DWP orders 34,500 people to pay back benefits with fines of up to £20,000

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is coming under increasing pressure to launch a review of the way it handles Carer's Allowance, after it emerged that thousands of people who care for others are regularly being overpaid - and then months or years later receiving demands for repayment.

Today, a UK government dementia adviser resigned over the DWP's "beyond the pale" prosecutions of carers who had unwittingly gone above the £151 per week threshold for the benefit.

Many of these carers are unpaid and rely on Carer's Allowance simply to get by, but have found themselves being chased for thousands of pounds.

Despite the DWP having a back-end system to check payments against earnings, new figures have now revealed that there are an estimated 34,500 people who overpaid the benefit last year - up from 30,700 the year before - with more than 1,000 of them asked to pay back sums of between £5,000 and £20,000, according to the Guardian. READ MORE: HMRC issues inheritance tax update as calls made to make system 'fairer' Any carer who earns even one penny over the £151 per week limit is expected to pay back their Carer's Allowance payments for that week, but many claimants have said the rules are unclear.