Independent review for carer’s allowance overpayments

An independent review into overpaid carer’s allowance has been announced by the government.

It comes after more than 134,000 families received demands earlier this year to repay thousands of pounds, which pushed many into debt.

The review will look into:

• how and why these overpayments happened
• changes to prevent future issues
• support for those affected

What is carer’s allowance?

Carer’s allowance is one of the lowest paid benefits at £81.90 a week.

To qualify, you must care for someone with a disability or illness for at least 35 hours a week. This works out at  just £2.34 an hour.

You also can’t earn more than £151 a week after tax and expenses to receive the allowance. Many carers find this limit makes it hard to work, as they have to reduce their hours.

What happened?

Even going a penny over £151 a week (about 13 hours of work) means having to repay the full amount – not just the amount you’re over by – leaving many struggling to make ends meet after the government clawed back funds. On average, people have been overpaid 4,000 with some carers owing as much as £20,000.

Many carers didn’t realise they had gone over this limit until they were told they’d been paid too much or their payments stopped.

Some overpayments were mistakes by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Fewer than 500 cases were due to fraud.

What happens next?

Not many details have been published yet, so we don’t know when the review will start or how long it will  take.

We also don’t know if families still owing money will need to keep repaying during the review.

The Lib Dems have suggested the government cancel most of these debts, but we don’t know if Labour will agree to this.

What we do know is that the review will be led by Liz Sayce OBE, former chief executive of Disability Rights UK. It’ll also help the government reform the social care system so that carers are better supported.

Full details will be published at a later date, so keep checking back for more.

Have you been affected by a benefits overpayment?

If you’ve been told to pay money back from an overpayment but can’t afford to, you’re not alone.

Around 30% of the people we support have turned to us because they’re struggling to repay overpaid benefits.

We might be able to help you with free and impartial debt advice online or you can give us a call.