Rose Jones, a 22-year-old carer who has been taking care of her disabled mother since she was eight years old, was forced to repay over £2,000 when she unwittingly violated carer’s allowance benefit earnings rules after joining a government youth employment scheme.
Rose Jones was twice wrongly advised by her jobcentre work coach that her wages earned under the Kickstart scheme would not affect her eligibility for carer’s allowance.
Less than a year after she completed the six-month scheme, under which the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) paid her wages, she received a demand from the DWP for her to repay £2,145 of overpaid benefits.
The demand, which came on her 20th birthday, left Jones feeling shocked and unsure of what to do, since her work coach had assured her there would be no issue with her carer’s allowance.
This is the latest case in a series of carer’s allowance injustices highlighted by a year-long Guardian investigation.
Close to 144,000 UK carers are repaying over £250m in earnings-related carer’s allowance overpayments due to what MPs have called “human mistakes” on the part of carers and repeated DWP administrative and policy failures. Thousands of carers have been prosecuted, resulting in millions of pounds of public money being wasted.
Following public outrage, the government committed to reforming aspects of carer’s allowance last year and commissioned an independent review of carer’s allowance overpayments which is expected to report to ministers in July.
Jones cared for her mother, who has physical and mental disabilities, throughout her teenage years. Being a carer affected her childhood and education, and she found it difficult to focus in school and spend time away from her mother.
When Jones accepted a place on the DWP’s Kickstart scheme in 2021, her job coach assured her that her carer’s allowance would not be affected. Jones was working as a digital marketing assistant and earning just under the weekly earnings limit for carer’s allowance.
Under the “cliff edge” rule of carer’s allowance, if a carer unwittingly earns more than the weekly limit, they forfeit their allowance. In Jones’s case, she had to repay over £2,000 for unknowingly going just £1 over the limit for six months.
Jones felt her experiences as a carer were disregarded by the DWP, and she expressed frustration with the lack of communication and coordination between different branches of the DWP.
Emily Holzhausen, the director of policy at Carers UK, commented on the situation as a devastating example of the DWP failing to support carers who have had challenging lives and rely on the DWP to get the rules right.
A DWP spokesperson stated that the department understands the importance of carers and their struggles, and while the carer’s allowance overpayment rate is at its lowest level on record, the DWP is working to prevent carers from falling into debt and has launched an independent review to explore ways to address earnings-related overpayments.
