Background
The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) pays £81.90 a week in Carer’s Allowance to people who earn less than £151 and provide at least 35 hours of care a week to someone who receives a qualifying disability benefit. In 2023-24, DWP paid £3.7 billion in Carer’s Allowance to around 1 million carers.
DWP sometimes overpays or underpays Carer’s Allowance, so the claimant receives more or less than they are entitled to. This can be due to claimant fraud or error, or error by DWP.
In May 2024, the then Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee wrote to the C&AG to ask if we could set out the latest information on Carer’s Allowance, the Verified Earnings and Pensions alerts service, and overpayment levels. In his reply, the CA&G agreed that, given the continuing concerns about the administration of this benefit, there would be value in us undertaking some further work on this area.
We previously reported on Carer’s Allowance in our 2019 report Investigation into overpayments of Carer’s Allowance.
Scope
This work will cover:
- an overview of Carer’s Allowance, including how it works, caseload and expenditure
- Carer’s Allowance overpayments, including amounts and data on how DWP seeks to prevent and identify overpayments
- DWP’s handling of Carer’s Allowance overpayments, including data on debt, penalties and prosecutions
NAO Team
Director: Laura Brackwell
Senior Audit Manager: Mark Parrett