A weak unpaid carer threatened by advantages officers with prosecution for fraud until she agreed to pay a £1,300 penalty for an unintentional breach of carer’s allowance earnings guidelines has described her expertise as “like blackmail”.
Clemency Jacques, a carer for her disabled son, was instructed by Division for Work and Pensions (DWP) investigators her case can be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) until she paid a 50% cost on prime of an current settlement to repay £2,600 in carer’s allowance overpayments – a complete of £3,900.
Jacques, 43, a former NHS psychologist who cares for her severely disabled son and frail aged mom, stated she was threatened with prosecution though the DWP accepted she had made an “unintentional error”.
Her remedy was condemned as a “disgrace” and “inhumane” by politicians and campaigners amid rising concern over the DWP’s coverage of prosecuting – or threatening with prosecution – carers who unwittingly breach carer’s allowance profit earnings guidelines by comparatively minor quantities.
“Agreeing to the administrative penalty feels more like blackmail than an actual choice. It’s like: ‘Say how naughty you have been and pay us a large chunk of money or we will send you to court and punish you for being a stressed-out carer,’” Jacques stated.
The Liberal Democrat chief, Ed Davey, who’s a carer for his disabled teenage son, stated: “The fact the government is forcing carers to chose between an expensive fine or a criminal record, just for making an innocent mistake, is a disgrace.
“This is all part of the legacy left to Labour by the Conservative party, who failed carers again and again and treated them like criminals.”
The DWP stated it was reviewing Jacques’s case “as a matter of urgency”.
The federal government final month promised a wider overview of carer’s allowance following a Guardian investigation that exposed that tens of 1000’s of unpaid carers have been repaying greater than £250m in overpayments that in lots of instances had been allowed to build up due to years of DWP administrative failures.
Carer’s allowance, value £81.90 every week, is claimed by just below 1,000,000 unpaid carers within the UK who take care of disabled, frail and in poor health family members for at the least 35 hours every week. Most are ladies and a excessive proportion are in poverty.
Jacques’s case was taken up earlier this yr by her then MP, Caroline Lucas, who requested the DWP to overview its choice. Lucas described Jacques’s remedy by officers as “disproportionate and inhumane” and argued that they had didn’t bear in mind “the exceptional and extenuating circumstances” of her scenario.
Jacques, a single mom, stated on the time of the overpayments she was overwhelmed by taking care of her severely disabled toddler son, Alex, who had been born prematurely and wanted fixed care, whereas additionally caring for her mom who had Alzheimer’s. Jacques herself had post-traumatic stress associated to beginning issues and was trying to maneuver again into work after maternity depart.
Responding to Lucas in Might, the DWP complaints workforce stood by its choice, saying it had adopted the proper processes and brought “reasonable, necessary and proportionate” actions. It stated it was not its intention “to cause claimants any undue distress” however had a “responsibility to protect public funds and preserve public trust”.
Jacques instructed the Guardian she had been “petrified” by the DWP’s remedy of her for what she stated was an unwitting oversight made throughout a interval when she was beneath excessive stress. “What is most frustrating is that I didn’t claim fraudulently. I was most definitely a carer twice over. I didn’t fake or overstate my situation,” she stated.
Underneath carer’s allowance earnings guidelines, claimants should pay again the whole £81.90 every week profit in the event that they earn greater than the £151 every week earnings restrict, even by a penny. These have been criticised as “perverse”, plunging carers into monetary hardship and in poor health well being after they unwittingly ran up enormous overpayments.
In Jacques’s case, the DWP would have been alerted instantly by HMRC that she had returned to paid work and was incomes above the restrict, however it didn’t act, permitting her overpayments to construct to a dimension the place prosecution for fraud grew to become a risk.
The Guardian can reveal the DWP has levied greater than £5m in extra fines on 1000’s of carers up to now 4 years regarding earnings rule breaches, on prime of clawing again at the least £250m in carer’s allowance overpayments.
These comprise £420,000 from administrative penalties such because the one paid by Jacques – 225 claimants have paid these since 2020 to forestall their case from being handed to the CPS – and £4.8m in additional routine civil penalties of £50, levied on at the least 98,000 carers deemed to have breached earnings guidelines over the identical four-year interval.
Dominic Carter, the director of coverage at Carers Belief, stated: “Sadly, we have heard of plenty of examples like this. It’s frustrating that so many carers continue to fall foul of a system not fit for the present day. Carers shouldn’t be made to feel like criminals, they should be recognised for the contribution they make to society and to the taxpayer.”
Katy Types, the founding father of We Care Marketing campaign, a grassroots community for unpaid carers, stated: “Threatening to criminalise unpaid carers over genuine and understandable errors related to carer’s allowance earnings rules is a disproportionate response, and it’s shocking that we continue to hear these stories. Where is the compassion?”
Official information reveals that 119 carer’s allowance instances have gone to courtroom within the final two years after being referred to the CPS by the DWP. A trawl by means of native newspaper stories and courtroom information suggests scores of unpaid carers have felony information after being prosecuted for inadvertent earnings-related breaches.
