Offsetting Justice

In 2004 I had my first encounter with DWP. I was a vulnerable 16-year-old with undiagnosed autism who had just been placed in temporary accommodation. I literally survived off nothing more than packets of jam and sugar whilst waiting for my benefit claim to be processed.

When my first payment, a back dated cheque for £226.03 never arrived I quired it only to be told it had apparently been cashed. Bearing in mind that it was a policy that any payment over £50 required ID to cash and could only be cashed at a nominated post office.

Absolutely dismayed, I went the police station and to the post office demanding to see the CCTV footage, but they wouldn’t show me. I found out sometime later that it was in-fact the manager of my temporary accommodation that was stealing people’s money, but I was never reimbursed; I was just left to suffer.

In 2009 my grandmother broke her hip, so instead of progressing from college to university along with my peers I became her full-time carer. My grandmother received Direct Payments coordinated by The Rowan Organization and employed me as her carer for 37 hours a week. Although I really worked 40 + hours, across 7 days a week and was on call 24/7.

My grandmother’s mobility was severely compromised after having her hip replaced, she also had other underlying medical conditions such as arthritis, osteoporosis, emphysema, COPD and bladder cancer.

In 2014, DWP attempted to prosecute me for fraud simply because my grandmother and I had claimed the wrong benefit. We’d claimed Carers Allowance instead of Attendants Allowance (Severe Disability Premium).

At the time there was less than £0.50p a week difference between these two benefits, yet DWP have ruthlessly sought to recover over £6,000 from me despite there being a regulation in their own Recovery Guide 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.

Instead of simply using their professional discretion to apply offsetting they decided to try to prosecute me for fraud. Yet, CPS ended up deciding to drop the case before going to trial. They needlessly put me through months of hell whilst my grandmother was literally dying.

In 2022, DWP wrote to me and said that they’ve written to my employer to apply a Direct Earnings Attachment , suddenly proposing to deduct 11% of my pay without prior consultation or means testing. Bearing in mind that I have four dependent children, they decided to implement this during a cost-of-living crisis even though the alleged debt is subject to an ongoing legal dispute that is itself statute barred.

Back in 2014, my former local MP Mark Williams supported me throughout my legal case, helping me to access services which enabled me to get my finalized autism diagnosis in 2015.

The diagnosis gave me the self-awareness I needed to thrive upon my return to education, where I graduated with a 2:1 before doing my masters. Although I had an unconditional offer to do my masters in Southbank with a residency at a prominent London theatre, I chose to stay in Wales after being awarded a scholarship.

I juggled 4 years of studying whilst working part-time and raising my young children. I even managed to make a short film adapted from a Stephen King story via a Dollar Baby contract before landing a comfortable graduate job which I’ve been doing for the past 3 years.

After my film was screened at an international film festival last year, I was lucky enough to get a 2^nd Dollar Baby contract from Stephen King and had been looking at going into production this summer before all this nonsense with the DWP started.

This whole mess makes me feel like I’m still that 16-year-old kid perpetually trapped in a hopeless situation. Fortunately, I’ve been able to enlist the support of my current local MP Ben Lake  Ironically, this may be one of only a few issues that’s ever-had cross party support between the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru.

Ben’s Office have written to the Secretary of State for DWP Thérèse Coffey  on my behalf but as of yet have not received a response. Meanwhile the Carers Allowance department kept me waiting from 20/05 to 23/06 for an “urgent” call back.

Their official position, which is yet to be formally confirmed in writing reminds me of the late great Ray Liotta’s dialogue in Goodfellas (1990) , describing what’s its like being under the thumb or rather bootheel of a merciless loan shark i.e., mitigating circumstances don’t matter, “f*ck you, pay me”.

Because it’s such a niche section of law and legal aid has been systemically cut to the point where hardly anyone is even eligible anymore it looks like I’ll have to represent myself at an appeal.

I’m just hoping that the court will at least hear my appeal considering new evidence has come to light in the form of the National Audit Office’s Investigation into Overpayments of Carers Allowance (2019) which affirms what I have been saying from the onset.

1.18 The current rate of severe disability premium is £65.85 a week, just 30p less than the rate for Carer’s Allowance.

1.19 Where the Department finds overpayments of Carer’s Allowance, it may need to pay arrears of other benefits, such as severe disability premium to the disabled person being cared for.

1.21 The Department does not record how often or how much is paid out for such arrears.

Although, I fear the reason the DWP doesn’t record how often or how much is paid out via offsetting is because they would rather trap people in a never-ending series of penny-pinching technicalities and unjust catch 22’s then exercise the tiniest sliver of empathy or compassion.

2.7 It is the carer’s responsibility to inform the Department about changes affecting their claim as soon as ‘reasonably practicable’. This term is not defined in legislation and the Department says it depends on the facts of the case.

2.9 Unlike many other benefits the Department administers, there is no taper rate for Carer’s Allowance; carers are entitled to either the whole allowance or none of it. Misunderstanding the rules around earnings and expenses can therefore easily lead to carers accidentally accruing overpayments.

I’m being financially punished for not informing of a change in circumstances (changing from one benefit to another) as soon as “reasonably practicable” A term that is itself not defined in legislation and therefore legally ambiguous at best and that ambiguity is magnified exponentially for someone with a legally defined communication disorder such as autism.

Not to mention the fact that whilst I was caring for my grandmother, I was still coming to terms with a traumatic childhood, being a care leaver, a homeless teen as well as losing two of my best friends to suicide. All whilst carrying the emotional weight of seeing my grandmother’s health deteriorate. Because I wasn’t in a fit state of mind to process some paperwork as soon as was “reasonably practicable” they’ve decided to continue to punish me and my children by proxy almost a decade later.   

2.12 Over the last five years, there has been a fall in the number of referrals for prosecution to the CPS, from 1,176 in 2014-15 to 483 in 2018-19

I am 1 of the 1,176 they tried and failed to prosecute in 2014-15. In the years that followed there has been a 58.92% reduction in cases being referred for prosecution. Of those cases, how many had “offsetting” applied? Unfortunately, we’ll never know because the department conveniently doesn’t record how often or how much it pays out.

I’m tired, tired of quietly fighting this seemingly never-ending battle against nothing but mindless bureaucracy. I’m sure the DWP would like nothing more than to continue quietly screwing people like me over but I’ve taken more than enough crap off them over the years and I’m tired of it.

I know sharing this probably won’t make a blind bit of difference but as my grandmother used to say, “it’s best to tell the truth and shame the devil”. At least I’ve got my belated graduation ceremony to look forward to. It had been postponed for two years due to Covid. Hopefully it will be the morale boost I need to keep me in this fight till the bitter end.