Unpaid carers shocked at having to repay thousands...

[dutchman]

Lesley Whitehouse from Coventry says she wishes she had never claimed Carers Allowance



Unpaid carers who have been told to repay thousands of pounds of benefits after accidentally earning too much money years ago say it is wrong and unfair.

Two former Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ministers have told the BBC they are calling for the government to pause its demands for repayments of large sums of money.

Full-time carers can claim £81.90 a week, but they become ineligible for the whole amount if they earn just a pound over £151 a week, after tax and expenses. Carers told the BBC they were unaware they had exceeded the threshold until being informed years later, when the sums had run into the thousands.

The DWP has faced criticism for failing to prevent overpayments, despite having the ability to do so, and allowing some recipients to end up in legal trouble.

Benefit staff get automatic alerts from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) if a Carer's Allowance claimant is earning too much.

Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim, the DWP says.

Five years ago, the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee accused the DWP of "bullying and harassing" those who had been overpaid.

In a report it published in 2019, it also said problems with the DWP's systems, and staff shortages, had led to "substantial backlogs" in checking flagged cases of potential overpayments.

As of February 2023, the DWP said it was seeking to recover 145,567 overpayments of Carer's Allowance, which is given to people who provide at least 35 hours a week of care. That includes almost 12,000 cases concerning overpayments of between £5,001 and £20,000.

Cristina Odone, head of the family policy unit at the Centre for Social Justice, told the BBC the "so-called debts should be forgiven".

She added: "One of the causes for this scandalous miscarriage of justice is that the DWP's own IT system was able to flag when the earnings threshold was breached, but they failed to alert the carers themselves that they were now in a perilous situation and could end up owing thousands of pounds."

Lesley Whitehouse, 53, from Coventry, spent years as the primary carer for her sister who has severe mental and physical disabilities.

A social worker told her she was eligible for Carer's Allowance and helped her fill in the forms. She started a part-time job in a pub and sent a P60 to the DWP every year.

About four years ago, she moved to a full-time position to support her two children.

"I rang the DWP and told them to stop the carer's allowance," she said.

"They asked me some questions. Then they came back and told me I shouldn't have been receiving it and sent me a bill of £18,000.

"I just broke down in tears. I said 'what do you mean?' I didn't understand because they'd had my P60 each year. I felt like I was being penalised for being honest.

"I wasn't even earning enough to support my family. I didn't have any savings. I was living month to month."

She says she has taken on extra hours to repay £50 a month, adding: "I'll be paying it off for the rest of my life. I wish I'd never claimed it in the first place".