Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
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.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
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.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
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.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
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.
Value Grouping | Volume of new overpayments of Carer’s Allowance in 23/24 |
£500.00 - £999.99 | 11.9k |
£1000.00 - £2000.00 | 13.2k |
More than £2000.00 | 6.8k |
Total | 31.9k |
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.
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, what estimate he has made of the proportion of households in receipt of Carer’s Allowance living in food insecurity in (a) the UK, (b) Scotland and (c) Midlothian constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the number of individuals living in households that are food insecure by receipt of state support in the UK are published annually in the “Family Resources Survey” publication in “table 9_7” of “household food security tables” found here.
The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 are for the financial period 2022/23. The
latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore here.
No such assessment can be made for Scotland and the Midlothian constituency due to sample sizes and availability of data.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
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.
Financial Years | Volume of Administrative Penalties | Value |
2020/21 | 64 | £114.4k |
2021/22 | 43 | £80.2k |
2022/23 | 43 | £81.3k |
2023/24 | 75 | £140.8k |
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.
Financial Years | Volume of Civil Penalties | Value |
2020/21 | 14.9k | £0.747m |
2021/22 | 26.3k | £1.309m |
2022/23 | 24.8k | £1.241m |
2023/24 | 30.1k | £1.506m |
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)
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of awarding the full Carer's Allowance to unpaid carers that are in receipt of the state pension.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Although there is no upper age limit to claiming Carer’s Allowance, it cannot normally be paid with the State Pension. It has been a long held feature of the UK’s benefit system, under successive Governments, that where someone is entitled to two benefits for the same contingency, then whilst there may be entitlement to both benefits, only one will be paid to avoid duplication for the same need. Although entitlement to State Pension and Carer’s Allowance arise in different circumstances they are nevertheless designed for the same contingency – as an income replacement. Carer’s Allowance replaces income where the carer has given up the opportunity of full-time employment in order to care for a severely disabled person, while State Pension replaces income in retirement. For this reason, social security rules operate to prevent them being paid together, to avoid duplicate provision for the same need.
However, if a carer’s State Pension is less than Carer's Allowance, State Pension is paid and topped up with Carer's Allowance to the basic weekly rate of Carer's Allowance which is currently £81.90.
Where Carer’s Allowance cannot be paid, the person will keep underlying entitlement to the benefit. This gives access to the additional amount for carers in Pension Credit of £45.60 a week and potentially other means-tested support. Around 100,000 people are receiving the Carer Premium with their Pension Credit. And even if a pensioner’s income is above the limit for Pension Credit, they may still be able to receive Housing Benefit.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact on the educational attainment of young adult carers aged 16 to 24 of the eligibility criteria for carer's allowance that a person must not be studying for 21 hours or more.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions does not hold information on the educational attainment of young adult carers.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he has made an assessment of the potential benefits to carers in Newport West of increasing the Carer's Allowance to £93 a week.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government continues to protect the value of benefits paid to carers whilst also spending record amounts in real terms.
The level of Carer’s Allowance is protected by uprating it each April in line with inflation as measured by the CPI for the previous September. The purpose of benefit uprating is to ensure that the value of benefits stays in line with the general level of prices. From April 2024, the Carer’s Allowance payment was increased to £81.90. Since 2010, the rate of Carer’s Allowance has increased from £53.90 to £81.90 a week, providing an additional £1,500 a year for carers.
Real terms expenditure on Carer’s Allowance in 2024/25 is forecast to be £4.1 billion. Between 2024/25 and 2028/29 real terms expenditure on Carer’s Allowance is forecast to rise by 12% - around £500 million. By 2028/29, the Government is forecast to spend just over £4.5 billion a year on Carer’s Allowance.
As well as Carer’s Allowance, carers have access to the full range of social security benefits. For example, carers on Universal Credit can receive around an additional £2,400 a year through the Carer Element.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the cost to the Exchequer of exempting young adult carers aged 16 to 24 in further education from the 21-hour rule; and what the budget for carer's allowance is for the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It is not possible to provide such an estimate as there is no collated figure on the number of full-time students who are also providing unpaid care. And even if there were, DWP would not know how many were potentially eligible for Carer’s Allowance and could meet the basic eligibility criteria (including on the number of hours of care they were providing and for whom, and whether they were undertaking any work etc).
DWP is forecast to have spent £3.7 billion on Carer’s Allowance in 2023/24.