Mother of autistic boy left with £10,000 debt after breaching DWP rules by £1.92 a week | Carers
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/03/mother-of-autistic-boy-left-with-10000-debt-after-breaching-dwp-rules-by-192-a-week
Posted by TinFish77
11 Comments
> Unpaid carers are allowed to work as long as their earnings do not breach the strictly enforced weekly threshold, which is £196. If their income exceeds this limit, even by as little as 1p, they must repay the whole week of carer’s allowance – meaning a breach of even 1p would trigger a fine of £83.30.
Man, what a fucking absurd system which actively discourages carers from taking on second jobs.
But I guess these are exactly the sort of *disgusting benefits fraudsters* which our government would rather pursue than, I dunno, implementing some sort of wealth tax.
Going after the real villains of our time, thanks labour.
Instead of going after the marginalised and needy, how about we fix the core issues of society; housing, rent, and stagnant salaries.
Used to work in civil service. If she contacts the debt management unit they will sort it out for her, as its obviously a steaming pile.
My fav number in the spreadsheets used to be, once every two months a person paid £1 off their £20,000 debt. No idea how they wrangled it, but clearly if you call them out they have to be realistic. You cant give the BARE MINIMUM to someone then take money off that, you just defined the minimum to live on.
The sums are so high because the recipient has to repay all they received, not just the tiny bit they went over by accident.
Even by the time of this one, January, Labour have had plenty of time to change the rules. It’s telling that they haven’t and clearly have no intention of ever doing so.
On top of the cliff edge, which is just horrendous, what about this.
> The well-documented failure of the DWP to alert carers immediately to these overpayments meant that instead of being notified in 2018, when they first began, the Shahars were not told until January – nearly seven years later.
> This meant they unknowingly accrued debt until 2023, when they stopped receiving carer’s allowance after Shahar notified the DWP that she had been able to increase her hours at Sports Direct.
7 years. 7 fucking years.
If an energy company fails to accurately bill you, they’re only allowed to backbill you for 12 months, because it’s expected that they get their shit together, and if they don’t, the financial consequences fall on them, not the other party.
Not here though. The government never holds itself to the same standards as it does other organisations.
In any just system, they’d also take stock of the fact she reached out to inform them she was no longer eligible, and realise that they weren’t dealing with someone looking to con the DWP.
No compassion, no common sense, and no competence. The DWP needs ripping apart.
[deleted]
Why is there limits on what carers earn in their work? These individuals are highly driven to both work and care yet we cap their long term prospects. The individual in need of care will get care if the state pays out of its arse for it privately or much less if it supports family carers. Backwards logic and it will only get worse with an aging population
Honestly, my view is that the DWP should have to eat these losses. They’re certainly better able to then an unpaid carer and they’re the ones who’re letting it tot up like this!
Better yet, this cliff edge thing should be abolished, because it’s just pointlessly cruel to people who are, in reality, saving the taxpayer a whole bunch of money in carer fees.
Im not sure why a ceo and published author is claiming to care for his own son anyway
DWP guidelines should have been fixed on day 1 with vetting carried out on anyone in the civil service that may have contributed ideas to Iain Duncan Smith’s economic murder project.
Anyone with a part to play in setting up the 2010 and onwards DWP should be rotting in a cell.
This seems to be how the vast majority of schemes in the UK work.
That there’s no cutoff on how far back DWP can go is ridiculous.
However, I don’t think these people are innocent, either. They know when they’ve earned too much. They know what the earnings limits are. And they aren’t ‘fined’ £83.30′. They owe that money. It’s not e penalty, it’s unearned and disallowed income.
The system shouldn’t work this way, *at all*, but the idea that you don’t know that earning £200 breaches the rules when £196 doesn’t is nonsense. They know. The fact that DWP takes years and years to follow-up leads people to believe that there are no, or few, actual consequences.
IMO, if there was no demonstrable and overt act to cover-up the extra earnings, DWP should only be allowed to go back 2 years. And you should only ever lose the amount you earned in overage. If you take a job that pays a flat £200, then you should be able to simply notify DWP and they’ll send you £4 less.
This could all be very easily automated, too. There’s no reason any human needs to be involved beyond the DWP benefits recipient unless there is an appeal to be filed.