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.”

Quite frankly comparing it to the post office scandal is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. The post office victims were innocent , they did nothing wrong. These carers did claim fraudulently. They received money they were not entitled to, and in the prosecution cases they had received £1000's they shouldn't have had. The earning rules are very clear and those claiming are made aware of them during the claim and at every review. The reason these cases are prosecuted is because they've claimed for a long period of time and repeatedly made false declarations. you don't hear of the smaller overpayments because they don't get prosecuted. Now i do think that carers are woefully underpaid and unappreciated, but that doesn't excuse fraud.

It's comparable in many ways as a system has failed and the response has been disproportionate to the "crime" They didn't knowingly commit fraud, they made errors because the thresholds are so low and minor overpayment turned into major sums. It's not as though they were living it large on amounts like 30p a week. A weeks CA is about the same as the cost of two MPs subsidised breakfasts.

It is similar to the scandal in that it should have been flagged up by the systems in place - but nothing was done at a corporate level to do that.

"Now i do think that carers are woefully underpaid and unappreciated, but that doesn't excuse fraud"

You don't think honest mistakes happen?

Your beef is with the ministers who make the decisions about how things work, not with civil servants who don’t get to decide the rules.

Carers allowance is a joke. When I cared for my son full time it was fine. Now he lives in a residential setting and comes home for a week at a time. When he’s not home he doesn’t get the daily living element of PIP but when he’s home I can claim that for him and the carers allowance for the week too. After I’ve spent an hour getting through to each department it then takes about 6 months before the CA comes through. At one point I had a years worth of home visits owing .

I think as with the Post Office scandal, if something keeps happening over and over again, a good civil servant would bring it to the attention of ministers. As I said earlier the cost of pursuing these cases will likely outstrip the money being recovered. It's a zero sum game for the tax payer.

This happened to me.

I was picking up ad hoc work in school hours and was under the threshold for 18 months, until they wrote to me to say they looked at my claim and after taking into account adjustments for pension payments I was over the threshold for about 8 months worth of my claim. When I called them to let them know that my employer and me didn’t make pension payments so the my earnings figures were under the threshold they said there was nothing they could do the system automatically meant that earnings figure quoted was always slightly wrong and you needed to work it out taking into account adjustments for pension payments even if you didn’t pay pension. It’s an awful system.

There must be hundreds of people in a similar situation.

Hallelujah! DWP staff don't make these rules, feel free to direct any anger to the government of the day

See my post above - it’s not a clear cut as fraudulently claiming - many of us thought we were under the threshold and claiming within the rules.

The DWP has access to your earnings information - there is no way to lie about what you are earning , it’s that the advice and threshold information which they print is actually lower than what they finally account for.

I am appalled by this. I don't want to be implicated by the DWP claiming they are recovering 'my' money. As a pensioner, I still pay tax, a lot of the state pension goes to HMRC. It's not in my name they are reducing people to penury.
My first reaction to this was personal relief that I didn't claim carer's allowance when I could have. I found myself housing and feeding and driving about a friend's mother, and I think only once was CA mentioned, and no info about claiming it. I did have emotional blackmail from hospital discharge when I refused to have her back - it was that or on the street. I realised that if I didn't claim CA I still had a right to escape enslavement, so I didn't. The debt is still on her estate, but perhaps I should claim it from the DWP instead. After all, it was a taxpayer's money, and SS were so keen not to provide a difficult woman with anything, including end of life care.

Too exhausted to say anything coherent, but thanks for starting this thread, OP.

None of them care about the people, only the money.

And there's the rub. Accessing care and support from the NHS is a gargantuan task. Communication is dire across all departments and if you are trying to safeguard a loved one whose needs are complex, it's exhausting and demoralising. Given a choice of taking on a caring role for say, an elderly parent with dementia or leaving them to spiral into crisis (which will cost the system more to mop up) well, it's no choice at all.

It appears quality of life for those on either side is off the table.

There is a "Carers" element of UC. Paid in addition to other elements. It is not dependant on entitlement to Carers Allowance.
If you receive Carers Allowanc as well, it is deducted £ for £ from UC.
People can just claim Carers Element if they work over the Carers Allowance threshold. You still have to Care for 35 hours per week and he Carer for Person still needs to receive DLA/PIP etc.
https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/universal-credit-uc/additional-elements-of-universal-credit-uc

Carers could go on strike. They could ‘down tools’ and let the system care for their loved one for a day. Then we’d really see the huge amount of work they do. It’s a disgrace. This isn’t Jim claiming carers allowance for his nan who lives 300 miles away and doesn’t actually benefit from his care. A part time working dad could easily slightly go over the threshold without realising. So let’s penalise the carer trying to balance it all?!!

I employ a carer, we are so careful about her hours and pay increases! I involve her in decisions - she chose to have a slightly lower increase than I had proposed so that she could continue to work 12 hours a week.

I think any government civil prosecutions should meet a reasonableness test. E.g. if you go over by a few pounds, they shouldn’t be able to take thousands off you. This is where I think there is a fair comparison to the post office cases - where they pursued people for far more money than they apparently owed.

@GreenHome Sorry tagged the wrong answer previously.
Yes Carers Allowance information is received automatically by UC.

No of course not, thats a stupid system, i didn't realise it was so nit picky.

The DWP has allowed the overpayments to rack up. Why?

The cliff edge for earnings is ridiculous, DWP could introduce tapering, but that would probably be disproportionately costly given the meagre amount of benefit.

The best solution is to make it completely non means tested instead of partially.

At the moment you could have a private pension of £50k and a million in the bank and still qualify for CA, but the minute you go 1p over the earnings limit you lose it. It makes no sense.

Did no one realise?

Or say - hang on, this seems wrong. This could blow up in our faces.

If something seems wrong, then at what point do you speak up?

To be fair cakeorwine the DWP staff administering the benefits have no power to challenge or change things. Senior DWP Whitehall civil servants could suggest changes or highlight unfairness, but ultimately it is a governmental decision.

They do make it extremely clear how much you can earn before you lose your carer,s allowance i have been claiming it for past 8/9,it is very clear 9nnall correspondence the amount you can earn and you also have to declare it for tax/ universal credit purposes

I'm not sure how this is un anyway comparable to the post office scandal.

When I was overpaid child tax credits I only had to repay the overpayment- it wouldn’t have been legal for them to reclaim the total amount I’d been eligible for and received - so why has this been done with carers allowance ?

I think that there is a parallel in that DWP have systems that alert them when people go over the earnings limit, do nothing, and so massive debts build up. Then DWP ask for it all back in one go.

Why do DWP not act as soon as people go over the limit? Probably because their systems and staffing are not fit for purpose.

Plus there is the unfairness of capital and income from other sources not affecting claims.