Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the maximum amount that the Department for Work and Pensions is seeking to recover from any individual recipient of carer's allowance as a result of overpayment of that allowance; and whether there is any cap on the total amount sought.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government from how many recipients of carer's allowance the Department for Work and Pensions is seeking repayment following overpayment of that allowance.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment has the Department for Work and Pensions made of its own culpability in issuing overpayments to recipients of carer's allowance.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to forgoing repayment of the overpayment to recipients of carer’s allowance in instances where the Department for Work and Pensions is at fault for such overpayment.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what changes the Department for Work and Pensions has made to its procedures to ensure that the overpayment of carer's allowance to recipients cannot occur in the future.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Carer's Allowance overpayments to people living in Wales there were for the value of (a) £0.01 to £500, (b) £500.01 to £1,000, (c) £1,000.01 to £5,000, (d) £5,000.01 to £20,000 and (e) more than £20,000 in financial years (i) 2021-22, (ii) 2022-23 and (iii) 2023-24.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are unable to provide a response to this request as it is not possible for us to identify the data requested by geographic location.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of taking steps to prevent the accumulation of debt among carers due to (a) delayed investigation and (b) non-investigation of overpayment alerts.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The DWP is progressing an enhanced notification strategy for Carers’ Allowance, to help claimants understand when they may have received an earnings-related overpayment, and to meet their obligation to inform the Department of changes in their income and other relevant circumstances. This will be designed to help prevent Carer’s Allowance claimants accumulating debt.

As part of that, DWP is considering the most effective and efficient way of contacting customers when alerted to a potential change in the customer’s income, building on existing communications. This could include targeted text messaging, email, phone calls or letters.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many carer’s allowance overpayment cases that have not been investigated by his Department; and how many such cases there were in each of the last five years.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are unable to provide a response as it is unclear from your question as to the information you seek.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are in debt to the Department through overpayments of Carers Allowance; and how much do they owe in total.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

As of 14^th May 2024, the volume of people who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt is 134,800 with a total value of £251m. This figure represents the total stock and as such the total monetary amount may have been accrued over multiple years. Those who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt may no longer be in receipt of the benefit.

Women make up the majority of Carer’s Allowance claims, and this is reflected in the proportion of those with an outstanding Carer’s Allowance debt. As of 14^th May 2024, there were 42,800 (32%) males, 91,900 (68%) females and 100 (less than 1%) not identified, with an outstanding Carers Allowance debt.

As of November 2023, there were over 991,000 people in receipt of Carers Allowance. That figure is made up of over 271,000 (27%) males and 720,000 (73%) females.

The data contained in our response has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. It should therefore be treated with caution.

All figures provided have been rounded.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) men and (b) women are in debt to his Department through overpayments of Carers Allowance.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

As of 14^th May 2024, the volume of people who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt is 134,800 with a total value of £251m. This figure represents the total stock and as such the total monetary amount may have been accrued over multiple years. Those who have an outstanding Carers Allowance debt may no longer be in receipt of the benefit.

Women make up the majority of Carer’s Allowance claims, and this is reflected in the proportion of those with an outstanding Carer’s Allowance debt. As of 14^th May 2024, there were 42,800 (32%) males, 91,900 (68%) females and 100 (less than 1%) not identified, with an outstanding Carers Allowance debt.

As of November 2023, there were over 991,000 people in receipt of Carers Allowance. That figure is made up of over 271,000 (27%) males and 720,000 (73%) females.

The data contained in our response has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. It should therefore be treated with caution.

All figures provided have been rounded.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Carer’s Allowance overpayment cases are being investigated by his Department; and if he will publish the level of overpayments being pursued, broken down into £1,000 ranges in the financial year 2023-24.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

There are currently 750 live cases where Carers Allowance is shown as the “primary” benefit under investigation.

We do not hold information on the size of any individual overpayment whilst the investigation process is taking place – this is not determined until the investigation is completed.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, at what financial threshold his Department (a) starts an investigation and (b) seeks overpayment recovery for Carer’s Allowance.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Secretary of State has an obligation to protect public funds by tackling fraud and error and, where legislated, recover overpayments.

Specialist trained counter fraud investigators will consider a range of factors, including if a claimant is vulnerable, before starting an investigation. This includes if an overpayment is potentially above £3,000 or the person involved occupies a position of trust or has used false or forged documentation during their claim. DWP keeps these criteria under review.

