May 2019 – Overpaid Carers Allowance

In August 2018, a whistleblower alleged that millions of pounds in overpayments were going undetected because of reduced compliance checks. The whistleblower expressed concerns that the Department had recently announced the discovery of a large backlog of compliance and fraud cases, with more than 1,000 cases being considered for either prosecution or administrative penalties.

 

In 2018/2019 the DWP detected 93,000 overpayments compared to an average of 41,000 a year over the previous five years, as well as 104,000 unprocessed changes in circumstances in November 2018. Delays in processing claims and changes meant that overpayments were not identified in a timely manner.

 

Just over half of these debts are under £1,000 but some carers have much larger debts. For example, there were 133 individuals with outstanding debts of more than £20,000 at the end of March 2019. It should be noted that few overpayments are proven fraud. Instead, most detected overpayments arose because carers failed to notify the Department with the correct information about their earnings. Concerns have been raised about the long term impacts on carers and their disposable income of any recovery action, given that many carers live on limited incomes.

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