Senior officials who oversaw a flawed benefits system that plunged hundreds of thousands of carers into debt are under mounting pressure over their “misleading” response to the scandal.
Prof Liz Sayce, the chair of a scathing review into the government’s treatment of unpaid carers, last week called for an overhaul of management and culture at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Days after the publication of the review, the DWP’s top civil servant in charge of carers’ allowance, Neil Couling, said carers themselves were at fault for the decade-long failures.
His comments, revealed by the Guardian, have prompted a key adviser to the Sayce review and a leading carer’s charity to declare a lack of confidence in the department’s pledge to fix the issues.
Prof Sue Yeandle, the UK’s leading expert on unpaid carers, said ministers and senior officials had issued “really misleading” claims that the failures affected only a small number of people.
Helen Walker, the chief executive of Carers UK, said: “This is not a small number of people. Its scale and the devastation caused to so many families cannot be over-estimated, as was laid bare in Liz Sayce’s report. Any suggestion that this is anything other than a systemic failure over a number of years is unacceptable.”
Yeandle, who sat on the advisory panel for the government-commissioned Sayce review, said that while ministers initially claimed to have accepted “the vast majority” of the report’s 40 recommendations, 13 had been only partially accepted and two were rejected.
“Sayce calls for swift action on longstanding issues, some of which the DWP should have resolved long ago,” Yeandle said, adding that she was speaking in a personal capacity.
She said: “The official response and internal DWP memo published last weekend don’t give me much confidence that senior officials will now address these with the urgency and commitment needed.”
Ministers last month vowed to fix the systemic failings after a Guardian investigation exposed how scores of vulnerable families had been left with huge debts and hundreds with criminal convictions for fraud.
Peter Schofield, the DWP’s most senior civil servant, is facing scrutiny for in effect overseeing the crisis despite promising MPs in 2019 that it would be fixed. He told MPs on the public accounts committee earlier this month: “I am sorry for all of those who are affected by this, but I am going to sort it out.”
Those who care for loved ones for at least 35 hours a week are entitled to £83.30 a week in carer’s allowance, provided their weekly earnings do not exceed £196. But if carers exceed this limit, even by as little as 1p, they must repay the entire week’s allowance.
The draconian nature of the rules is compounded by the DWP’s failure to alert unpaid carers when they have overstepped the earnings limit, despite the department having access to near real-time data.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of people unwittingly built up huge debts – sometimes of more than £20,000 – which the DWP often seeks to recover years later, threatening carers with criminal prosecution if they do not pay.
Ministers last month pledged about £75m to fix the scandal and ordered about 200,000 historical cases to be reassessed. The DWP says about 26,000 carers are likely to have debts cancelled or reduced, although experts believe this figure should be far higher.
Yeandle said the failures had put vulnerable families under “intolerable strain”.
She said: “To rebuild trust, government and the DWP should issue an unreserved apology for this. It’s left a terrible enduring legacy for some carers, and in these cases I think government should consider compensation. Some debts built up over long periods, with carers not made aware of this by the DWP until years had passed.”
Yeandle, the former director of the Centre for Care at the University of Sheffield, said the government’s initial response to the Sayce review “looked promising”, but she had lost confidence in the department’s commitment following the Couling controversy and its refusal to fully accept several key recommendations.
One recommendation only partially accepted by the DWP was to issue clearer guidance on what expenses carers can be allowed under the rules.
Katy Styles, of We Care Campaign, said she believed Couling should resign and said it was difficult to have confidence in Schofield, the DWP’s permanent secretary.
“Systemic failings aren’t abstract policy problems,” she said. “They translate into stress and financial insecurity. It’s a constant battle to be believed by a department that holds immense power over people’s lives.”
The DWP’s response to the failings was crucial, she said, because for carers it was about “really being listened to and protected from further failure”.
She added: “Ministers need to ask whether a culture that has repeatedly minimised these concerns can change itself, or whether clear political leadership is required to impose the cultural and leadership change that the victims of this scandal so deserve.”
Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, told the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg programme earlier this month that Couling’s comments were “not the position” of the DWP and said the carer’s allowance issue was a”longstanding problem that was ignored by the previous government”.
A DWP spokesperson said: “We inherited a system that let carers down – but we’re taking decisive action to put things right and rebuild trust, accepting the vast majority of the Sayce’s review recommendations.
“We’re already making changes, hiring extra staff to stop carers building up large debts, updating internal guidance, and making sure letters clearly explain what changes carers need to report.
“And we will continue putting things right by reassessing affected cases, and potentially reducing, cancelling or refunding debts for tens of thousands of carers, as well as working to modernise the benefit so this doesn’t happen again.”
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