Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
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
As of 14th 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 14th 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.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
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
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.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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
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.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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
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.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
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
Rounded | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 |
The number of cases flagged as potentially in need of investigation by the VEPs system | 91,000 | 73,000 | 96,000 | 107,000 | 67,000 |
The number of cases investigated | 35,000 | 38,000 | 46,000 | 50,000 | 35,000 |
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
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
The Department allocated the following resources to full time equivalent to the investigation of earnings alerts for carer’s allowance as outlined below;
| FTE |
19/20 | 46.43 |
20/21 | 55.20 |
21/22 | 80.92 |
22/23 | 59.75 |
23/24 | 48.70 |
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.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
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
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.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
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
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.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
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
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
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
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.