Unpaid Carers

The sequence of (ongoing) investigations, case studies and analyses that make up the Guardian’s Carer’s Allowance Scandal campaign illuminate the dark heart of the UK’s creaking welfare state: how hundreds of thousands of vulnerable unpaid carers saw their lives turned upside down and ruined by a combination of bureaucratic incompetence, institutional cruelty and political negligence.

It brought to public attention how a group of individuals routinely praised by ministers as “unsung heroes”, who devoted their lives to caring for loved ones – frail and elderly parents, disabled children, partners with chronic ailments – had become unwittingly and unfairly trapped in a benefits web characterised by opaque rules, official indifference and draconian penalties.

The Guardian revealed how flaws in the design and operation of carer’s allowance, a little-known benefit worth £81.90 a week claimed by unpaid carers, meant claimants who incurred even minor breaches of benefit earnings rules were landed with huge debts and in some cases, criminal records. We documented the appalling human cost: carers overwhelmed by stress and financial hardship; how the benefit’s outdated rules caused key workers to give up part-time jobs in the NHS and schools.

The series revealed how chronic (and avoidable) administrative failures at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) exacerbated carers’ suffering, and how benefits officials effectively transferred the blame for carers allowance shortcomings onto the carers themselves. We highlighted how ministers reneged on past promises to fix carer’s allowance, and revealed how they had suppressed internal Whitehall research with devastating consequences for carers and their families.

We gave a voice to scores of carers across the UK, and witnessed first hand their struggles for justice in courts and tribunals. We interviewed officials who revealed the reasons behind the issue being ignored and uncovered data that highlighted the astonishing scale of the scandal: 134,000 unpaid carers – some of the UK’s poorest households – paying back £251m in carer’s allowance overpayment penalties.

The series triggered widespread public and cross-party political outrage, including from Conservatives like Iain Duncan Smith and the centre-right think tank, Centre for Social Justice. MPs on the commons work and pensions committee held an unofficial short inquiry, summoning ministers to account for the failures. Public spending watchdog the National Audit Office launched a mini- investigation. The Guardian’s reporting became a staple topic of daytime TV panel discussions, where it was routinely compared to the Post Office scandal. BBC Newsnight devoted an entire programme to the issue.

The Liberal Democrats made the carer’s allowance scandal a key plank of its manifesto. Labour promised to review the benefit. The TV presenter and personal finance expert Martin Lewis declared that fixing carer’s allowance should be a priority for the incoming government. DWP ministers have now promised to “quickly understand exactly what has gone wrong so we can set out our plan to put things right.” The Guardian’s campaign, which includes a short film and a podcast, continues.