5000%

Today, DWP have taken 11% of my pay without consultation or means testing. If I include my other deductions, Tax, National Insurance, Pension and Student Loan I’ve just lost 31% of my pay, 38.84% if including Council Tax. Then pretty much 20% on all purchases in the form of VAT, meanwhile the cost-of-living crisis continues to spiral out of control.

To recap, DWP are taking £6,376 from me for an alleged overpayment of Carers Allowance between 2009-2014 despite there being a regulation known as offsetting which allows a deduction from any recoverable overpayment calculated equal to any amount of additional income related benefit, which would have been paid had the correct facts been known.

An extremely complicated case with lots of mitigating circumstances boils down to a very simple point. My grandmother and I should have claimed Attendants Allowance (Severe Disability Premium) instead of Carers Allowance. At the time the difference between these two benefits was less than £0.50p per week.

To put that in context without knowing the exact dates the claim for Carers Allowance was active I can estimate the impact offsetting would have had on my case £0.48 x 52 = £24.96 x 5 = £124.80

Simply because DWP refuse to acknowledge the impact of my autism and underlying mental health condition at the time I was caring for my grandmother they have been unwilling to even consider applying offsetting. This has led to an over 5000% increase to any overpayment had offsetting been applied.

To put that into perspective, with just the 11% of my pay they’ve deducted this month, I have repaid the £124.80 had offsetting been applied, plus an additional 40.94% on top.

I had to wait from 20/05 to 23/06 for an “urgent” call back. In that time, I was provided with only conflicting or misleading information at almost every turn.

First, I was told that someone attempted to call on 30/05 but I have no call log to show any attempt was made. Assuming an attempt was actually made it’s highly probable that they’d dialled the wrong number… even through my correct details were provided at the point of request.

Then I was told that a request for a call back was escalated on 13/06 and that I’d receive a call back within 72 hours.

After that 72-hour window elapsed I called again and was told that a call back was requested on 15/06 and the latest I could expect a call back would be 20/06, but surprise, surprise that call never came either.

Instead of getting a call back from Carer’s Allowance, I was called by someone from Debt Management’s Complaints Department at 6pm on 20/06. I was told that they had just got my letter and had only glanced at it before contacting me out of courtesy.

They told me that they had to investigate by chasing up other departments i.e., Carers Allowance, which would take about a week. I attempted to reiterate that recovery should be suspended during this investigation, but they said that they didn’t have enough knowledge of the case or the authority to action the request without authorisation from Carer’s Allowance.

Another week’s delay in processing my request to have the recovery suspended meant that there was already not enough time for Debt Management to contact my employer to have any recovery action suspended before my next payday.

Considering the underlaying facts of my case i.e., in terms of offsetting, any enforced financial recovery absent a court order is tantamount to state sponsored theft and because of my autism, a clear case of discrimination arising from a disability. But DWP are seemingly beyond any and all reproach.

I eventually did get a call from Carers Allowance on 23/06. They didn’t even apologise for keeping me waiting a month for a supposedly “urgent” call back. In-fact they patronizingly told me to “calm down”, as if I am capable to calm my autism down when I’ve been left in period of prolonged destress waiting for their call.

According to Carers Allowance my appeal was apparently rejected in 2015 because of time limits. I’ve searched HM Courts & Tribunals and there is no case with my name on public record, meaning that as far as I can tell my case has never had an external review because I’ve been barred from the appeals processes from the onset.

However, I filed another appeal last week, in hopes of raising it to a higher court or to at least seek a judicial review as new evidence has come to light in the form of the National Audit Office’s Investigation in Overpayments of Carers Allowance which affirms what I’ve been consistently saying for almost a decade.

I was meant to get a reply from DWP within 3 working days. It’s surprisingly unsurprising that they haven’t responded in now the 4^th day since the application was submitted.

Additionally on 25/05 a request was forwarded to the Right of Access Officer to have copies of all information relating to this case released to me. Under GDPR they are expected to respond within 1 calendar month from receiving a request. It’s now 30/06 and the Right of Access Officer has still not responded.

The National Audit Office’s Investigation into Carers Allowance Overpayments states that “Staff shortages since at least 2014 mean the Department could not process all the matches that its systems flagged for investigation” and “Around two-thirds of carers with debts for earnings-related overpayments over £2,500 would have had their overpayments stopped earlier if the Department had put in place sufficient staff”.

Given the example of poor service I’ve received, i.e., waiting for over a month for an “urgent” call back etc. it suggests that departmental staffing levels have not improved since the investigation in 2019. Meaning that vulnerable people like myself are continuing to be placed at risk because of their insufficient staffing.

I decided that I wasn’t going to speak with Debt Management over the phone again. I nominated my partner to speak on my behalf. What’s happened now is that DWP have entered into a payment arrangement with a third party without my consent.

My partner had my consent to speak on my behalf, not to enter into any financial arrangement. So, now they are set to take £10 a month, bearing in mind I’ve spent more on postage sending them letters via recorded delivery.

I’m left with two choices, write to DWP again at further expense to myself to cancel the payment arrangement that was set up without my approval and resume having 11% of my pay deducted or continue with the payment arrangement for the next 51 years at which point I’ll be 85 years old.