Carer’s Allowance overpayments /fraud -Guardian artical

Another trawling exercise?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/07/uk-carers-face-prosecutions-and-fines-due-to-overpaid-benefit

Appropriately represented it strikes me that not a lot of those overpayments are actually recoverable.

Written answer from Sarah Newton provides update on earnings data matching and carer’s allowance -

Real Time Earnings Bulk Data Matching was first introduced in 2014. This gives DWP the ability to retrospectively cross reference actual earnings and pensions information with benefit awards (including Carers Allowance) to identify potential discrepancies for further investigation.

In September 2018 DWP introduced the Verify Earnings and Pensions (VEP) system for use in Carers Allowance. The VEP service presents earnings and employment data to users, with an automated alerts service generating notifications of earnings or pensions related changes. This allows benefit awards to be updated far more quickly.

Work and Pensions committee are doing an online survey to hear form carers who have been overpaid carer’s allowance -

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/inquiry14/

The Committee also wants to hear directly from carers. If you, or someone you know, has been overpaid Carer’s Allowance please tell us about your experience by filling in our online survey.

The Work and Pensions Committee has published correspondence about the carer’s allownace recovery including a letter from Permanent Secretary Peter Schofield which says that there are 69,609 overpayments outstanding and that, in 2018, the largest overpayment was £48,560.30 -

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2017/overpayment-carers-letter-chairs-comment-17-19/

Add to that overpayments of carers premium because CA, or underlying entitlement, stopped but a CP continued in payment.

For example - underlying entitlement ended when the person being cared for died (of which DWP were notified) but ending of underlying entitlement was not notified to client who now has a £14K overpayment of PC carers addition.

Work and Pensions Committee has written to Sarah Newton for more info re carer’s allowance overpayments and also includes results from its survey - as an appendix to Frank Fields 30 November letter