Head of carer's allowance inquiry blames DWP resistance' for failure to fix crisis

"Liz Sayce, whose review of carer's allowance was published in November, said rather than owning the problems, some at the DWP had tried to minimise the extent of the department's failures and sought to deflect blame for the disaster. An award-winning Guardian investigation last year revealed how the DWP failures led to hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers unwittingly running up huge debts after becoming trapped by an opaque, poorly administered and punitive system."

"Sayce's review of carer's allowance overpayments in November found the blame lay with systemic issues at the DWP and emphasised carers should not be blamed for falling foul of what it said were complex and confusing benefit rules. She told MPs on the work and pensions select committee on Wednesday that she had been surprised by how for years the DWP had repeatedly ignored the problems, despite serious shortcomings with the benefit being identified by an internal whistleblower."

"Asked by the committee chair, Debbie Abrahams, whether there had been a change in attitude and behaviour at the DWP, Sayce said while she had come across people in the department who wanted to learn and change, she had also come across what she called forces of resistance. She had been distressed by Guardian reports of an internal DWP blogpost, written by a DWP director general, Neil Couling, just days after her report was published."

An official inquiry into carer's allowance, led by Liz Sayce, revealed systemic failures at the Department for Work and Pensions that caused hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers to accumulate substantial debts through an opaque and poorly administered benefit system. Many carers experienced serious health deterioration, and hundreds faced benefit fraud convictions despite being victims of complex, confusing rules. Sayce criticized internal resistance within the DWP that minimized departmental failures and deflected blame rather than addressing longstanding problems. Despite years of identified shortcomings flagged by internal whistleblowers, the department repeatedly ignored issues. While some DWP staff sought genuine change, Sayce encountered significant institutional resistance that contradicted both her review's conclusions and government policy.

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