing it, and also the amount of tax that is taken from them.
Only last night, I was talking to a man who had been told he owed almost £150 in tax that had not been paid directly (Pay As You Earn) by his employer. If he had been on Carers Allowance, he might also have been pursued by the DWP if this meant he had earned more than permitted during any particular week.
Most people who were told to repay large amounts of money simply failed to realise that they were working or earning more than was permitted during any particular week. According to the BBC, “The DWP failed to notify some recipients they had been overpaid for years and when they were asked for repayment retrospectively, the debt owed was in the tens of thousands of pounds.”
That would be the DWP’s mistake – not that of the carers. If people at the government department had known about such an issue and failed to contact the carer involved – allowed it to continue in the knowledge that it was happening – then it should take the financial hit, in This Writer’s opinion.
And it seems the DWP has known about the issue for a long time. A report released in May this year found that the DWP had known since 2021 that overpayment of Carer’s Allowance has left some people in financial difficulty. It seems nothing was done to improve the system since then.
The current review will apparently consider “operational changes” to minimise the risk of overpayments in the future and also examine how people with overpayments can be supported – but this is the DWP, remember. Other reviews of its mistreatment of (for example) people on sickness and disability benefits have also recommended changes which appear not to have been implemented.
The May report suggests that three per cent of carers had to make repayments after changes in circumstances meant that they received the benefit in error, but researchers said this may be an underestimate.
With 1,377,000 people currently claiming Carers Allowance, that means as many as 41,310 people may be facing demands for thousands of pounds that they simply don’t have.
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Will the Carers Allowance inquiry recognise this huge system flaw?
Will the Carers Allowance inquiry recognise this huge system flaw? It would have made it impossible to notify the DWP of changes.
I refer to the fact that, when phoning the Carers Allowance section of the DWP, either to give details of earnings over the permitted amount or to sign off the benefit, claimants are told that it is better and more immediate to provide the information online.
But I have been told that if a claimant does this, then absolutely nothing is done about it and nobody who should be told about it is actually informed.
I know this because I tried to quit Carers Allowance back in July, but nothing was done about it for several months. I eventually had to ignore the advice not to provide the information by phone – and am still waiting to hear when the benefit will cease being paid.
(In the meantime, because earnings from This Site are deliberately repressed by social media platforms like Facebook and X, I am reliant on Universal Credit to top me up. It is an extremely precarious position so please – if you have the cash available – feel free to donate to Vox Political via the PayPal box below.)
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
The Carers Allowance inquiry is, according to the BBC, “an independent review into Carer’s Allowance overpayments, after families were forced to pay back thousands of pounds which pushed many into debt and financial distress”:
I’m not worried about being pursued for overpayments; Carers Allowance is lower than Universal Credit so, if anything, the DWP owes me money.
But other people aren’t as lucky.
I am not sure whether the information above will explain what happened to many carers; the report states that (most or all of) the carers affected were not aware they had been overpaid “because many did not realise they had exceeded the earning limit for it – which is capped at £151 a week, or just over 13 hours’ work on the minimum wage”.
This would be because they work as employees of companies that pay variable amounts depending on what they do or the time they spend doing it, and also the amount of tax that is taken from them.
Only last night, I was talking to a man who had been told he owed almost £150 in tax that had not been paid directly (Pay As You Earn) by his employer. If he had been on Carers Allowance, he might also have been pursued by the DWP if this meant he had earned more than permitted during any particular week.
Most people who were told to repay large amounts of money simply failed to realise that they were working or earning more than was permitted during any particular week. According to the BBC, “The DWP failed to notify some recipients they had been overpaid for years and when they were asked for repayment retrospectively, the debt owed was in the tens of thousands of pounds.”
That would be the DWP’s mistake – not that of the carers. If people at the government department had known about such an issue and failed to contact the carer involved – allowed it to continue in the knowledge that it was happening – then it should take the financial hit, in This Writer’s opinion.
And it seems the DWP has known about the issue for a long time. A report released in May this year found that the DWP had known since 2021 that overpayment of Carer’s Allowance has left some people in financial difficulty. It seems nothing was done to improve the system since then.
The current review will apparently consider “operational changes” to minimise the risk of overpayments in the future and also examine how people with overpayments can be supported – but this is the DWP, remember. Other reviews of its mistreatment of (for example) people on sickness and disability benefits have also recommended changes which appear not to have been implemented.
The May report suggests that three per cent of carers had to make repayments after changes in circumstances meant that they received the benefit in error, but researchers said this may be an underestimate.
With 1,377,000 people currently claiming Carers Allowance, that means as many as 41,310 people may be facing demands for thousands of pounds that they simply don’t have.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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