A DWP civil servant Neil Couling has blamed victims for the carer's allowance crisis, leaving many with debts and sparking outrage over accountability.
Neil Couling, the director general of DWP services, stated that individual caregiver shortcomings were "at the heart" of the problem, which has been compared to the Post Office Horizon affair, in an internal blog post prepared for Whitehall colleagues.
Politicians and organizations have expressed outrage over the post, which was taken down after the Guardian asked questions about its content.
Last month, an independent investigation into the scandal concluded that poor benefit design and long-standing, "unacceptable" systemic DWP leadership issues were the main causes of the failure and could not be attributed to carers.
According to the report, several carers who violated the benefit's antiquated and complicated regulations felt so ashamed, distraught, and desperate that they considered suicide. Being ensnared in the system was compared to being "at the whim of a faceless machine."
Despite repeated warnings from whistleblowers, auditors, and MPs, senior DWP leaders had failed to grasp or address issues with the benefit for ten years, according to the review conducted by disability rights specialist Liz Sayce.
According to Couling's post, the DWP's "rather byzantine" guidelines on the averaging of carers' earnings were one of the primary reasons for overpayments. However, he contends that individual carers' failure to disclose changes in their income that violated benefit regulations ultimately led to these overpayments.
“Incidentally what has been missed in all the [media] coverage is that this error (and hands up we made it and we will put it right) affects only a relatively small number of cases and wasn’t the cause of the original complaint.
Because at the heart of the overpayment issues in CA [carer’s allowance] is a failure to report changes of circumstances,”
Couling wrote.
This contradicts the government's own stance, which acknowledges that the DWP's ambiguous reporting procedures and misleading guidelines were the primary reason for overpayments.
Kirsty McHugh, the chief executive of Carers Trust, said:
“This seems to be a really serious error of judgment. There has been an independent review which came up with some very clear findings. The DWP must now stand by this report and get on with returning money to carers.”
After an award-winning Guardian investigation exposed how unpaid carers had been wrongly slapped with harsh penalties of up to £20,000 after inadvertently running up overpayments of carer's allowance benefit, the government ordered the Sayce review.
In response to the review last month, the government declared that it will reevaluate certain overpayments made to caregivers during the previous ten years. It projects that 200,000 instances will be examined, of which 26,000 would probably result in debt reduction or cancellation.
"I am sorry for all of those who are affected by this, but I am going to sort it out,"
Sir Peter Schofield apologized to lawmakers last week for what ministers have described as a "mess" left over from the previous administration.
Schofield declined to apologize to MPs for failing to provide carer's allowances three times six years ago. Between 2019 and 2025, 180,000 carers roughly one in five of all claimants accrued debts of £300 million under his supervision, despite his subsequent pledge to address the overpayment issue. Of them, 854 were found guilty of fraud.
A DWP spokesperson said:
“We have been clear, and remain of the view, that we accept the vast majority of recommendations put forward in the Sayce review, including that confusing rules on averaging earnings left carers facing unexpected debts.
That’s why we are tackling this issue and have already put in place extra staff to prevent carers building up large debts, updated internal guidance, and ensure letters to unpaid carers clearly explain what changes need reporting.
And we will continue putting things right and rebuilding trust by reassessing affected cases, and potentially reducing, cancelling or refunding debts for tens of thousands of carers.”
What accountability measures exist for DWP senior officials?
DWP elderly officers, including Neil Couling as Universal Credit director-general, face responsibility through the Accounting Officer System, administrative select panels( e.g., Work and Pensions Committee scrutiny), National Audit Office( NAO) reviews, internal Departmental inspection and threat Assurance Committee( DARAC) oversight, and Permanent Secretary delegation letters defining spending/ responsibility boundaries.
Principal Account Officer (Permanent Secretary Sir Peter Schofield) holds particular liability for propriety, chronicity, and value- for- money, issuing delegation letters to directors- general like Couling, with DARAC furnishing non-executive assurance on pitfalls like Carer's Allowance crimes.
Officers testify before panels on policy failures( e.g., prepayments), face NAO value- for- plutocrat reports, and Public Accounts Committee sounds; governance statements in periodic reports detail controls.