Carer’s allowance report a vivid insight into failings of an unfit system

In 2019 they had undoubtedly been chastened by criticism from MPs and auditors that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) did not understand how a relatively little known benefit was causing oceans of misery and hardship for carers.

But they had also promised MPs everything was under control, that the widespread problems the work and pensions select committee had uncovered would be solved and carer’s allowance overpayments would soon be pretty much a thing of the past.

It prefigures, through the lived experience of carers, many of the design and operational problems with the allowance that have emerged though a recent series of Guardian articles, to widespread shock and outrage.

When things did go wrong – for example, when officials suddenly informed them they had breached earnings rules and must now repay huge sums – it left carers in shock.

Interviewees highlighted the “cold” and “dismissive” treatment of them by DWP officials – “as though they had intentionally committed fraud” – when the carers believed the overpayments had arisen through genuine mistakes.

Though largely couched in the bland Whitehall-ese of official research reports, it acts as a vivid marker not just of how unfit for purpose the system was in 2020, but how little ministers appear to have done to change things in the meantime.