Carers Allowance overpayments are rising but there’s no mention of DWP fault in reports about it. Why not?
This Writer used to be a carer, so I know it is the lowest-paid benefit on the government’s list, with recipients currently receiving just £81.90 per week in return for 35 hours of work caring for someone with an illness or disability.
Carers may do paid work to top up the amount they receive, but this is limited in value to £151 per week (although the threshold is set to rise to £196 per week in April). Work it out; it means they are limited to earning just £12,144 per year. That’s around half the minimum wage (£22,369 per year).
Considering the complexity of some of the care that they have to give, the amount carers receive is a national insult.
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And it is very easy for them to be overpaid without realising, if they are employees of somebody else and depending how their earnings are worked out and paid to them. Receiving a single penny above the permitted amount means a carer is no longer eligible to receive the benefit, creating a “cliff edge” over which 136,730 people were said to have fallen in the last financial year.
That’s an increase of 71 per cent since 2018/19. The size of the debt accrued since then had increased by £100 million to £250 million.
The DWP itself should bear the blame for much of the size of the overpayments. It has systems in place that should inform it when a claimant has earned too much.
Many claimants have said they were unaware they had exceeded the threshold until being informed years later, when the overpayments had run into thousands of pounds.
And it is possible to get into trouble even if you have tried to inform the DWP, because information sent to the Carers Allowance website is not read, despite claimants being told this is the best way to provide it.
This Writer discovered it the hard way, having tried to sign off the benefit in July. I was eventually taken off the books in October, after two telephone calls to the DWP.
So I think it is potentially hugely unfair for the government to pursue carers whose lives are already overcomplicated by the conditions imposed on their benefit that make it extremely hard to make ends meet.
An independent review of overpayments, examining how to reduce the risks of them happening and how to support carers who have already built up large debts and will be in financial hardship if all the money is taken back at once, was launched in October.
It will not report back until next summer – by which time you can be sure thousands more people will have fallen into the debt trap (although the increased earnings threshold may relieve this a little).
What a disgusting, demeaning way to treat people whose personal sacrifice – usually for loved ones who have become disabled through no fault of their own – saves the government billions of pounds a year that it would have to spend if the work was done by paid carers.
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Carers Allowance overpayments are rising but there’s no mention of DWP fault
Carers Allowance overpayments are rising but there’s no mention of DWP fault in reports about it. Why not?
This Writer used to be a carer, so I know it is the lowest-paid benefit on the government’s list, with recipients currently receiving just £81.90 per week in return for 35 hours of work caring for someone with an illness or disability.
Carers may do paid work to top up the amount they receive, but this is limited in value to £151 per week (although the threshold is set to rise to £196 per week in April). Work it out; it means they are limited to earning just £12,144 per year. That’s around half the minimum wage (£22,369 per year).
Considering the complexity of some of the care that they have to give, the amount carers receive is a national insult.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
And it is very easy for them to be overpaid without realising, if they are employees of somebody else and depending how their earnings are worked out and paid to them. Receiving a single penny above the permitted amount means a carer is no longer eligible to receive the benefit, creating a “cliff edge” over which 136,730 people were said to have fallen in the last financial year.
That’s an increase of 71 per cent since 2018/19. The size of the debt accrued since then had increased by £100 million to £250 million.
The DWP itself should bear the blame for much of the size of the overpayments. It has systems in place that should inform it when a claimant has earned too much.
Many claimants have said they were unaware they had exceeded the threshold until being informed years later, when the overpayments had run into thousands of pounds.
And it is possible to get into trouble even if you have tried to inform the DWP, because information sent to the Carers Allowance website is not read, despite claimants being told this is the best way to provide it.
This Writer discovered it the hard way, having tried to sign off the benefit in July. I was eventually taken off the books in October, after two telephone calls to the DWP.
So I think it is potentially hugely unfair for the government to pursue carers whose lives are already overcomplicated by the conditions imposed on their benefit that make it extremely hard to make ends meet.
An independent review of overpayments, examining how to reduce the risks of them happening and how to support carers who have already built up large debts and will be in financial hardship if all the money is taken back at once, was launched in October.
It will not report back until next summer – by which time you can be sure thousands more people will have fallen into the debt trap (although the increased earnings threshold may relieve this a little).
What a disgusting, demeaning way to treat people whose personal sacrifice – usually for loved ones who have become disabled through no fault of their own – saves the government billions of pounds a year that it would have to spend if the work was done by paid carers.
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) Follow Vox Political writer Mike Sivier on BlueSky
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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