to think the Carer's Allowance scandal shows the uncaringness of the DWP

[cakeorwine]

In a nutshell - if you get Carer's Allowance, you are supposed to only claim it if you earn below a certain amount. If you go over that amount, you can't claim it.

If you go over that amount and don't tell the DWP, you have to pay it back. But say you went over by 30 p. you would have to pay back not 30p but ALL of it.

The DWP know if you have earnt over the amount. But they don't tell you. They let it build up. And then prosecute you.

‘They’re heartless’: how one woman fell victim to the carer’s allowance trap | Carers | The Guardian

"On weekends when her daughter stays with her father, Moon worked part-time at Tesco earning £9.50 an hour. This would comfortably keep her under the earnings threshold of £127 a week at the time, especially when deducting allowances for fuel and pension payments – or so she thought.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) contacted Moon in 2019 to say she had breached the earnings limit and would need to pay back every penny – or she would be taken to court.
Moon, terrified, contacted Citizens Advice for help. It analysed her payslips going back to July 2016, when she started work at Tesco, and found that – even on the strictest understanding of the DWP’s rules – she had exceeded the earnings limit by about £3 most of those weeks. Some weeks it was as little as 50p over.
She appealed for clemency but the DWP refused to budge. It refused her offer to pay back the amount she was not entitled to – about £800 over the course of three and a half years.
Instead, she would have to pay back every penny of carer’s allowance over that period – known as the DWP’s “cliff edge”. It amounted to £11,292.75 – plus an additional £50 civil penalty."

And the DWP response:

“Claimants have a responsibility to inform DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award, and it is right that we recover taxpayers’ money when this has not occurred.”

[cakeorwine]

Apparently the coverage has been one sided

Ex-ministers press Sunak on ‘persecution’ of carers who broke earnings rules | Carers | The Guardian

Managers in the DWP have tried to boost staff morale in the wake of the carer’s allowance saga, which has been described by the centre-right Centre for Social Justice thinktank as a “scandalous miscarriage of justice” and by a former senior Labour aide as “the cruellest benefits crackdown we’ve seen yet”.
In a message to DWP staff this week, a senior official described the media coverage as “one-sided” and sought to defend those handling carer’s allowance claims, saying the controversy was “aimed more at how DWP recover debt, so that is not even aimed at carer’s processes anyway”.

[AngeloMysterioso]

Did anyone ever think the DWP was caring?! This sounds pretty on-brand for them…

[cakeorwine]

It's reminiscent of the Post Office scandal

The “scandalous” prosecution of unpaid carers uncovered by the Guardian must end now and an inquiry must be launched immediately, Rishi Sunak has been told.
The pressure on the prime minister grew as three former work and pension secretaries and Labour demanded to know why thousands of people who care for their loved ones have been hounded for thousands of pounds – and in some cases convicted – after unwittingly breaching earnings rules by just a few pounds a week.

Unpaid carers have described being plunged into debt, given criminal records and forced to sell their homes when chased by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over “honest mistakes” that officials could have spotted years earlier.

[RemarkablyBrightCreature]

It’s a devastating story - the levels of debt are eye watering for some of the poorest and most vulnerable in society 😢

[MountCaramel]

People don't realise that if you don't qualify for carers allowance, you're most likely to be eligible for carers credit. The DWP definitely won't tell you this so many people fall into the carers allowance cap trap.

https://www.gov.uk/carers-credit

[GreenHome]

If one receives UC doesn’t the carer allowance comes through the UC? UC receives any earnings automatically from HMRC and adjust payments accordingly?

[AnnoyingPopUp]

It’s disgusting. The DWP is disgusting.

Caring for a loved one is so so hard, physically and emotionally. (Not to mention it saves the government ££££££ in not having to pay for professional carers ). The carer’s allowance is a pathetic, woefully cheap underpayment for draining, backbreaking, heartbreaking work, Who cares if someone earns £3 more than they should in this position? I wouldn’t care if they earned £30k more than they “should” - money can never make up for the toll that caring takes.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

I started a thread about this yesterday because I was so appalled. Got some pretty hard line responses and must admit it made me quite snippy.

It was titled AIBU to bring your attention to the carers fraud scandal (sic).

Am glad you've started another OP

[TinyYellow]

Someone posted yesterday that it’s like the post office scandal. Why do people keep saying that? The DWP are being unfairly harsh imo but it’s nothing like the post office scandal.

[cakeorwine]

@MistressoftheDarkSide

I started a thread about this yesterday because I was so appalled. Got some pretty hard line responses and must admit it made me quite snippy.

It was titled AIBU to bring your attention to the carers fraud scandal (sic).

Am glad you've started another OP

There doesn't seem to me much media coverage of this.
It seems to be a scandal in plain sight.

It seems wrong that you get an allowance if you earn below a certain amount but if you go over by 1p, then you don't qualify.

And then they demand you pay it all back. Some of those debts seem frightening

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

@TinyYellow

That was me

And I think it is comparable because there is a system to flag overpayment but it was ignored for years letting them rack up .

[cakeorwine]

@TinyYellow

Someone posted yesterday that it’s like the post office scandal. Why do people keep saying that? The DWP are being unfairly harsh imo but it’s nothing like the post office scandal.

It's similar. Not identical but similar.

A scandal in plain sight. With issues being ignored by authorities.

[cakeorwine]

It just needs ITV to make a drama out of this.

