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.”

DWP warns carers they could face greater penalties if they appeal against fines | Carers | The Guardian

Government officials have been accused of using “threatening and cruel” tactics towards unpaid carers by saying they could face even greater financial penalties if they appeal against “vindictive” benefit fines.
This month a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of people who look after disabled, frail or ill relatives have been forced to pay back huge sums after being chased by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over “honest mistakes” that officials could have spotted years earlier.

Dozens of unpaid carers have said they feel powerless to challenge the penalties, which often run into many thousands of pounds, even when the government is at fault.
Now the Guardian has learned that the DWP is warning carers that their fine may increase if they appeal against a repayment order.
In one letter in June 2023, the government department said that if the unpaid carer challenged the order “the entire claim from the date it started will be looked at, which could potentially result in the overpayment increasing, if there are more periods where your earnings exceeded the allowable limits”.

Having seen the latest posts i think the only option left will end up being the most unpalatable one. I believe its called granny dumping in the US

And all this against the backdrop of the DWP demanding to have its own powers of arrest, to bypass the police like the Post Office did.

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/would-you-feel-safe-with-a-dwp-‘police-force’?

[edited to fix link]

The problem is compounded by the fact that the DWP has IT systems that flag when a carer’s income breaches the threshold, but fails in many cases to act on the information, allowing carers to rack up thousands of pounds’ worth of overpayments over months and years before, in some cases, pursuing them in the courts for benefit fraud.
The severity of the DWP’s approach was highlighted last week when it went to court to seize a £16,000 inheritance belonging to a former unpaid carer and part-time supermarket worker, Vivienne Groom, months after it successfully prosecuted her for benefit fraud relating to breaches of earnings rules.

Groom had agreed to repay in instalments £16,000 relating to earnings breaches incurred between 2014 and 2019. The DWP used proceeds-of-crime laws – normally used to seize cars, cash and properties owned by convicted major criminals – to take the bequest, which had been left to her by the mother she dedicated so much of her life to caring for.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/07/unpaid-carers-allowance-payment-prosecution-earnings-rules

I had already decided i wont be caring for my elderly mother.

I think the above very effectively demonstrates that the new surveillance powers the DWP has sought (and I think now been given by the Tories? Can't remember state of bill) are not really primarily about preventing overpayments.

With Carers Allowance, the DWP already had the information about overpayments. The DWP did not use this to prevent overpayments; it used it to let people dig themselves into years' worths of holes, often inadvertently, and then prosecute them.

And then use the threat of prosecution pour encourager les autres.

I haven’t read all the comments but from the first post it seems like the person mentioned was over the limit nearly every single week… which means she wouldn’t of been entitled.

Surely she could of worked that out herself and put more into her pension. It’s not hard, get your wage slip, pen and paper and work it out.

Iv claimed CA in the past and yes they are a shambles but on the occasion I earned over the limit I had to pay those months back as expected.

I don’t claim it anymore as I started working more but if I had to again then I’d work out what I had to put into my pension to bring me under the limit.

@Herefishiefishie you really need the full thread, otherwise you are commenting without having a clue what you are talking about.

I read the opening post… the women was over the limit ….

Has this lady got a gofundme page set up, to help her out with the repayment of carers allowance? I'd like to make a donation.

So basically, it seems like the government's aim is to make it so complicated to apply for, and the penalties so life destroying if you make the slightest error, in the hope that carers are just too stressed and ground down to claim at all. Then they get all of this care totally for free. And the carers get the choice of penury if they don't claim, or the constant fear of destitution if there is the slightest miscalculation.
Its fucking disgusting.

An interesting article on how a whistleblower was treated

Hailed as a hero and then sacked: the carer’s allowance whistleblower | Benefits | The Guardian

So basically you didn't bother to look into the complexities and the culpability of the DWP at all. Surprise, surprise.

Carers allowance does never come off Attendance Allowance. It's the severe disability premium of pension credit or ESA that is taken away when someone claims carers allowance for looking after someone.

If people are also claiming Universal credit, they may as well just claim the carers element of Uc which has no earnings limit. So people can earn as much as they wish and not have this overpayment worry. The only issue/ downside is that they need ot make sure they are earning enough to pay NI contributions towards their own state pension, or make sure they apply for carers credit.

It really is a scandal. DWP has acted (or not acted) atrociously.

There needs to be a complete overhaul of the CA system and amnesty for all those overpaid. CA should be either become fully non means tested or the earnings limit made much higher.

Yes I did and they are still not wrong.

There is a limit, if you go over it then you pay it back.

Work your wages out and don’t go over it. It’s not hard.

Thanks for sharing OP. That poor women.

You're wrong - it's actually very complex. The rules on expenses are complicated and inconsistent for a start - people have gone over because of expense claims being disallowed that had previously been allowed, for instance.

And you are also not considering the fact that the DWP allowed these things to go on for years - how hard is it to contact the claimant when the first overpayment happens? It's not as if they don't have the claimants' details. Instead they let the debt build up for years and then wanted it all in one go.

Lastly, how is it acceptable that the entire carer allowance should be paid back instead of just the overpayment? If you think that rule is OK, I am going to say you work for the DWP and I claim my £5.

@Herefishiefishie Granny dumping will cost the country a lot LOT more.

It’s not their job to go around contacting people because they can’t sort their own wages out. You are supposed to inform them if you are over.

She has to pay it back as the article said she was over nearly every single week/month.

So if it's considered right that someone caring for someone for over 35 hours a week and earning the allowed 151.00 (or whatever it was at the time) deserves the extra 81.00 a week (or whatever) then why does someone going over by a pound not deserve the allowance. The only difference is one pound. They are still caring the same amount. They are not working extra. It's a brutal and nonsensical rule affecting people under extraordinary stress already. It needs revising. A taper system should be in place.

What if you had a child in residential care all week but came home on a weekend - so Friday night - Monday morning at home.

Would the mum or dad be able to claim carers allowance then?

It seems so hard for carers that I don’t think the average person can understand. Such awful rules

The rules for DLA and carer’s allowance those with DC in residential school are complex. This document explains them.