Senior DWP civil servant blames victims for carer’s allowance scandal | Carers

One of the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) most senior civil servants has laid the blame for the carer’s allowance benefits crisis on victims, many of whom face life-changing debts.

In an internal blog post written for colleagues in Whitehall, DWP services chief executive Neil Couling said individual failings of carers were at the “heart” of the problem, which has been likened to the Post Office Horizon scandal.

The post, which was removed after the Guardian investigated its content, was met with criticism from charities and politicians.

An independent review into the scandal last month found long-standing and “unacceptable” systemic DWP leadership problems and poor benefits design were at the root of the failure and said it could not be blamed on carers.

The review found that some carers who failed to comply with the help’s outdated and complex rules felt so embarrassed, distressed and helpless that they considered suicide. He described being caught in the system as “being caught up in the whims of an unknown machine.”

The review, by disability rights expert Liz Sayce, concluded that despite repeated warnings from whistleblowers, auditors and MPs, senior DWP leaders had failed to grasp or resolve problems with benefits for a decade.

Couling’s post said one of the main reasons for overpayments was a result of the DWP’s “rather strange” guidance on averaging carers’ earnings. But it argues that these overpayments occurred because individual carers failed to report fluctuations in their earnings, which violated benefit rules.

“By the way, what is overlooked in this whole process is [media] The scope is that this bug (and hands up, we’ve done it and will fix it) only affects a relatively small number of cases and is not the cause of the original complaint. Because it’s at the heart of overpayment problems in CA [carer’s allowance] “It is a failure to communicate changes in circumstances,” Couling wrote.

This contrasts with the government’s own position, which accepts that the DWP is the main cause of overpayments due to confusing guidance and unclear reporting processes.

Kirsty McHugh, chief executive of the Carers Trust, said: “This looks like a really serious error of judgment. There was an independent review which made some very clear findings. The DWP must now stand by this report and continue to refund money to carers.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “I’m disgusted by this blog post as it shows that some senior DWP staff have learned nothing about the extent of misery caused by their policies and procedures. It’s time the DWP showed some respect for carers and some awareness of its own gross mistakes.”

Emily Holzhausen, policy director at Carers UK, said: “To say that the crux of the matter was claimants’ failure to communicate changes in circumstances would be to miss the point completely. This is mainly due to a confusing, complex and difficult to manage system, which has led to a large number of errors.”

The government-commissioned Sayce review was ordered after the Guardian’s award-winning investigation revealed how unpaid carers were unfairly subjected to draconian fines of up to £20,000 after they unwittingly began overpaying their carer’s allowance benefit.

The government announced last month it would reassess some of the overpayments made to carers over the past 10 years in response to the review. It is estimated that approximately 200,000 cases will be reviewed and 26,000 cases will likely have their debts canceled or reduced.

Last week Sir Peter Schofield apologized to MPs for what ministers called the “mess” inherited from the previous government: “I’m sorry to anyone affected by this, but I will sort this out,” Schofield said.

Six years ago Schofield refused three times to apologize to MPs over the failure of carer’s allowance. Although he later promised to tackle the overpayment problem, 180,000 carers fell into debt worth £300 million between 2019 and 2025 on his watch; That’s roughly one-fifth of those who made claims, and 854 of them were convicted of fraud.

A DWP spokesman said: “We were clear and remain clear that we accept the vast majority of recommendations put forward in the Sayce review, including that confusing rules around earnings averaging are leaving carers facing unexpected debts.

“That’s why we’re addressing this issue and have already appointed extra staff, updated internal guidance and sent out letters to unpaid carers making it clear what changes they need to be notified of to prevent carers from racking up huge debts.

“And we will continue to put things right and rebuild trust by reassessing affected cases and potentially reducing, canceling or refunding the debts of tens of thousands of carers.”