‘DWP demand to repay my carer allowance dehumanised me’

Under the system, people who care for someone for more than 35 hours a week are entitled to a weekly £81.90 allowance.

But there’s a limit on how much they can earn from working a paid job at the same time, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wants to recover money from about 100,000 carers who it says have been overpaid.

Last month, however, the DWP launched an independent review after families claimed repayments had pushed them into hardship.

From April, working carers will be able to earn £196 per week and still claim allowance – an increase of about £45 per week on the previous earnings threshold.

Mr O’Connor’s experience, though, began in 2019. That’s when he became carer for his mother Rita, who died in 2023.

During the period, in the year before her death, he informed a job centre of his intention to return to paid employment, going on to find a job in care in addition to the separate duties he carried out for his mother. He said he reminded the job centre he was his mother’s carer for which he had already secured an allowance.