We should care more about carers

Many people need help in life. Sadly, people are born with disabilities. Disabilities affect many people during life. Add to that the long-term ill and the frail. There are many people who need help with day-to-day living, personal care and mobility.

Step forward the unsung hero. The carer. Selfless and committed, they form an invaluable army who often give up their own life; friends, ambition, even romance. While many move on because of career, marriage or simply adventure, they stay put and do their best for others. And in the few spare hours they may have each week, they attempt to supplement their income.

Carers allowance is arguably low - £81.90 a week – in terms of its monetary value. But it’s worth a lot more to society given the value of the carers’ contribution. It’s a rather measly allowance if you consider the cost to the state if it had to provide professional home or institutional care for everyone who needs it.

That would be the case if there were no loving, unpaid carers.

It’s estimated they save the country around £160bn a year. And how do we repay them?

Carers describe being plunged into debt after unwittingly making mistakes with their claim. Worse still, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) chases them over “honest mistakes”. This results in some unpaid carers getting criminal records and being forced to sell their homes.

Some of these innocent errors are only a few pence per week, but they’re allowed to grow, week by week, for several years. People then face paying back sizeable sums and, if they can’t, they could lose their home.

It appears officials could have spotted these errors years earlier.

The DWP contacted a single parent of 62 (she cares for her daughter) in 2019 and informed her she’d breached the earnings limit and would need to pay back every penny. The alternative was prosecution through the courts. Analysis of her pay slips revealed she’d exceeded the earnings limit by about £3 per week. Some weeks by as little as 50p.

It’s alleged they disregarded an appeal for clemency and declined her offer to pay back the over-claimed amount - about £800 over three and a half years. Instead, DWP wanted her to pay back all the carer’s allowance over that period – which amounted to £11,292.75. In the end, they agreed she could pay back £60 per month until 2035.

It seems DWP should have spotted the error as far back as 2016 when the claim was first made. There are many similar stories.

The anger chorus grows louder.

And if this deplorable situation just carries on and on?

Shame on us all.