The man wrongly received benefits that cost the taxpayer less than £110
A dad was left without a home and contemplating suicide after being hit with a 'vindictive' fine from the Department for Work and Pensions for being paid too much Carer's Allowance, which ultimately forced him to sell his house or face imprisonment.
The letter acknowledged: "The appeal conceded that you were a convincing and credible witness it was more probable than not that you were telling the truth and that the false declaration was an innocent mistake." Mr Henderson began repaying the money in instalments before the DWP utilised the Proceeds of Crime Act - typically employed to reclaim money from major criminals and drug dealers - to confiscate his property and repay £20,900 of overpaid carer's allowance plus fines.
"My brother-in-law died a few years ago. I had a photo of him that I was looking at, as tears ran down my face, and I was asking him if it would hurt. My girlfriend rang the Crisis team and I was under them for four months. They wouldn't let me live alone. I lost four stone as I couldn't eat, I look at photos from that time and you can see my ribcage."
He added: "I'm withdrawn now, I don't see my family as often as I should. My family had a surprise 60th birthday for me but I couldn't go. I can't be in company. It's awful." If earnings exceed this limit by even a penny, the entire benefit payment is forfeited and the Department for Work and Pensions seeks to recover the full amount as an 'overpayment'. In August 2010, Mr Henderson began claiming carer's allowance instead of allowing his son to receive a disability benefit directly, in order to prevent exploitation by drug dealers.
In 2019, the Department for Work and Pension 's "administrative failures" were blasted by MPs, noting these led to significant overpayment of the Carer's Allowance. A scathing review highlighted that the DWP doesn't assess the impact repayments have on the lives of carers or those they look after. Yet, due to system issues and staff shortages, there were significant backlogs in the verification process, resulting in numerous carers accruing debt. Ministers at the time suggested that new data-matching technology would address this issue, but in the fiscal year 2022-23, a total of 26,739 carers had to repay funds owing to earnings violations.
Last month, during a Commons hearing on the subject, the Professor asserted that repayment demands should be forgiven if the carer is found not at fault. She expressed: "If you were going to defraud the system, you would not start with carer's allowance. It would not be a very clever move. It happens to people by accident and then they are finding themselves in an almost Kafkaesque mess that they cannot get out of.
"We need the systems within the Department for Work and Pensions to understand and tackle some of the challenges carers face in claiming benefits much better. We want to see the Department's research, which they commissioned several years ago and, despite repeated requests, has not been published."
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