Any thoughts on this one?

Husband and wife, both on long term IB. Overpayments from 2005 to 2007 on the grounds that they were working - caring for an elderly friend and providing caring duties. They deny they were paid for this, DWP has some ( slight ) evidence that they may have been. As you know it doesn't matter really whether they were paid or not for it to count as work.

There are lots of ins and outs to this one, but one angle is;

Caring for a relative is excluded as work under Reg 16 Incap Regs, but not caring for a friend. However, how can people on IB still get an underlying entitlement to CA without that being treated as work, as they can still get underlying entitlment for caring for a friend?

Any ideas gratefully appreciated!

could this not be considered as voluntary work and thus exempt?

Thanks for that - its a good point as caring for a friend ( as opposed to a relative which is not work under Reg 16 ) could be classed as this under Reg17.

What about my point that, if caring is "work", anyone on IB with an underlying entitlment to CA would lose their IB - whether or not they were being paid?