After years of allowing overpayment warnings to pile up, the government is cruelly punishing carers for its own mistakes.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decided to act – not to protect carers, not to fix a system that sets them up to fail, but to recover debts often amounting to thousands of pounds, that many carers had no idea they owed.
The DWP has announced it will be assigning 20 extra staff to review alerts on its internal system, that flag possible overpayments of Carer’s Allowance, instead of ignoring them – as has been the case in the past.
As of February, 32,533 such alerts were sitting unresolved. Over the next year, another 99,000 are expected to roll in.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Until now, the DWP only bothered checking around half. Now they want to check them all – in order to claw back money from people who were simply doing their best to care for a loved one while navigating a benefit system that seems designed to trip them up.
Let’s be clear: this is not about fraud. It’s not about people “playing the system.” It’s about carers—unpaid (apart from in benefits), unsupported with help or advice, often working extra hours to survive—who didn’t know they’d breached the strict earnings limit because the DWP didn’t bother to tell them.
A system designed to punish
To qualify for Carer’s Allowance, a claimant must care for someone at least 35 hours a week. The reward? £83.30 a week—just over £2 an hour.
You must also not earn more than £196 a week from any other paid work. Go over that threshold by even £1, and your whole allowance vanishes. There is no taper, no warning, no leniency.
Carers are legally required to inform the DWP if their earnings change. But the DWP also has its own system that can spot when a person may be earning too much. In many cases, it did. And then: it did nothing.
So people carried on, unaware. Until one day, sometimes years later, they received a letter demanding thousands of pounds in repayments.
Figures show that of the alerts that have been investigated, 67 per cent led to a finding of overpayment. The vast majority of these were likely accidental. A small pay rise; a few extra shifts; a misunderstanding; a missing warning that should have been sent—but wasn’t.
Now, instead of accepting responsibility, the government is doubling down. It’s hiring more staff—not to help carers navigate a hostile system, but to chase debts it allowed to mount up through neglect.
Writing off debts? Not their priority
Charities, including Carers UK, have called for debts to be written off in cases where the DWP could have intervened earlier.
That would be the fair thing to do.
In most sectors, if an organisation fails to notify someone of a mounting issue it was aware of, and that person racks up a debt through no intentional wrongdoing, a settlement or write-off follows.
But this is the DWP.
Instead, the government says it must “balance” its duty to the taxpayer. But it’s a curious balancing act, when the DWP leans hardest on the poorest, while ministers sign off on billions in corporate contracts and tax breaks.
The Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, has said the department is considering a taper system—but only if it can incentivise unpaid carers to take on work.
Let’s think about that. The overpayments being targeted arose because people were already trying to work. That’s the cause of the problem, not a solution. Proposing more of it as a fix is either wilful ignorance or wilful deflection.
Real support, or real punishment?
The DWP says it is now expanding a trial of text message reminders to help carers understand their responsibilities. Texts? After letting cases go unchecked for years?
It’s hard to see this as anything but optics—especially when it’s being launched in tandem with more aggressive debt recovery.
The reality is this: unpaid carers, who save the state billions annually, are being punished for errors they didn’t knowingly make, through a system the government knew was flawed and neglected anyway.
Many carers are already under enormous emotional, physical, and financial strain. For some, this benefit is the only thing keeping them afloat. Now they face not just losing it, but being hounded for debts they never knew existed—often while still caring full-time.
I was a carer myself for more than 17 years. I was careful; I kept track of my benefits and other earnings and I was never overpaid.
That wasn’t because the system was fair. It was because I was constantly vigilant, aware that it would be easy to fall foul of a rule that might change, shift, or slip past me unnoticed.
Others weren’t able to do that. But they shouldn’t be punished because the DWP could not be bothered to check its own alerts in a timely manner.
If we’re to talk about “balance,” let’s balance the books morally as well as financially.
The DWP could start by scrapping these debts where the department failed in its duty of care.
It could introduce a taper that reflects reality.
And for once, it might actually design a system that supports carers, instead of penalising them for being poor, overworked – and honest.
Because right now, it’s not care they’re receiving from the government. It’s cruelty.
