Post by northwestman on Apr 10, 2024 18:36:08 GMT 1
www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/10/fined-6000-for-tiny-mistake-carer-penalised-for-extra-shift-at-supermarket
This is almost unbelievable!
Carer fined £6,000 for tiny mistake: carer penalised for extra shift at supermarket.
Helen Grater claimed carer’s allowance while looking after seriously ill partner – and unknowingly exceeded earnings threshold
Grater had exceeded the then-earnings limit of £120 a week by only a small amount with her low-paid part-time job, but it had pushed her over the DWP’s “cliff edge”.
Unpaid carers are forced to pay back the entirety of their carer’s allowance for every week they were in breach of the strict earnings limit, even if they exceeded it by £1. So a 26-week breach results in a repayment of not £26, but £2,182.
In Grater’s case, even though one additional shift a week would have taken her only marginally over the £120-a-week earnings limit, she had to pay back almost two years’ worth of carer’s allowance.
The government is facing calls to overhaul the system after the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers are facing severe fines, some over £20,000, and being threatened with criminal prosecution for relatively modest and unintentional breaches of rules branded “cruel and nonsensical”.
This is almost unbelievable!
Carer fined £6,000 for tiny mistake: carer penalised for extra shift at supermarket.
Helen Grater claimed carer’s allowance while looking after seriously ill partner – and unknowingly exceeded earnings threshold
Grater had exceeded the then-earnings limit of £120 a week by only a small amount with her low-paid part-time job, but it had pushed her over the DWP’s “cliff edge”.
Unpaid carers are forced to pay back the entirety of their carer’s allowance for every week they were in breach of the strict earnings limit, even if they exceeded it by £1. So a 26-week breach results in a repayment of not £26, but £2,182.
In Grater’s case, even though one additional shift a week would have taken her only marginally over the £120-a-week earnings limit, she had to pay back almost two years’ worth of carer’s allowance.
The government is facing calls to overhaul the system after the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid carers are facing severe fines, some over £20,000, and being threatened with criminal prosecution for relatively modest and unintentional breaches of rules branded “cruel and nonsensical”.
