An influential MPs’ committee has urged welfare bosses to speed up redress for tens of thousands of unpaid carers who stand to have huge benefit debts written off after they were wrongly hit with carer’s allowance penalties.
The public accounts committee (PAC) said management failures and “systemic issues” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had led to carers being incorrectly forced to repay overpayments running into thousands of pounds.
The committee said a “lack of integrated, concerted leadership” allowed carer’s allowance problems to proliferate for years and the DWP must now rebuild trust with carers by giving the issue “the leadership and attention it has long deserved”.
Its comments are the latest in a series of damaging official criticisms of the DWP hierarchy’s role in longstanding carer’s allowance injustices. Last week, the work and pensions committee chair, Debbie Abrahams, accused it of a “culture of complacency”.
An award-winning Guardian investigation revealed the DWP knew about but had failed to tackle ingrained problems with the design and administration of carer’s allowance that saw hundreds of thousands of carers unfairly plunged into debt. Many suffered ill-health as a result, and hundreds were convicted of benefit fraud.
The Tory chair of the PAC, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said: “The Guardian is right to call this a scandal. These were people on modest incomes doing a very important job looking after loved ones, who had done nothing wrong.”
A government-commissioned review published in November concluded carers should not be blamed for falling foul of a complex, outdated and punitive carer’s allowance system. It said many had suffered a “profound” negative effect on their health, finances, career and family wellbeing as a result.
Official estimates indicate at least 26,000 carers were wrongly penalised for supposed breaches of benefit rules that were meant to allow carers with irregular earnings, such as teachers, to look after loved ones while holding down a part-time job.
Ministers have ordered a two-year £75m review of more than 200,000 earnings-related overpayment demands stretching back over a decade. Some carers who have incurred a carer’s allowance earnings debt may see it cleared or reduced as a result.
Earlier this week the DWP permanent secretary, Sir Peter Schofield, announced he will step down in July for personal reasons after eight years in the top job. The department insists his departure is unrelated to carer’s allowance.
In a devastating formal letter to Schofield last week Abrahams said she found it “difficult to have confidence” in someone who had promised MPs more than six years ago that he would fix carer’s allowance flaws but had failed to do so.
Labour MP Anna Dixon, a PAC member and chair of the Commons all-party committee on carers, said his departure offered the DWP the chance for a reset: “The question is whether the department has the capacity and culture to put past wrongs right.”
The PAC said it would be “keeping a close eye” on the DWP. It urged it to work quickly to provide redress to affected carers and report back on progress within the next six months.
A DWP spokesperson said: “We inherited a system that let carers down but we’re taking decisive action. We’ve accepted the vast majority of the Sayce review’s recommendations – hiring extra staff, updating guidance, and making letters clearer so carers know which changes to report. We’ll also reassess affected cases and potentially reduce, cancel or refund debts for tens of thousands of carers.”
