Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce delays in the administration of Carer's Allowance; and what steps she is taking to inform carers about the Carer's Allowance earnings threshold.

Recruitment and deployment of additional resources is taking place to enable the Carer’s Allowance (CA) unit to meet the consistent increased demand, which should reduce the clearance times for new claims to CA.

DWP has reviewed its communications to ensure the increase in the CA earnings threshold from 7 April 2025 is clearly visible. These include:

• Advice on GOV.UK,
• Annual benefit uprating notification letters. These are issued to customers over a 7-week period from the beginning of March, and include the new weekly rate of CA and the new earnings limit,
• Use of our advocates’ platform, such as Carers UK,
• Clerical claim form supporting notes,
• Upskilling our telephony agents who deal with inbound customer enquiries,
• Focussed media coverage on the CA threshold increase - press releases, Facebook etc.