Any overpayment of Carer’s Allowance that arose as a result of a failure to disclose or misrepresentation is recoverable under s.71 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. DWP does not recover new overpayments below £65 unless they have arisen due to fraud.

The Department is committed to negotiating affordable and sustainable repayment plans that do not cause undue financial hardship. We will work with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and encourage customers to contact DWP Debt Management. Debt Management will work with individuals to review their financial circumstances and, in most instances, a temporary reduction in their rate of repayment can be agreed.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he has taken to prevent large value overpayments from accruing for Carer’s Allowance since 2019.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Overpayments are recoverable from the Carer where there is evidence that the Carer failed to timeously inform the Department of changes in circumstances. The annual benefit uprating letter issued highlights the need to report changes such and changes in earnings. The Department also uses data from HMRC to indicate where the customer may have had a change in income and failed to inform us.

The Department also takes steps to avoid large scale overpayments that are not recoverable. This includes managing workloads at appropriate levels so changes in circumstance are processed timeously.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many overpayments his Department is seeking to recover for Carer’s Allowance due to (a) breaches to the earnings limit, (b) exceeding the limit for breaks from caring role in a given period, (c) not caring for 35 hours per week ,(d) other, (e) a combination of reasons and (f) overall.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We recognise the significant contribution of carers to supporting those most in need, which is why we have increased Carer's Allowance by almost £1,500 since 2010.

Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award.

Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.

The information requested has been provided in the table below.

Note that the overpayment reasons for which you have requested breakdowns do not directly align with our Debt Manager system’s overpayment categories. We have provided the reasons which most closely reflect those requested. We are unable to provide data for overpayments caused by “a combination of reasons”, as this is not a category available/ recorded by DWP. Overpayments with values of £0.00 have been excluded. Data is taken as a snapshot as at 25 April 2024 and the figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred.

The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many alerts from the Verified Earnings and Pensions service informing his Department of carers’ earnings information were (a) passed and (b) not passed on to carers in each of the last five years; and whether he has made an assessment of the effectiveness of VEPs in preventing large value overpayments for Carer's Allowance.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Overpayments are recoverable from the Carer where there is evidence that the Carer failed to timeously inform the Department of changes in circumstances. The annual benefit uprating letter issued highlights the need to report changes such and changes in earnings. The Department also uses data from HMRC to indicate where the customer may have had a change in income and failed to inform us.

The Department also takes steps to avoid large scale overpayments that are not recoverable. This includes managing workloads at appropriate levels so changes in circumstance are processed timeously.

Caveats

• Numbers are rounded to the nearest 1,000.
• The above data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.
• Data for October, November, and December 2023 is not held.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many potential cases of overpayments of carer’s allowance were flagged by the Verified Earnings and Pensions service system in each of the last five financial years; and how many such cases were investigated in each of those years.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many full time equivalent staff in his Department worked on investigation of earnings alerts for carer’s allowance in (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21, (c) 2022-23, (d) 2022-23 and (e) 2023-24.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department allocated the following resources to full time equivalent to the investigation of earnings alerts for carer’s allowance as outlined below;

Data is correct as of March for each of the following Financial Years: (a) 2019/20, (b) 2020/21, (c) 2021/22, (d) 2022/23 and (e) 2023/24.

Figures were derived from the Department’s Activity Based Model (ABM), which provides Full Time Equivalent (FTE) figures based on point in time estimate by Line Managers. They cover only FTE of staff with paid employment.

The number of colleagues employed in these directorates is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. As the Department holds the information, we have released it.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the highest value overpayment has been for Carer’s Allowance in the (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23 and (c) 2023-24 financial years.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award.

Where overpayments do occur due to not being entitled to the benefit, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.

Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents just 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s Allowance expenditure.

The information requested has been provided in the table below. To avoid potentially disclosing personal information, we have bucketed the values requested.

The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

Note that the values represent the original overpayment amount when raised on Debt Manager. As the year relates to when the overpayment was raised as a debt for recovery, it does not necessarily relate to the period as to when benefit was overpaid. The overpayments above all span periods of many years.