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The government is cruelly punishing carers for its own mistakes
After years of allowing overpayment warnings to pile up, the government is cruelly punishing carers for its own mistakes.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decided to act – not to protect carers, not to fix a system that sets them up to fail, but to recover debts often amounting to thousands of pounds, that many carers had no idea they owed.
The DWP has announced it will be assigning 20 extra staff to review alerts on its internal system, that flag possible overpayments of Carer’s Allowance, instead of ignoring them – as has been the case in the past.
As of February, 32,533 such alerts were sitting unresolved. Over the next year, another 99,000 are expected to roll in.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Until now, the DWP only bothered checking around half. Now they want to check them all – in order to claw back money from people who were simply doing their best to care for a loved one while navigating a benefit system that seems designed to trip them up.
Let’s be clear: this is not about fraud. It’s not about people “playing the system.” It’s about carers—unpaid (apart from in benefits), unsupported with help or advice, often working extra hours to survive—who didn’t know they’d breached the strict earnings limit because the DWP didn’t bother to tell them.
A system designed to punish
To qualify for Carer’s Allowance, a claimant must care for someone at least 35 hours a week. The reward? £83.30 a week—just over £2 an hour.
You must also not earn more than £196 a week from any other paid work. Go over that threshold by even £1, and your whole allowance vanishes. There is no taper, no warning, no leniency.
Carers are legally required to inform the DWP if their earnings change. But the DWP also has its own system that can spot when a person may be earning too much. In many cases, it did. And then: it did nothing.
So people carried on, unaware. Until one day, sometimes years later, they received a letter demanding thousands of pounds in repayments.
Figures show that of the alerts that have been investigated, 67 per cent led to a finding of overpayment. The vast majority of these were likely accidental. A small pay rise; a few extra shifts; a misunderstanding; a missing warning that should have been sent—but wasn’t.
Now, instead of accepting responsibility, the government is doubling down. It’s hiring more staff—not to help carers navigate a hostile system, but to chase debts it allowed to mount up through neglect.
Writing off debts? Not their priority
Charities, including Carers UK, have called for debts to be written off in cases where the DWP could have intervened earlier.
That would be the fair thing to do.
In most sectors, if an organisation fails to notify someone of a mounting issue it was aware of, and that person racks up a debt through no intentional wrongdoing, a settlement or write-off follows.
But this is the DWP.
Instead, the government says it must “balance” its duty to the taxpayer. But it’s a curious balancing act, when the DWP leans hardest on the poorest, while ministers sign off on billions in corporate contracts and tax breaks.
The Minister for Social Security and Disability, Sir Stephen Timms, has said the department is considering a taper system—but only if it can incentivise unpaid carers to take on work.
Let’s think about that. The overpayments being targeted arose because people were already trying to work. That’s the cause of the problem, not a solution. Proposing more of it as a fix is either wilful ignorance or wilful deflection.
Real support, or real punishment?
The DWP says it is now expanding a trial of text message reminders to help carers understand their responsibilities. Texts? After letting cases go unchecked for years?
It’s hard to see this as anything but optics—especially when it’s being launched in tandem with more aggressive debt recovery.
The reality is this: unpaid carers, who save the state billions annually, are being punished for errors they didn’t knowingly make, through a system the government knew was flawed and neglected anyway.
Many carers are already under enormous emotional, physical, and financial strain. For some, this benefit is the only thing keeping them afloat. Now they face not just losing it, but being hounded for debts they never knew existed—often while still caring full-time.
I was a carer myself for more than 17 years. I was careful; I kept track of my benefits and other earnings and I was never overpaid.
That wasn’t because the system was fair. It was because I was constantly vigilant, aware that it would be easy to fall foul of a rule that might change, shift, or slip past me unnoticed.
Others weren’t able to do that. But they shouldn’t be punished because the DWP could not be bothered to check its own alerts in a timely manner.
If we’re to talk about “balance,” let’s balance the books morally as well as financially.
The DWP could start by scrapping these debts where the department failed in its duty of care.
It could introduce a taper that reflects reality.
And for once, it might actually design a system that supports carers, instead of penalising them for being poor, overworked – and honest.
Because right now, it’s not care they’re receiving from the government. It’s cruelty.
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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