Am I missing something? Carer overpayments

[PinkyBlueMe]

I've read this article Unpaid carers being forced to repay £250m to DWP in allowance overpayments www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-69031180 and as far as I can tell, it's simply that the carers earned too much to claim their carers allowance so are being asked to repay it.
I'm not suggesting it's deliberate benefit fraud but I don't understand why they shouldn't repay it?
I was a carer for both my parents, I was unpaid. I didn't claim carers allowance because I earned too much but I still cared for them many hours daily. I was unpaid for that care but as a country we can't pay everyone who cares for a family member, there has to be a cut off.
Interested in others' views.

The thing I'm not sure about is, if you are over the allowance one month do you have to pay every month since back?

It's annoying say if you earn £1 over the allowance you lose a month= £ £405

As I understand it the earned income limit is £151 a week, but if your earnings fluctuate they will take an average. As such I believe you only have to repay once your average is higher. If it was £152 average each week, there's zero entitlement and it doesn't reduce incrementally.
So no, I don't think one higher pay week would mean no entitlement thereafter.

And yet no one is coming after the Michelle Mones of this world who walked away with billions of spaffed PPE cash....

The thing is if you go over one week or one month and tell them they just dock that week/month however if your not on the ball they will then demand every penny back one lady told them she was over they looked into it and continued to pay her she erroneously believed she was still entitled (because why else would they be paying her) now they have "discovered" she was paid incorrectly they want it all back even from when she was being paid correctly

Which makes no sense to me

In that BBC article the family admitted to ignoring letters due to a family bereavement. Understandably that was devastating for them but they do still need to manage their finances like everyone else to avoid this situation where they now have to pay back a sum they will find difficult to meet.

I agree, thems the rules and right now, it needs to be paid back. Payment plans etc.

Longer term, we do need to revisit carers allowance IMO. Far too many people need far too many hours of care for people to work and care. And yet we don't pay people enough to give up their jobs either.

With more older people, this is going to become a real problem.

@Noideawhatshappening and @WallaceinAnderland see this is what I lean towards. The public purse can't afford to waive monies paid to people who earned too much.
I do agree that care needs rise, especially as people live longer, and it's a problem. I had an extremely stressful time looking after my parents as I worked too, but tbh I'd have looked after them, paid or not (I wasn't paid as I earned too much).

The issue here is that they were updating their salaries on the system, so they believed they were being paid the correct amount. They weren’t deliberately hiding this information. They were doing what was expected of them. Then to get a bill years later, because the DWP weren’t doing their job properly.

I say ‘here’, not in the particular case in the article. But that was the case for many, many people.

Absolutely you cannot afford to waive genuine overpayment but for example if your legitimately entitled for four years and in year five you go over why demand five years back? If your genuinely entitled for most of that time just take back the overpayment and if they did it knowingly fine them

The cliff edge is absurd - it would be one thing to pay back the amount they went over by, but immensely unfair to take back the entire allowance where people went over by tiny amounts.

Furthermore, the systems are so badly managed that people are allowed to (unknowingly) run up enormous debts as they are paid for years when the DWP knows their earnings are over the limit.

I haven't been able to ever accept the Tory argument about what the public purse can and can't afford since Theresa May made her infamous statement that 'there is no magic money tree' and then lo and behold she plucked two billion pounds from it to bribe the DUP to keep her in power when she threw away her majority in a reckless election. The money is always there when the Tories need it for themselves and their allies to prop up their own privilege, but never there for the most vulnerable in society.

I do benefits for a local authority

So here goes

1. The DWP have a system that will alert them if a Carers Allowance claimant goes over the earnings limit
2. But they dont use it
3. In the event of a 'Social Security' issue it needs first to go to the Social Security Appeal Tribunal, now I am not a CA expert BUT amongst other things you can usually rely on the DWP making a fairly basic error OR not calculating income in accordance with the Regulations

BUT they end up instead in the Criminal Courts who are woefully incompetent at dealing with benefit issues.

Also of course like the Post Officve the DWP do their own prosecutions, not via the CPS so a lot of 'dubious' prosecutions take place

Discuss!

It's the lack of taper that is part of the issue.

So if one week you earn £151 you get the £81 carers allowance- total of £232

The next week you earn £152 you get £0 carers allowance - total of £152. You don't get to keep £80 of carers allowance.

People who have earned £152 and not reported it and been paid carers allowance have to pay back the full £81 for that week. Over a number of years for some people small amounts of earnings have meant they owe back an awful lot of carers allowance despite the fact that once this is paid back their income each week will be less than £151 + carers allowance would have been and they have still been providing care.

The government were likely aware that lots of these people had earned money over the threshold before now (and the threshold isn't entirely straightforward as certain expenses can be discounted) but didn't tell people, instead letting them build up huge amounts of debt. These are people who are on very low incomes to start with.

No, this isn't the case. I think you only repay from the point you go over, not before that.

@VerityUnreasonble it's not a great system - I think the strict cut off is because it's only means tested against income, presumably so they're satisfied that the claimant is actually spending a lot of time caring more than working.
It's not affected by capital. You can have any savings.

This penalises those who earn decent money but also want to care for a relative. Say you work 3 12.5 hour shifts a week at £27 an hour then care for a relative 4 days a week you get nothing yet are paying 40% tax on your income.

If you earn less or only work a few hours a week you get an allowance. It should be needs based for the person being cared for not income.

If you want to target benefits do it to those not working!

Say you earn £151.01 a week and for some reason you're just not on top of things and think the allowance is £152.

ignorantia juris non excusat

If you are claiming allowances you have to be on top of it.