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<p>Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim
and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their
award.</p><p> </p><p>Where overpayments do occur due to not being entitled to the
benefit, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to
ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling
with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable
repayment plans.</p><p> </p><p>Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance
overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents just 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s
Allowance expenditure.</p><p> </p><p>The information requested has been provided in
the table below. To avoid potentially disclosing personal information, we have bucketed
the values requested.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong> Highest Value Carer’s
Allowance Overpayment</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2021/22</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2022/23</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2023/24</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Total</strong></p></td><td><p>£60-70k</p></td><td><p>£30-40k</p></td><td><p>£40-50k</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><strong>
</strong></p><p>The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information,
which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended
for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied
to our published official statistics.</p><p> </p><p>Note that the values represent
the original overpayment amount when raised on Debt Manager. As the year relates to
when the overpayment was raised as a debt for recovery, it does not necessarily relate
to the period as to when benefit was overpaid. The overpayments above all span periods
of many years.</p><p> </p><p>Note that the data provided is for all categories of
overpayment. It is not necessarily the case that these overpayments arose due to claimants
breaching the earnings limit.</p>
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