\n<\/p>\n
Of all the devastating passages in Liz Sayce\u2019s 146-page criticism of the government\u2019s failing carer\u2019s allowance system, one above all leaps out. It describes how some felt so \u201coverwhelmed\u201d, ashamed and criminalised they considered killing themselves.<\/p>\n
One even investigated whether their fine would be cancelled if they died, only to find the government would still chase their family.<\/p>\n
The year-long independent review, sparked by a Guardian investigation, describes in brutal detail how those who have selflessly given up their lives to care for loved ones \u2013 saving the state an estimated \u00a3184bn a year \u2013 have been criminalised by a policy riddled with \u201csystemic flaws\u201d and a culture that assumed \u201cnegligence as a default\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has vowed to review a decade\u2019s worth of carer\u2019s allowance overpayments as a result. There was, however, no official apology or offer of compensation. Here are the key takeaways from Sayce\u2019s report.<\/p>\n
In interviews with the Guardian over the past 18 months, unpaid carers have described how they were made to feel like criminals by the DWP, shamed into accepting responsibility for an error that \u2013 as made clear by the Sayce report \u2013 was not their fault.<\/p>\n
Nearly three-quarters of the 1 million people who claim \u00a383.30 a week in carer\u2019s allowance are women. Claimants are disproportionately in poverty and 40% are struggling with their own mental or physical health while caring for their loved one. In other words, they are highly vulnerable.<\/p>\n
One carer told the inquiry team they \u201clost weight, I couldn\u2019t sleep\u201d after being told to pay back money to the DWP; another didn\u2019t tell their own family. \u201cI felt so shocked. I felt shame,\u201d they said. Another felt like the government was \u201ckicking them when they are already down\u201d.<\/p>\n
This had a direct effect on the health of the carer and those they look after. Some felt so pushed to breaking point that the local authority had to take over the care, at a cost to the state.<\/p>\n
It damaged family relationships, Sayce said, citing one carer who said their mother \u201cbegan to feel like a burden\u201d. Those being looked after \u201cstill felt this weight of worry up to the point of their death\u201d, she added.<\/p>\n
One element of carer\u2019s allowance was ruthlessly efficient. Officials had access to near real-time alerts \u2013 known as the verify earnings and pensions (VEP) alerts service \u2013 that pinged whenever a carer breached their weekly earnings allowance.<\/p>\n
In an effective system, these would be investigated swiftly and the carer notified and the breach brought to an end. But inside the DWP, officials calculated they only needed to investigate half of these alerts in order to hit their internal targets for preventing fraud. So the decision not to act on these alerts was deliberate, not a policy flaw.<\/p>\n
In real terms, this meant that 230,400 unpaid carers who earned more than the weekly allowance between 2018 and 2024 \u2013 and were therefore at risk of unknowingly amassing an enormous debt \u2013 were not notified until months or years later. One carer had been on the VEP database for five years without any action.<\/p>\n
Peter Schofield, the DWP\u2019s most powerful civil servant, told MPs in 2019 that the department was solving the problem of these overpayments. Yet until recently, still only half of these alerts were being checked.<\/p>\n
One of the most shocking elements of carer\u2019s allowance is the brutal \u201ccliff edge\u201d, whereby those who overstep the weekly earnings limit by as little as 1p must pay back the entire week\u2019s benefit. This means someone who oversteps the threshold by as little as 1p a week for a year must repay not 52p but \u00a34,331.60, plus a \u00a350 civil penalty.<\/p>\n
Sayce was unequivocal that ministers should \u201cremove or reduce the impact\u201d of the cliff edge urgently. The DWP is considering ways to do this, but warned that any policy fix would take time.<\/p>\n
The review illustrates how unpaid carers were \u201cdisproportionately\u201d treated by the DWP as guilty before being proven innocent. \u201cRather than being penalised where negligence is demonstrated, the approach assumes negligence as a default,\u201d Sayce found.<\/p>\n
Sayce, by contrast, found the overwhelming majority of overpayments were a result of official error rather than \u201cwilful rule-breaking\u201d. This echoes a report by MPs six years ago, which concluded that for the most part unpaid carers were being penalised for \u201chonest mistakes\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report reveals how claimants of carer\u2019s allowance are hit with more \u00a350 civil penalties than recipients of any other benefit including universal credit, despite there being eight times fewer unpaid carers than the number receiving that benefit.<\/p>\n
In total, 852 unpaid carers were referred by the DWP for criminal prosecution in the six years to 2024, with a further 1,510 landed with fines of up to \u00a35,000 (which they must pay in addition to their overpayment). Sayce said these should end for all but the most serious deliberate contraventions.<\/p>\n
First introduced in 1976, carer\u2019s allowance is the benefit that time forgot. It is, Sayce said, \u201can outdated benefit [that] has become ever less fit for purpose\u201d \u2013 incompatible with an era of zero-hours jobs and irregular working patterns, and at odds with a time when millions more people provide unpaid care for a population that is both ageing and living longer due to medical advances.<\/p>\n
Set this against the \u201cinconsistent and unclear\u201d way the DWP treats carers\u2019 earnings, with \u201coutdated\u201d technology being used by a disjointed department, and you have what one carer described as a \u201cbenefit trap\u201d.<\/p>\n
Even DWP officials appeared unclear on the rules; when one civil servant was asked by a carer whether private pensions contributions were allowed as an expense, they reportedly replied: \u201cSometimes they do, sometimes they don\u2019t. Depends who you get.\u201d<\/p>\n
In its 37-page response to Sayce\u2019s report, the DWP promised to review decisions relating to approximately 185,000 unpaid carers spanning 10 years to 2025. These will, however, be limited to those in which the carer might not have been penalised had the government assessed their average earnings.<\/p>\n
The department, still led by Schofield, said it was \u201cconsidering longer-term reforms\u201d to modernise carer\u2019s allowance \u2013 including replacing the punitive \u201ccliff edge\u201d with a fairer system tapered towards a carer\u2019s earnings.<\/p>\n
Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, said the DWP had accepted the vast majority of Sayce\u2019s 40 recommendations. He added: \u201cWe inherited this mess from the previous government, but we\u2019ve listened to carers, commissioned an independent review, and are now making good for those affected. Rebuilding trust isn\u2019t about warm words \u2013 it\u2019s about action, accountability, and making sure our support works for the people who need it most.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Of all the devastating passages in Liz Sayce\u2019s 146-page criticism of the government\u2019s failing carer\u2019s allowance system, one above all leaps out. It describes how some felt so \u201coverwhelmed\u201d, ashamed and criminalised they considered killing themselves. One even investigated whether their fine would be cancelled if they died, only to find the government would still<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[4388,4387,7916,16622,11470,293,1395],"class_list":{"0":"post-35248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-allowance","9":"tag-carers","10":"tag-fit","11":"tag-outdated","12":"tag-purpose","13":"tag-report","14":"tag-takeaways"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}