Teachers, NHS staff and other key workers juggling part-time work with caring for loved ones are quitting their jobs to avoid huge fines for breaching carer’s allowance rules, a survey has found.
An investigation into the human impact of penalties has found that sanctions running up to thousands of pounds, caused by opaque rules and poor management by welfare authorities, are wreaking havoc on carers’ working lives, health and finances.
The report by Carers UK details how carers are being forced to take desperate measures to avoid breaching strict income limits, including quitting their jobs, reducing their hours, turning down pay increases, refusing cost of living payments and performance bonuses, and even taking monthly flexible working hours.
People who had unknowingly exceeded the £151-a-week income limit – in some cases by less than £1 – said the disproportionate fines they had been forced to pay had left them in huge debt, leaving them and those they care for in poverty and taking a devastating toll on their mental health.
The so-called “cliff edge” earnings rule means that carers who exceed the limit have to pay back the entire £81.90-a-week allowance. So a carer who earns £1 more than the £151 threshold over 52 weeks would pay back £4,258.80 rather than £52. Some are also being prosecuted for fraud.
A Guardian investigation earlier this year exposed the scale of fraud in Carers’ Allowance, including the failure of the previous administration to address flaws it had known about for years. The latest figures show that 134,500 unpaid carers have repaid £251 million in income-related overpayments, with 11,500 carers owing more than £5,000.
The report, published on Monday, came as a delegation of unpaid carers, led by Carers UK, was due to meet Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ministers to call for urgent reforms to care benefit.
Campaigners are optimistic they will find a more favourable response: Labour promised to review carer’s allowance during the election campaign and carers have been encouraged by the appointment of Sir Stephen Timms, a vocal critic of the system’s shortcomings while in opposition, as head of allowance.
The report, based on interviews with more than 120 unpaid carers, revealed huge anger towards carers, accusing welfare officials of failing to inform them when they unwittingly exceeded income limits and “treating them like criminals” when they were asked to pay back as much as £18,000.
Some said the constant stress of trying to avoid fines whilst juggling part-time work with unpaid caring for at least 35 hours a week had led them to stop claiming carers’ allowance, the main carers’ benefit of £4,260 a year.
Carers UK described the findings as “devastating” and called for urgent reform of Carers’ Allowance, claimed by nearly one million unpaid carers. Frequently hailed by politicians as an “unsung hero”, the allowance – designed to provide cash support to unpaid carers – has become a poster child for bureaucratic callousness and incompetence reminiscent of the Post Office scandal.
Helen Walker, chief executive of Carers UK, said: “It’s heartbreaking to hear stories of people being piled up with thousands of pounds of debt. This has been going on for years and the government has not done enough to radically change the situation. It cannot continue like this.”
In a statement released ahead of the meeting with campaigners, Mr Timms praised unpaid carers and said the UK would “stagnate” without their work to support vulnerable people. “We recognise the challenges they face and are determined to provide unpaid carers with the support they deserve,” he said.
He added: “Meeting with organisations like Carers UK and individual carers to hear their views and experiences is key to establishing the facts and making informed decisions. With regard to the overpayment of carers’ allowance, we are moving swiftly to understand exactly what went wrong and put in place a plan to put things right.”
A common theme in Carers UK’s research is that strict earnings restrictions prevent carers from maintaining a part-time foothold in the labour market, maintaining their skills and earning an income whilst continuing to look after a disabled or frail relative – despite the government saying it wants to “rejuvenate Britain” by removing barriers to employment.
Enka Prak, an unpaid carer for her son who quit her job after being overpaid by £6,800, told the Guardian: “They always want teachers but I’m one of those who have to stay at home when I could be going in to work.”
The carers survey revealed widespread anger among carers that DWP officials had the technology to quickly spot income fraud, but failed to warn carers for months or years before issuing huge overpayment fines and in some cases threatening prosecution.
Carers say the shock of receiving the fine, which was due to an oversight in vague and complicated income rules, was compounded by the callous treatment they received from welfare officials. [carer’s allowance] It’s a system that kind of dehumanizes you.”
Elizabeth Tate, another carer who unknowingly overpaid £1,623, told the Guardian: “I felt like I’d committed a crime as I tried to make sense of a system that made absolutely no sense.”
