I have sent my (first?) letter to Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, raising concerns about the way Carers’ Allowance is administrated by her department.

I would have sent it by email – but attempts to deliver the message to the Department for Work and Pensions email address – [email protected] – bounced. It seems the DWP has yet to join the digital revolution.

The letter is based on an article I published here, and runs as follows:

Dear Secretary of State,

 

Will the Carers Allowance inquiry recognise a huge system flaw that would have made it impossible to notify the DWP of changes?

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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 is true 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 – I did this on October 17 and am finally seeing some movement.

I suggest you take action to ensure that your Carers Allowance section responds when people send information via the online form.

In addition to having been a carer, I am also the online journalist who writes Vox Political, the popular politics website. I have already published an article about this and will inform my friends in the local and national press if I am mistreated by members of your department.

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