Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many cases of overpayment of carers allowance her Department has sought to collect in each of the last 10 years; and what the average amount of overpayment recovered in each of those years was.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) recognises and appreciates the vital contribution made by informal carers who provide invaluable support for relatives, partners, friends and neighbours who may be ill, frail or disabled. We also recognise and value the work that carer’s organisations undertake for and on behalf of carers.

Since 2010 the rate of Carer’s Allowance has increased from £53.90 to £64.60 a week, meaning an additional £550 a year for carers. By 2022/23 we are forecast to spend around £3.7 billion a year on CA, a real terms increase of more than a third since 2016/17.

DWP has a duty to protect public funds and an obligation to ensure that, overpaid benefit payments are recovered in accordance with the appropriate social security legislation.

In September 2018 DWP introduced the Verify Earnings and Pensions (VEP) system for use in Carers Allowance. The VEP service presents earnings and employment data to users, with an automated alerts service generating notifications of earnings or pensions related changes. This allows benefit awards to be updated far more quickly.

Where there are discrepancies DWP will contact the claimant for further information. This activity is part of the normal claims handling and maintenance process.

DWP has a Carers Allowance (CA) Fraud and Error Framework which addresses potential fraud and error losses in CA. Activity is based on CA overpayment data. This data shows that the main causes of errors are earnings and to a lesser extent, change of entitlement and hospitalisation. Individual benefit strategies have been developed in order to target these risks types

Data is only available from 2011/12. Table 1 below shows the volume and value of CA new debt overpayments deemed recoverable for the period available up to 2017/18. Table 2 shows the monetary value of CA overpayment recoveries in each year. Please note, recoveries in a financial year won’t necessarily correspond to the new debts raised within that year.

DWP has different deduction rates to be applied in different circumstances and these rates can vary dependent upon a claimant’s particular circumstances. Because of this it would not be possible to provide a meaningful average recovery amount.

Table 1

Table 2

The Government keeps the CA earnings limit under regular review. In April 2018, the CA earnings limit increased from £116 to £120 a week. This 3.4% increase was higher than average earnings growth (Sep 17). In the Economic and fiscal outlook (March 2017) the OBR forecast that average earnings would increase by around 7.5% between 2015 and 2018, whereas we will have increased the CA earnings limit by around 9%.

Table 3 below shows a breakdown of the recoverable CA overpayment volumes by reason for the same period available. It should be noted that not all debts will be cleared in the year in which they have been raised.

Table 3

Data on specific earnings thresholds as requested is not recorded.