Offsetting Carer’s Allowance overpayment

I seem to be having a mental block (these happen fairly regularly these days). Customer was overpaid Carer’s Allowance from 3/3/08 - 10/1/10 (overlapped with Retirement Pension). Full amount of CA is being recovered. Customer and her husband were getting Pension Credit and Council Tax Benefit for the whole of this period. Both her her CA and her RP were taken into account, leaving a quite small entitlement to PC. Can the underpayment of PC and CTB that resulted from the double counting of her RP and CA (albeit she was receiving both incomes at the time) be offset against the CA overpayment? I’m sure the answer should be straightforward but my brain seems to be in bank holiday mode already.

Thank you.

The Decision Maker should have applied Regulation 13 of the Social Security (Payments on Account and Overpayments) Regulations 1988. The overpayment of Carers Allowance should then be reduced by the amount equivalent to the Pension Credit that would have been payable if the Carers Allowance had not been paid. I would imagine that this would result in the amount of the overpayment being reduced to nothing.