Note that the data provided is for all categories of overpayment. It is not necessarily the case that these overpayments arose due to claimants breaching the earnings limit.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many carer’s allowance overpayments over (a) £5,000 and (b) £20,000 there were in (i) 2022-23 and (ii) 2023-24.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We recognise the significant contribution of carers to supporting those most in need, which is why we have increased Carer's Allowance by almost £1,500 since 2010.

As with all DWP benefits, claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to the benefit they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. For Carer’s Allowance, eligibility is partly dependent upon claimants earning £151 or less a week after tax, National Insurance and allowable expenses. This is set out at: Carer's Allowance: Eligibility - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Where overpayments do occur due to not being entitled to the benefit, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.

Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s Allowance expenditure.

The information requested has been provided in the table below.

The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

Note that the year relates to when the debt was raised on Debt Manager, and therefore not necessarily the period as to when Carer’s Allowance was overpaid. The overpayments may span periods of many years.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how frequently HM Revenue and Customs provides his Department with earnings alerts on potential overpayments of carer’s allowance.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

HMRC provides DWP with 4 daily alerts to changes of earnings, based off a set of business logic/rules which covers Carers Allowance, Housing Benefit and Pension Credit. The earnings notified do not take account of allowable expenses which people in receipt of Carer’s Allowance may wish to deduct.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Carer’s Allowance overpayments have been referred to HM Courts and Tribunals Service since February 2022.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Since February 2022, there have been 119 cases accepted for prosecution for benefit fraud that were so serious they met the threshold for prosecution by The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) where Carer’s Allowance was the primary overpayment.

Note that this this figure only represents those cases accepted by CPS and does not indicate prosecution outcome. Data is for the period 1/2/2022 to 17/4/2024.

The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Carer’s Allowance cases were flagged as potentially in need of investigation by the VEPs system in the 2023-24 financial year; and of these, how many (a) were and (b) were not investigated.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 3.18 of the National Audit Office report entitled Investigation into overpayments of Carer’s Allowance, published on 26 April 2019, what changes were made to the business rules of the Verify Earnings and Pensions Service that revised downwards the number of alerts that were forecast to be generated from 380,000 to 75,000.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

A review of rules has provided a streamlined approach to the identification of VEP rules, enabling alignment with the latest HMRC data that feeds into DWP Real Time Earnings (RTE) system.

Examples of improvements include benefit specific rules, such as details of fluctuations in income, one off payments and irregular payments revision.

The Department is constantly reviewing available resources against priorities.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Carer’s Allowance cases his Department pursued for overpayments of (a) between (i) £500 and £999.99 and (ii) £1,000 and £2,000 and (b) more than £2,000 in 2023-24.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We recognise the significant contribution of carers to supporting those most in need, which is why we have increased Carer's Allowance by almost £1,500 since 2010.

Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. For Carer’s Allowance, eligibility is partly dependent upon claimants earning £151 or less a week after tax, National Insurance and allowable expenses.

Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. However, we seek to do so without causing hardship. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.

Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s Allowance expenditure.

The information requested has been provided in the table below.

The above data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people received fines for overpayment of Carer's Allowance in (a) 2020, (b) 2021, (c) 2022, (d) 2023 and (e) as of 1 April 2024; and what was the total amount of these fines.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award.

Overpayments occur when an individual receives a payment they are not entitled to. The fines imposed by DWP for overpayments vary depending on the circumstances of the overpayment.

Administrative Penalties may be offered by the fraud investigator as an alternative to a prosecution in certain cases where there has been benefit fraud or attempted benefit fraud.

The table below provides the volume and value of Administrative Penalties accepted due to an overpayment of Carer’s Allowance, by financial year.

For cases of claimant error, a £50 Civil Penalty may be imposed by DWP where an individual incurs an overpayment as a result of failing to provide accurate information and have not taken reasonable steps to correct the error.

The table below provides the volume and value of Civil Penalties given due to an overpayment of Carer’s Allowance, by financial year.

Note that our latest figures show there are approximately 1.4 million people claiming Carer’s Allowance.

The data provided for this response is for the volume of penalties, and it is important to note that individuals can receive more than one penalty.

Data been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. Our analysis has not captured a small but unknown number of penalties that are logged as debts in their own right on the debt MI system. Our understanding is that this approach is rarely used for Carer’s Allowance.

More information about DWP penalties policy can be found here: Penalties policy: in respect of social security fraud and error - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)