"Prof Liz Sayce, the chair of a scathing review into the government's treatment of unpaid carers, last week called for an overhaul of management and culture at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Days after the publication of the review, the DWP's top civil servant in charge of carers' allowance, Neil Couling, said carers themselves were at fault for the decade-long failures."
"Yeandle, who sat on the advisory panel for the government-commissioned Sayce review, said that while ministers initially claimed to have accepted the vast majority of the report's 40 recommendations, 13 had been only partially accepted and two were rejected. Sayce calls for swift action on longstanding issues, some of which the DWP should have resolved long ago, Yeandle said, adding that she was speaking in a personal capacity. She said: The official response and internal DWP memo published last weekend don't give me much confidence that senior officials will now address these with the urgency and commitment needed."
"Helen Walker, the chief executive of Carers UK, said: This is not a small number of people. Its scale and the devastation caused to so many families cannot be over-estimated, as was laid bare in Liz Sayce's report. Any suggestion that this is anything other than a systemic failure over a number of years is unacceptable."
A flawed carers' benefits system operated by the Department for Work and Pensions plunged hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers into debt. Senior officials are under pressure for misleading responses and for management and cultural failures within the department. A top civil servant blamed carers for decade-long failings, prompting advisers and charities to withdraw confidence in the department's pledge to fix problems. Charity leaders and experts describe the harm as systemic and devastating and note that several official recommendations were only partially accepted or rejected. Calls persist for swift, urgent action to address longstanding issues and restore confidence.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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