Carers were ‘dishonest’ when claiming DWP benefits – CPS

Ms Groom’s prosecution prompted widespread national media coverage last month and concerns were raised in Parliament, including by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey.

A former senior DWP carer’s allowance manager said prosecutions should be quashed “at the very least” in cases where officials failed to notice recipients were being wrongly paid the benefit over a number of years.

Alex Scahill, who managed DWP teams that administered Carer’s Allowance and Universal Credit until 2019, spoke to the BBC after seeing coverage of Ms Groom’s case because he said it was “heartless” and made him “upset and outraged”.

“These people are vulnerable. It’s affected their health, it’s affected their lives,” he said, adding “that’s not what the DWP is about”.

He said the DWP was “complicit in perpetuating” overpayments where it had not acted on automatic alerts warning when Carer’s Allowance recipients may no longer be eligible for the benefit.

As of February 2023, the DWP said it was seeking to recover 145,567 overpayments of carer’s allowance, including almost 12,000 cases concerning overpayments of between £5,001 and £20,000.

Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth Debbie Abrahams is a member of the Work and Pensions select committee which questioned senior officials about Carer’s Allowance overpayments last month.

She said “if (an overpayment is) over a period of time going back several years I personally think it should be written-off”.