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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Carer's allowance crisis

A series reporting on unpaid carers in the UK who are being plunged into debt and prosecuted for fraud by the Department for Work and Pensions over its own benefit overpayments

30 July 2024

  • I'm under attack and fighting back: the scandal trapping carers - video

    Debbie cares full-time for her elderly mother, works part-time as a cleaner, and claims carer's allowance of £81.90 a week. But she was one of hundreds of thousands of carers to receive a demand from the Department for Work and Pensions to pay back large sums of money for inadvertently going slightly over the earnings limit. Now Debbie and carers like her are starting to fight back and demand change to the system

28 July 2024

  • Elizabeth Tait and her son Oliver sitting on sofa at their home

    ‘DWP threatened to send in bailiffs’: the unpaid carers told to repay benefit

    Carer’s allowance ‘cliff edge’ means it has to be paid back if a penny is earned over threshold. Carers tell their stories
  • Images of carers

    Key workers quit jobs to avoid cash penalties for breaching carer’s allowance

    Exclusive: Teachers and NHS staff forced to take desperate measures to avoid falling foul of earnings limits, says ‘devastating’ study
  • Montage for of people including Stephen Timms

    Millions wasted, lives blighted: time to end the carer’s allowance scandal

    Changes will be complex and expensive, but so is the moral and economic cost of not resolving this sorry tale of misery and injustice

24 July 2024

  • Rachel Reeves speaking at a podium with the union flag behind her

    Rachel Reeves must overhaul ‘perverse’ carer’s allowance rule, Martin Lewis says

    Consumer expert writes to chancellor outlining four changes to help remedy financial injustices

8 June 2024

  • Ed Davey campaigns in Oxfordshire: he stands in front of a group of people waving bright orange placards that read Liberal Democrats: winning here. He wears a dark jumper over a white shirt and looks animated, with his hands raised.

    Lib Dems to promise £1.5bn reform of carer’s allowance including debt amnesty

    Proposals also include a £20-a-week boost to payments and an increased limit on earnings from part-time work

27 May 2024

  • Rose Chiteseko at home

    ‘No one would accept blame’: Carers highlight DWP failures over debt crisis

  • A Andrew Kasparis A full-time carer, looking after his mother

    ‘It feels like contempt’: DWP tells 85-year-old dementia patient to repay £13k

23 May 2024

  • Unpaid carers interviewed by the Guardian have revealed how the government’s continuing failure to tackle overpayments has pushed them into debt and ill health.

    National Audit Office to investigate growing scandal over carer’s allowance

    Government watchdog says action prompted by DWP’s lack of progress in tackling overpayments problems

18 May 2024

  • Man pushing a woman in a wheelchair in a park

    Ministers clawing back £251m from carers hit by DWP’s allowance failures

    ‘Strikingly large’ sum being recouped from people who fell foul of system that did not flag overpayments

17 May 2024

  • Kate Garraway posing for a photo at an event.

    Kate Garraway: persecution of carers has ‘horrible echo’ of Post Office scandal

    Presenter, who cared for late husband, said she was approached by people in street pleading for intervention

16 May 2024

  • A young man helping an elderly man use his laptop

    Carer’s allowance report a vivid insight into failings of an unfit system

    Little wonder welfare ministers were so reluctant the publish the study they commissioned five years ago
  • A woman helping an older woman sitting on a sofa to put on a cardigan

    Ministers knew about carer’s allowance problems three years ago, report reveals

    Suppressed DWP study told of hardship endured by carers forced to repay thousands after minor allowance breaches
  • Silhouette of person pushing another person in a wheelchair against a blue sky with clouds

    MPs call for issues leaving carers with huge debts to be fixed ‘without delay’

    Committee chair says UK government has known for years about flaws in benefit system and needs to ‘get a grip’

15 May 2024

  • Rose Chitseko is a carer for her elderly mother who has dementia.

    Ministers apologise and return £7,000 in benefits to woman, 93, with dementia

    Exclusive: Elderly woman was allowed to run up debts in ‘disturbing’ case, the latest to emerge in Guardian investigation

10 May 2024

  • A younger woman helps and older woman button up her jacket

    MPs call on spending watchdog to investigate DWP overpayments to carers

    Select committee says scale of problem, carers’ testimony and cost to taxpayer warrants second inquiry into benefits system

9 May 2024

  • A woman pushing an older woman in a wheelchair

    Carer’s allowance scandal is not going away – but will DWP reform happen?

  • An elderly woman holding hands with her daughter

    DWP’s unchecked database leaves tens of thousands of carers at risk of debt

27 April 2024

  • A caregiver pushes a man in a wheelchair on footpath

    Work and pensions committee chair tells ministers to fix carer’s allowance issues

    Stephen Timms says DWP letting unpaid carers incur ‘enormous accidental overpayments’

26 April 2024

  • An older man waits at a pedestrian crossing pushing a person in a wheelchair

    Sunak under pressure to grant amnesty to unpaid carers fined for rule breaches

    Concern grows over legality of approach as figures show more than 150,000 carers facing huge penalties
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