I am sure there are plenty of case studies available

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

@cakeorwine

I've seen most coverage in the Guardian but not much elsewhere.

I don't understand why CA isn't tapered in these situations.

[Misthios]

@AngeloMysterioso

Did anyone ever think the DWP was caring?! This sounds pretty on-brand for them…

It also sounds pretty on-brand for the Guardian to be fair to put out this sort of article. Now there is a wider argument that the way they calculate the payment is wrong but the Guardian will obviously put forward the facts with a slant to paint the government as heartless, because that supports their Labour-leaning credentials. A bit like the people who could never work for the DWP because they're all fascists or whatever.

[cakeorwine]

@Misthios

It also sounds pretty on-brand for the Guardian to be fair to put out this sort of article. Now there is a wider argument that the way they calculate the payment is wrong but the Guardian will obviously put forward the facts with a slant to paint the government as heartless, because that supports their Labour-leaning credentials. A bit like the people who could never work for the DWP because they're all fascists or whatever.

The facts as given don't paint the DWP in a good light.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

I also think there's an almost Pavlovian response to any hint if perceived "benefit fraud" in some people. Some think that no one should be claiming benefits at all, ever, so tough if a system is unfair and punitive. No bigger picture thinking skills .

[TinyYellow]

I just think it’s a bit unfair to those that suffered because of the post office because that was 100% the fault of the post office. They never made any mistakes whereas the people being prosecuted here did make mistakes.

Regardless, thats not the point and I have a lot of sympathy for carers who are struggling because of disproportionate punishments for their mistakes.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

It is the disproportionate response that baffles me. Demanding full repayment immediately, threats of prison, seizure of inheritance etc.

If it sends people into penury it then costs the government more to puck up the pieces, not to mention the legal costs of pursuing it all which will likely outstrip what they recoup.

[CurrentHun]

What AnnoyingPopUp said:

It’s disgusting. The DWP is disgusting.

Caring for a loved one is so so hard, physically and emotionally. (Not to mention it saves the government ££££££ in not having to pay for professional carers ). The carer’s allowance is a pathetic, woefully cheap underpayment for draining, backbreaking, heartbreaking work, Who cares if someone earns £3 more than they should in this position? I wouldn’t care if they earned £30k more than they “should” - money can never make up for the toll that caring takes.

Yes. 100% agree. What chance are carers getting to earn a living wage, have a social life, take breaks, get exercise, see daylight, build up a pension?- absolutely none. Carers allowance isn’t enough. What sense does it make to require pay back of full amount if you earn 5p over the limit? What carer busy caring and working so they don’t starve has time to keep up this level of admin awareness? It’s a plain deterrent to off put carers from claiming and it’s very sexist in its impact because government know full well the vast majority of carers are women.

[cakeorwine]

The Welfare Minister is being questioned in a few weeks:

The Guardian can reveal that MPs are planning to question the welfare minister, Mims Davies, on the issue of carer’s allowance overpayments when she gives evidence to the work and pensions committee later this month.
Four MPs on the committee, including the chair, Stephen Timms, have raised concerns about the DWP’s actions after the reporting by the Guardian this week.
Timms said MPs would question Davies on the issue when she appears before the committee on 24 April. “Clearly something has gone wrong on this,” he said.

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

@CurrentHun

Precisely. Carers under extreme stress do find it hard keeping up with everyone. My own experience is dementia, first with my MIL and now my SM is going downhill so I've spent three months essentially putting my life on hold (which is a shitshow for many reasons since I was widowed two years ago). I'm not currently claiming CA because it's hard enough being run through the mill every five minutes by UC. Seeing these stories made my blood boil. I've never had such little resilience in my life and bureaucracy is a huge part of that.

[ssd]

I looked after my mum years ago and could have claimed carers allowance. But when i looked into it i realised because i worked part time, i earned over the threshold.
( Plus at that time, if i did claim, the amount would have came off her attendance allowance.)

So i knew i earned too much and i didn't claim.

So now people who did claim even though they earned too much are being made to pay it back.

Whats the story then, they claimed falsley?

Sorry i dont get how they didn't know.

[cakeorwine]

@ssd

I looked after my mum years ago and could have claimed carers allowance. But when i looked into it i realised because i worked part time, i earned over the threshold.
( Plus at that time, if i did claim, the amount would have came off her attendance allowance.)

So i knew i earned too much and i didn't claim.

So now people who did claim even though they earned too much are being made to pay it back.

Whats the story then, they claimed falsley?

Sorry i dont get how they didn't know.

Do you think that going accidentally over it by 30p and then not realising it, especially if you have the stress of caring for someone, should mean that you get persecuted, prosecuted and have to give back the entire amount, even though the DWP have the systems in place to notify you and stop the allowance if your earnings exceed the amount?

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

As previously mentioned some people were caught out by small changes taking them over by as little as 30p in a week, which according to the rules took them over the threshold and meant they no longer qualified at all plus they had to repay the entire amount. Meal allowances and pension payments have also been brought up, tipping people over unwittingly. Systems exist to flag this but things were allowed to rumble on for years causing it to build up. This is the issue.

I believe from April the threshold will be 151 00 a week. On minimum wage that's what, 12 - 15 hours? Plus a carer is caring for 35 hours a week. If it's someone with children and elderly parents they will be run ragged. Also no matter how many people you are caring for, you only get CA for one. Considering the stresses of this sort of life hammering those who are trying to work a tiny bit if errors occur is venal.